An Illustrated Lecture by Seth Gopin
Date: Saturday, November 15th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $8 ( Tickets Here )
Location: Morbid Anatomy Museum, 424 Third Avenue, 11215 Brooklyn
Although Paris is the renowned city of love and romance, it is also the place where the modern traditions of death and burial were established. Dr. Gopin’s lecture traces Parisian funerary traditions, from medieval communal burial in church graveyards to the emergence of the world’s first cemetery, Père Lachaise, in 1804.
From the Middle Ages onward, the dead lay among the living in Paris. Over time, Parisian graveyards, like all urban burial places, ran out of room. As more graveyard space was needed for the city’s growing population, the church was faced with a quandary. Needless to say, rotting corpses in the middle of town was not a healthy situation.
By the late 18th century, there was a new sensibility for urban hygiene. The creation of Père Lachaise Cemetery marks the culmination of a struggle to reform burial practices and, at the same time, create urban parks. This radical idea of a cemetery became the basis of the modern solution to caring for the dead in the West.
Dr. Seth Gopin is a man of a many interests and talents. During his 30 years at Rutgers University, he was a gifted lecturer in Art History and a popular dean of academic affairs. He also served as the Director of Global Studies, which made him Rutgers’ ambassador to the world. The French prime minister knighted him for his groundbreaking work in popularizing the history of the city of Paris to Americans.
After his retirement in 2007, he worked for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-Exile as editor of their North American Newsletter. As a background actor, he has been in many movies and TV shows. Among his credits is the hit movie, Eat Pray Love, and popular TV shows such as Gossip Girls and Law and Order.
In recent years he has renewed his interest in architecture and urban planning. He loves the intersection of art, history, and culture, as is evident in the many lectures he has given aboard Cunard ships and in his most recent book, Skyscrapers of New York.