Life, Death & Law


← Back to Projects

Law and the Dead

Drawing from 1845 of La Morgue, Paris. People in large hall look through a window at four bodies

The government of the dead in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave rise to a new arrangement of thanato-politics in the West. Legal, medical and bureaucratic institutions developed innovative technologies for managing the dead, maximising their efficacy and exploiting their vitality. This project explores a history of the institutional life of the dead in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

With a particular focus on the technologies of the death investigation process, including place-making, the forensic gaze, bureaucratic manuals, record-keeping and radiography, the project examines how the dead came to be incorporated into legal institutions in the modern era. Drawing on the writings of philosophers, historians and legal theorists, the project offers conceptual tools for thinking through how the dead dwell in law, how their lives persist through the conduct of office, and how coroners assume responsibilities for taking care of the dead.

This project challenges conventional thinking about the sequestration of the dead in the West and asks us to think through and with legal institutions when writing a history of the dead. By conceptualising law as a network of institutions, relations and technologies, it shows how coroners assumed responsibility for taking care of the dead in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which is meaningful for tracing how they take care of the dead today.

Outcomes of the project include the publication of Law and the Dead: Technology, Relations and Institutions (Routledge, 2019), which was awarded the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand Book Prize in 2019, and shortlisted for the Australian Legal Research Awards Book Category in 2020.


Publications

Media

British Library digitised image from page 44 of "Poets' Wit and Humour. Selected by W. H. W. Illustrated, etc"

'Undisciplinary' podcast

Marc Trabsky, Courtney Hempton and Chris Mayes


Marc Trabsky discusses his research for 'Undisciplinary' podcast.

Media

Screenshot from 'Connected' webinar episode with Marc Trabsky

'Connected' webinar series

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky discusses his research for La Trobe University's 'Connected' webinar series.

Book

Front cover of 'Law and the Dead' by Marc Trabsky

Law and the Dead: Technology, Relations and Institutions

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky, Law and the Dead: Technology, Relations and Institutions (Routledge, 2019).

Chapter

Front cover of 'Spaces of Justice: Peripheries, Passages, Appropriations'

Walking with the Dead: Coronial Law and Spatial Justice in the Necropolis

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky, ‘Walking with the Dead: Coronial Law and Spatial Justice in the Necropolis’ in Chris Butler and Ed Mussawir (eds), Spaces of Justice: Peripheries, Passages, Appropriations (Routledge, 2017) pp 94-109.

Article

Law textbook annotated

The Coronial Manual and the Bureaucratic Logic of the Coroner’s Office

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky, ‘The Coronial Manual and the Bureaucratic Logic of the Coroner’s Office’ (2016) 12(2) International Journal of Law in Context 195-209.

Article

Stone statue of person sitting holding their knees

Negotiating Grief and Trauma in the Coronial Jurisdiction

Marc Trabsky and Paula Baron


Marc Trabsky and Paula Baron, ‘Negotiating Grief and Trauma in the Coronial Jurisdiction’ (2016) 23(3) Journal of Law and Medicine 582-594.

Article

The Custodian of Memories

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky, ‘The Custodian of Memories: Coronial Architecture in Nineteenth-Century Melbourne’ (2015) 24(2) Griffith Law Review 199-220.

Article

a couple of pigs that are laying down

Institutionalising the Public Abattoir

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky, ‘Institutionalising the Public Abattoir in Nineteenth Century Colonial Melbourne’ (2014) 40(2) Australian Feminist Law Journal 169-184.

Chapter

white and yellow moth on black surface

Law in the Marketplace

Marc Trabsky


Marc Trabsky, ‘Law in the Marketplace’ in Yoriko Otomo and Edward Mussawir (ed), Law and the Question of the Animal: A Critical Jurisprudence (Routledge, 2013) pp 133-148.