Human Remains in University Collections - Comparison and Entanglements

Universities at the Upper Rhine have been involved in the collection of Human Remains since the 19th century. While origins, scope and historical trajectories vary, they all face similar challenges in reassessing and refiguring these ethically and otherwise sensitive collections. Collections in Basel, Freiburg and Strasbourg reflect global (and thus also colonial) trajectories of origins and knowledge production. Building on ample prior work and focusing both on comparison and entanglement of collections between primarily these three, but also other sites, the project will focus

a) on the production of an edited volume representing multiple disciplinary approaches and diverse perspectives – with one face-to-face and one virtual authors’ workshop (to be held in Freiburg) to prepare the manuscript

b) a second workshop in Strasbourg to open discussion with students and researchers and garner feedback on preliminary findings, and

c) the drafting of a bigger grant application to be prepared in Basel and submitted to a relevant funding body by the fourth quarter of 2026.

This project has received seed money from the EUCOR Research, Innovation and Transfer funds.