EXHUMING

Individual and collective lives, real data, and explanatory and narrative arrangements all help to compare those respective forms of investigation called sociological study and fiction, in particular when they are informed by a similar desire for formation and understanding of what remains, of what is discovered and released in and with language.

Arnaud Esquerre is a sociologist. He is head of research at the CNRS, attached to the Laboratory of ethnology and comparative sociology. His work focuses on several themes: the definition of “sectarian” groups, the prediction of the end of the world, and astrological practices. In addition, Arnaud Esquerre has worked on the relation to dead bodies, with a special interest in cremation processes in Europe, the fate of human remains in museums, and medical and legal autopsy processes. He is also involved in work with Luc Boltanski on the economic evaluation of the past in the post-capitalist context through patrimonialization and intellectual property.

Olivia Rosenthal is a novelist, playwright and performer. Her literary work questions the place of individuals battling, in particular, with their communities, and the inventiveness of the practical and fictional solutions they propose. Olivia Rosenthal is also a lecturer at Paris 8 University, where she teaches literature. She is the author of Donner à voir: écriture de l’image dans l’art de la poésie au XVIème siècle, Champion, 1998. In 2013, at Paris 8, she co-founded a Master’s course in literary creation.