Anatomy as embodied resistance in an age of digital abstraction

Abstract

Amid the accelerating integration of digital technologies in the health professional education, anatomy education with an emphasis on engagement with real human bodies can provide a crucial counterweight to digital abstraction. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and algorithm‐driven medicine may lead to the intrinsic value of embodied human experience being overlooked. Hands‐on anatomy education—through practices such as dissection and direct engagement with human remains—can reaffirm the reality of the human body and nurture the empathy and ethical reflection essential for an empathy‐grounded practice in the health professions. By engaging directly with the body, learners experience a tactile encounter that transcends what digital simulations and abstract data can offer. Grounded in phenomenology and the concept of the “lived body,” this approach challenges the notion that our physical existence can be entirely captured by computational models. Instead, it emphasizes that the sensory, emotional, and ethical dimensions of human existence are crucial for both medical understanding and compassionate practice. Throughout history, anatomical inquiry has long served as a site for confronting mortality, identity, spiritual inquiry, and social inequities. The concept of the anatomical gaze onto the human body illustrates how historical practices of dissection and anatomical illustration reveal the power dynamics and ethical challenges inherent in observing and interpreting the human body. In an age where online interactions increasingly shape human connection, the tactile lessons of anatomy provide a vital safeguard against the erosion of empathy and the dehumanization of patient care. Thus, anatomy education is both an ethical and political imperative today: By grounding future healthcare professionals in the tangible realities of human existence, anatomy education will need a balanced approach—one that embraces technological advancements while honoring the complexity and dignity of the human body.

INTRODUCTION

In a rapidly transforming world—one marked by the ascendancy of artificial intelligence, transhumanist aspirations, ¹ and longtermist philosophies ² , ³ —the importance of our embodied existence has never been more contested. Contemporary thought constructs include the transhumanist program that seeks to deploy advanced science and engineering to radically enhance—or even transcend—the biological limits of the human body and mind, ultimately aiming for super‐longevity and uploaded consciousness. ⁴ , ⁵ , ⁶ , ⁷ , ⁸ They also include the longtermist ethical view that assigns priority to actions that are thought to have the greatest positive impact on the far future, often centuries or millennia removed from the present. These, together with a move to entrust vital medical decisions to algorithms ⁹ risk overlooking the profoundly human dimension of the lived, bodily experience. Against this backdrop, anatomy education stands out as a practice that reaffirms the body as a primary locus of tangibility, knowledge, identity, and ethical reflection.

Anatomy, in its most literal sense, is the cutting apart of organisms to study their structure. By its very nature, the dissection of human bodies is an act of transgression, one that over the course of millennia required exemptions from clerical and secular authorities as it existed “on the edge of the cultures that allow them, walking a fine line between acceptance and repulsion”. ¹⁰ Outside of the anatomy lab and some clinical settings, we rarely engage with the visceral nature of our bodies, and over time, anatomists have developed a detached, scientific gaze onto the human body. Yet historically and philosophically, anatomy has also functioned as a domain of reflection on mortality, identity, and the intricate interplay between the material and the metaphysical. ¹¹ Whether in Renaissance dissection theaters or present‐day anatomy labs, where learners, educators, and bodies of the deceased interact in a dynamic relationship, ¹² and anatomical inquiry has invited us to confront the reality of human vulnerability, to witness the shared materiality that unites us all. This recognition of the common nature of dissector and dissected allows for the learning of a balance between detachment and empathy that can shape the professional identity formation of anatomists and learners significantly. ¹³

As technology evolves, there is growing concern that such direct, tactile engagement with the human form might be replaced by data‐driven simulations, machine learning outputs, and increasingly disembodied frameworks of learning and understanding. In this context, we contend, anatomy education can serve as a powerful act of resistance against such dehumanizing tendencies of tech utopianism and the datafication of human life. In the following, we support this argument in an exploration that draws from multiple disciplines including history, philosophy, neuroanatomy, anthropology, sociology, pedagogy, and specifically feminist film theory and gender and African American studies. The domain of spiritual inquiry in the context of anatomy education is beyond the scope of this manuscript but has been explored recently in detail in a special edition of Anatomical Sciences Education. ¹⁴

We write as longtime anatomy educators who have experienced the effectiveness of a history‐informed and ethics‐focused approach to the anatomy learning environment, an approach that we share with students and colleagues. ¹⁵ , ¹⁶ We contend that the study of anatomy—in all its hands‐on, emotionally engaging, ethically challenging, and historically entangled forms—reaffirms our corporeal reality, nurtures empathy, and contests the reductive logic that treats bodies as mere objects or datasets. By maintaining a fleshy connection to who we are, we guard against the peril of forgetting that our shared humanity is grounded in living, breathing, and inherently finite bodies.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMBODIMENT

The philosophical tradition of phenomenology ¹⁷ has long argued that our primary mode of being in the world is through our bodies and experiences. Merleau‐Ponty's notion of the “lived body” insists that subjectivity and physicality are inseparable; our consciousness is not an ethereal entity “housed” in a body, but is co‐constituted by the sensory, spatial, and temporal realities of our flesh. According to this view, to understand a person is to acknowledge the situatedness of their body in the world, an orientation that resists any strict Cartesian mind–body dualism. In the context of medical and technological advancement, phenomenology fundamentally challenges the idea that the body can be fully captured by quantitative metrics or computational models. When we reduce the body to data, we risk missing the qualitative aspects of lived experience—pain, pleasure, fatigue, joy, grief, and even love—that cannot be seamlessly translated into code.

Anatomy education in the laboratory and with the consented body donor negates such a reduction of the human body to sets of data. This is where anatomy education finds its deeper purpose: it obliges students to engage with actual bodies, reasserting the primacy of the physical reality of flesh over its abstract representations. Here, the body is conspicuously unavoidable: far from an “Absent Body”, ¹⁸ the body is immediate and material. The act of dissection, for example, renders the materiality of muscle, bone, and organ impossible to ignore. This enforced attentiveness can foster a sense of humility and reverence for human vulnerability ¹⁹ , ²⁰ —qualities that are increasingly at odds with a culture that valorizes disembodied intellectual pursuits or digital interfaces, but qualities that correspond to the professional competencies ²¹ expected from medical caregivers. This confrontation with the biological, organic nature of human existence, and the reality of death can foster the development of a deeper sense of empathy and respect for bodily fragility.

Human cognition does not occur in an abstractum, it is dependent on the physical structure and function of our nervous system that evolved over millions of years ²² to allow us agency. This nervous system, which is part of our body, fundamentally shapes human cognition ²³ , ²⁴ and is a system that both enables and is enabled by experience. ²⁵ We interact with the world around us and have developed sensory receptors specialized for the physical reality of our environment and our identity as social creatures. ²⁶ , ²⁷ Perception itself is an interactive skill: We see, we hear, we taste and smell, and importantly, we touch. Higher cognitive function and learning are not only mental processes but embodied acts that integrate sensory perception, motor skills, and emotional engagement. Treating the brain as the sole locus of mind is an instance of “cerebrocentrism” and overlooks the critical role of the interaction between body and environment in every thought and decision. ²⁵ The notion that human cognition can be replicated by algorithms or uploaded into a digital realm ignores the interdependence between our biology, our physicality and the creativity, ingenuity, and innovative thought of our human brain. This idea of representing the human body via data falls back onto the trope of Cartesian mind–body dualism, which cannot be supported by a modern understanding of anatomy and neuroscience. In anatomy education, we have the unique opportunity to center our instruction, particularly in neuroanatomy, on the link between our anatomical structure and the specific qualities that define our humanity: to think is to live as a body in a world shared by other bodies. ²⁵

Furthermore, the encounter with body donors in the anatomy laboratory confronts us with the fact that the body is always gendered, social, and political, as feminist theories of embodiment assert. ²⁸ , ²⁹ , ³⁰ These perspectives challenge us to see that the bodies we study are not universal, decontextualized objects; they bear the imprint of social identities, power relations, and cultural narratives.

Taken together, these frameworks argue that human embodiment cannot be reduced to physical form alone; it is also shaped by cultural inscriptions, power relations, technological mediations, and our place within the biosphere/ecosystem. In anatomy education, acknowledging these multiple layers enriches the learning experience. It moves the anatomy learning environment and dissection beyond a purely procedural or technical task, situating it within a broader conversation about what it means to inhabit and care for bodies—our own and those of others.

THE EMBODIED HUMAN AND THE ANATOMICAL GAZE

Another important phenomenon in this context is that the human body draws the gaze of those who behold it and thus has been depicted in visual art since prehistoric times. The documented history of human anatomical knowledge gain only starts much later in Alexandria 300 BCE, ³¹ and visual documentation of such knowledge worldwide is sporadic until the emergence of systematic anatomical investigations in Renaissance Europe. ³² Thus, the story of the anatomical gaze arguably begins in the sixteenth century with Andreas Vesalius, whose De humani corporis fabrica represented a watershed moment in Western medicine. ³² , ³³ , ³⁴ Its publication coincided with the development of the printing press, ensuring widespread distribution of the work, including detailed illustrations of human anatomy. Far from being simply a technical handbook, Vesalius's text placed the dissected human form at the center of scientific and artistic curiosity. In the following years, European public dissection theaters became spaces for paying audiences where knowledge and spectacle converged, offering a vivid demonstration that anatomy was about more than charting tissues. It was a site for confronting existential questions of life and death, challenging religious and philosophical assumptions of the era. ³⁵ , ³⁶

Over time, the production and reproduction of anatomical atlases and their images visually codified human anatomy. Into the present day, these atlases have perpetuated certain biases about which bodies are “normative” or “worthy” of study. Typically, anatomical illustrations depicted white, male, young, able‐bodied figures, leaving all other bodies either exoticized or invisible. This historical exclusion of all others who varied from this purported norm signals that anatomical representation was never neutral: it was—and remains—embedded within systems of power that shape who is seen, how they are seen, and for what purpose. ³⁷ , ³⁸ , ³⁹ , ⁴⁰ , ⁴¹ , ⁴² , ⁴³ , ⁴⁴ , ⁴⁵ , ⁴⁶ In many ways contradictory, is the fact that this normalized “standard image” was developed while the anatomists and artists were typically gazing onto the bodies from marginalized groups within the communities they worked in: the executed, unclaimed or abandoned, on whom legal anatomical body procurement relied until functional body donation programs were developed in the late 20th century. ⁴⁷

A critical historical example of the impact of anatomy atlases on our perception of the human body is the Pernkopf atlas, which was created by Austrian anatomist Eduard Pernkopf in Vienna and published in 4 volumes between 1937 and 1960. It has been well documented that among those depicted in the illustrations after 1938 are the victims of Nazi terror who were brought to the Vienna Anatomy Institute after executions following civilian and military court verdicts in Vienna. The legacy of this atlas includes Pernkopf's anatomical gaze onto the human body. Research into the workflow and process of creating the atlas has documented that this process was profoundly dehumanizing and the bodies of the executed were seen as resources to be assessed, dissected, and amalgamations of several dissections used for the plates in the atlas. ⁴⁸ This approach and this view onto the human body have left a lasting legacy on how we view the body, as evidenced by the many copies and illustrations inspired by this atlas. ⁴⁹

Pernkopf's in an extreme and well‐documented example of the connection between scientists, artists, and victims of Nazi violence, which has echoes in the histories of racialized and gendered power imbalances in the visual arts and their continuities into the present. Saidiya Hartman's critique of subjection ⁵⁰ underscores how visual culture has historically functioned to surveil and commodify Black bodies, from the forced hypervisibility of slavery to modern media portrayals. Racialized bodies, in this sense, have frequently been reduced to objects of study rather than autonomous subjects with agency. Frantz Fanon's work similarly shows how racial embodiment is framed by the dominant group's gaze, whereby Black identity is constructed as “exterior,” constantly observed but rarely self‐determining. ⁵¹ Historically, this gaze onto racialized and marginalized bodies and the inherent power dynamics were often reproduced in anatomy education and medical education more generally, either through the omission of diversity in representation or through portrayal in stereotypical ways, upholding colonial and racial hierarchies. An awareness of these biases has only been rising and integrated into curricular planning in recent years. ⁵² , ⁵³ , ⁵⁴ Parallel to these racial critiques, Laura Mulvey's concept of the “male gaze” in feminist film theory ⁵⁵ reveals how visual regimes can transform women into objects of voyeuristic pleasure. Although rooted in cinematic analysis, this framework also resonates with medical and scientific contexts. Historically, women's bodies have often been erased, ⁵⁶ medicalized, or filtered through a masculinized lens, reinforcing patriarchal power structures. In traditional anatomy atlases they only appear where they unavoidably have to be shown: in the sections on reproductive organs. The history and practice of scientific racism and misogynism intersect in medicine's interaction with the Black female body. ⁵⁷

This power imbalance between the one who is gazed upon and the gazer, this objectification of the human body in the eye of the beholder, is at the center of Michel Foucault concept of the “medical gaze”. ⁵⁸ , ⁵⁹ He describes how modern medicine reshaped the body into an object of knowledge, and in this shift, the patient's subjective experience gave way to a clinical focus on classification, observation, and management. While such a perspective enabled scientific breakthroughs, it also risked dehumanizing patients by reducing them to “cases.” In today's healthcare environment, this medical gaze is increasingly refracted through digital tools—machine learning diagnostics, electronic health records, and predictive analytics—that further abstract the patient's lived reality into data points. Contemporary telemedicine, AI‐based diagnostics, and wearable health technologies multiply these layers of digital mediation of the body. All these technological tools can contribute to a deepening of the detachment that Foucault identified, as clinicians—like cinematic spectators—view bodies from a distance, losing sight of the patient's emotional, physical, and lived reality. The risk is that such technologies perpetuate a hierarchical gaze, turning patients into remote objects of study rather than active participants in their own care.

Bringing Foucault's medical gaze into conversation with Mulvey's male gaze shows a broader pattern of objectification in Western culture (the focus of this manuscript—acknowledging that an exploration of the question of objectification in human anatomy in other cultures is also of great interest). In both film and medicine, a power imbalance emerges: the one who “sees” holds authority over the one who is “seen.” In medical contexts, the patient risks being treated as a clinical specimen rather than a full subject with agency. Anatomy, therefore, is not just about biology; it is an ethical and political site where the observer's power over the observed must be interrogated.

Against this backdrop, anatomy education—particularly hands‐on dissection and close observational study—serves as a powerful counterforce. By centering the physicality, diversity, and fragility of human bodies, it reminds practitioners that each data point or diagnostic image corresponds to a person's lived experience. Engaging directly with donated bodies, for instance, enforces an attentiveness to mortality, materiality, and individual variation that purely digital or algorithmic approaches can overlook. This tactile, embodied dimension fosters a more ethical and empathic relationship between the observer and the observed. Of particular importance in this context is the presentation of the anatomy learning environment as one based on the active and productive relationships between the living and the dead: the learners, educators, and the bodies with and from whom they learn, all of them individuals who share the human form. ¹² , ¹³ , ¹⁵

From Renaissance dissection theaters to AI‐driven diagnostics, the human body has often been rendered as an object of knowledge rather than a subject with dignity and agency. Anatomy education, rooted in hands‐on engagement with the human form, offers a vital corrective: it insists on the realness and complexity of embodied existence, ensuring that health care, art, and scientific inquiry remain attuned to the ethical imperative of seeing patients—and all people—as fully human.

TECH UTOPIANISM AND THE DRIFT TOWARD DISEMBODIMENT

In this context, it is important to gauge what the future might hold in terms of perspectives that are at risk of prioritizing technological progress and the well‐being of hypothetical beings over present, embodied experiences. While these frameworks inspire ambitious visions of human potential, they can also obscure the ethical and social complexities of the lived, corporeal existence. Transhumanism ¹ , ⁶⁰ envisions a future where humans transcend biological limitations through technology—uploading consciousness to digital realms, enhancing our physiology with cybernetics, or extending life spans indefinitely. These possibilities are often presented as a leap forward, one that would liberate humanity from the perceived evolutionary “constraints” of flesh. In such visions, the body is often devalued as a “hindrance” to be “overcome”. While these ideas might potentially spur innovation, they also risk reinforcing a narrative that bodily vulnerability is a flaw rather than a defining and possibly even enhancing feature of our humanity. By emphasizing indefinite extension or virtualization of consciousness, transhumanism may disregard that our human existence is linked to our human bodies, to embodied joy and suffering, to environmental constraints, and ultimately to the very real social inequities that shape our human bodies. ⁶¹

Longtermist philosophies, ² , ³ particularly those gaining traction in certain Effective Altruism ⁶² circles, advocate for prioritizing the welfare of vast numbers of potential future beings. Such utopian utilitarian frameworks can inadvertently undervalue current embodied needs, especially those of marginalized communities. By framing present‐day suffering as less critical than safeguarding a speculative future, longtermism aligns with the transhumanist tendency to look past the immediate realities of flesh and blood. Anatomy, in contrast, insists that the body is not a mere shell but a locus of meaning, mortality, and interdependence. Anatomy education affirms that the body matters now. It compels our students to reckon with the tangible demands of health, well‐being, and justice in the present. In this sense, anatomy can serve the development of the learner's moral compass that pulls attention back to the lived realities of pain, illness, and healing—dimensions that cannot be postponed in favor of an idealized future.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND DISEMBODIMENT

By definition disembodied, social media are digital abstractions and distractions that dominate our era. And thus, our collective well‐being is at risk of becoming untethered from the deeply human, embodied experiences that forge connection and empathy. Social media—by stripping away the physical cues integral to face‐to‐face interaction—can foster a growing sense of disembodiment. The “Disembodied Disconnect Hypothesis” ⁶³ posits that digital interactions, while offering unprecedented social freedom, also diminish the neurobiological “we‐mode” processes that underpin genuine human connection and emotional attuning. This phenomenon is underscored through findings that link social media use to alterations in self‐perception, ⁶⁴ underscoring the potential dangers of a society increasingly reliant on disembodied communication.

As the current generation of learners are digital natives reliant on social media for communication, educators need to formulate approaches to reanchor individuals in their embodied existence. Human well‐being thrives on the rich tapestry of sensory and physical experiences—the feel of a handshake, the subtle cues of body language, the sensory experience of a kiss, the shared silence that often speaks louder than words. These elements, lost in the haze of digital screens, are crucial for the development of empathy, trust, and mutual understanding. If the Covid‐19 pandemic has taught us anything, then it is the unforeseen fallout particularly for younger learners from the prolonged and enforced social distancing and the quite literal loss of touch resulting from it. ⁶⁵ Indeed, when people interact in person, their brains engage in synchronized neural processes such as interbrain coupling and emotional attuning, mechanisms that are significantly muted in the virtual realm. ⁶⁶

For health professional students, the imperative to cultivate embodied awareness is particularly acute. As future practitioners, they will need to be prepared for both: delivering clinical care to real human beings with material bodies, and they will also have to address a societal shift that increasingly privileges digital abstraction over human presence. By engaging directly with human remains, students are invited to reflect on the profound ethical, emotional, and social dimensions of human existence. The experience fosters a sensitivity that is essential for building therapeutic relationships in the clinical setting. ⁶⁷ , ⁶⁸ , ⁶⁹ , ⁷⁰ It can also serve as a counterbalance to the pervasive effects of digital abstraction—ensuring that future health professionals remain not only technically proficient but also deeply attuned to the embodied, nuanced nature of human life. Such grounding is imperative in an age where the ease and convenience of online interactions has the potential to inadvertently erode the empathy and connection that are the hallmarks of effective healthcare. ⁷¹

As society gravitates further toward digital interactions, the need to root our understanding of self in the physical body becomes ever more pressing. Anatomy education with human remains is embodied learning ⁷² and serves as a safeguard against the drift toward disembodiment. For health professional students, this is a critical formative experience that equips them to champion a future where embodied human connection, empathy, and well‐being are paramount.

REFLECTION ON THE ROLE OF ANATOMY IN NONDISSECTION PROGRAMS

Even in institutions where dissection is not offered, the imperative to recognize the embodied existence of human beings remains vital and can be maintained in anatomy education. When body donors or other bodies of the deceased are unavailable, educators still have a responsibility to ensure that students engage with the humanistic dimensions of health care—namely, empathy, respect for persons, and a profound awareness of the physical and emotional experiences that patients undergo, as well as the reality of death. These values can be woven into anatomy learning modalities that may extend into virtual and digital domains but are also based on the construct of relational anatomy, recognizing the lived reality of educators and learners, and integrating critical discussions of the origins of anatomical representations in analog and digital media—a discussion we have recently begun. Alternative learning approaches without bodies of the deceased include many modes of living anatomy exploration, ⁷³ among them body painting ⁷⁴ , ⁷⁵ and ultrasound visualization. ⁷⁶ Frameworks for ultrasound integration necessarily differ across programs and must be shaped by institutional risk management policies, professional guidelines, and local legal–cultural norms. To mitigate these potential barriers, ultrasound imaging could be performed on trained standardized patients under faculty supervision.

In order to maintain the crucial humanistic perspective, it is essential to actively integrate patient‐centered discussions and reflections throughout these learning experiences so that the perception of the body as uncoupled from human experience can be counteracted.

Clinical skills sessions, standardized patient encounters, and small‐group tutorials offer opportunities to emphasize the embodied nature of illness and treatment. Through focussing on the body beyond mere biological mechanisms, educators can remind students that every clinical decision involves another human being's corporeal and emotional reality. Indeed, such emphasis should be deliberately cultivated—it is not automatic. The dissection room can serve as a natural site for these ethical and humanistic conversations precisely because it places students in direct contact with the tangible reality of the human body. However, discussions about respect, empathy, and the human condition do not simply emerge on their own. ⁷⁷ It is the educator's ethical imperative to prompt critical reflection, guide students through discussions about mortality and vulnerability, and ensure that these lessons remain central to their future clinical practice. Accordingly, we propose an iterative, context‐sensitive cycle that foregrounds the students' authentic experiences within their unique cultural context, jointly explores ethical questions, and leads to a clinically focused discussion on the importance of the embodied experience. This can ground critical inquiry in the lived realities of each learning environment rather than in a universal script. While this expansion of the field of anatomy education may seem daunting, at first it only requires a willingness by all involved to reflect on their own experiences, to listen and learn, and be open to adopting new conceptual frameworks. This is what is required of those of us privileged to teach.

CONCLUSION: ANATOMY EDUCATION AS AN ETHICAL AND POLITICAL IMPERATIVE

As we stand on the cusp of unprecedented technological change and worldwide political upheaval arguably connected to this change, the question of who we are—and what it means to be human—looms large. Tech utopianism and data‐driven paradigms promise astonishing capabilities, yet they risk displacing the very thing that grounds our moral, social, and existential bearings: our bodies. Anatomy education, with its ethics‐based renewed conceptualization of a centuries‐old tradition of learning by confronting flesh and mortality, offers a counternarrative that underscores the importance of lived, embodied human experience.

As anatomy educators, we need to widen our understanding beyond the domain of textbook anatomy to include its history, cultural impact, and ethics so that we can better understand how the body has been objectified and marginalized—and how it might be reclaimed. This reclamation is not a Luddite rejection of technology but rather presents a call for balance: we can embrace innovation while simultaneously refusing to sacrifice the corporeal dimension of human existence. In doing so, anatomy education becomes more than a technical subject; it becomes an ethical and political stance that insists on the dignity, diversity, and immediacy of the human body in an age that often seeks to transcend it.

Ultimately, the human body is our common ground—a reminder that, despite our digital fantasies and futuristic projections, we remain creatures of flesh and blood, with the same common structure in all its variations, the same dignity, and the same human rights. To know ourselves, to care for one another, and to build a just society, we must keep our bodies in touch and sight, ensuring that the mind never floats too far from the vital realities of human life.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Claudia Krebs: Conceptualization; writing – original draft; writing – review and editing; investigation. Sabine Hildebrandt: Writing – review and editing; investigation; writing – original draft.

Biographies

Claudia Krebs, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of Teaching in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences and the Academic Director of the Hackspace for Innovation andVisualization in Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She teaches gross anatomy and neuroanatomy to the health professions. Her research interest is around the ethical development and integration of visualizations and technology in the classroom.

Sabine Hildebrandt, M.D., is an associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She teaches anatomy and has a research interest in the history and ethics of anatomy, with a focus on anatomy during the Nazi period and its legacies for today.

Krebs C, Hildebrandt S. Anatomy as embodied resistance in an age of digital abstraction. Anat Sci Educ. 2025;18:1013–1020. 10.1002/ase.70090