Dead bodies are capital. In particular between the 16th and early 19th centuries corpses were not only a valuable but also a fiercely contested material resource. Vergers and parishes, doctors and naturalists, and even businesses and corporations were stalwart in their missions to profit from human cadavers. In doing so, they often broke competing religious and social rules such as the fundamental principle of respecting the dead and their corporeal integrity. Moreover, the dead were also an integral part of early modern concepts of community and honour.

Despite its obvious significance, however, to date the economics of the corpse in its basic sense has not been recognised by either cultural or economic history. Thus, the conference seeks to bring together scholars from different fields such as economic history, business ethics, art history, social history, cultural history, history of law, history of medicine, historical anthropology, material culture studies, archaeology, and museology to establish a dialogue that profits from different research traditions and perspectives.