The reopening of the Hunterian Museum has resurfaced questions and concerns about the use of human remains as museum specimens and decolonising museum collections, writes Órla O’Donovan The remains of Charles Byrne, known as the “Irish giant,” have become the subject of public discussion once more, reviving debates that continue to haunt medical and scientific museums. Instead of engaging in futile efforts to achieve closure on their colonial histories, museums must learn to live with the spectres of their past injustices that persist to the present. Decolonial scholars, such as Eve Tuck and C Ree, emphasise that being haunted by these injustices is the cost of the horrors and subjugations of colonisation and museums’ role in this; it is “the relentless remembering and reminding that will not be appeased by settler society’s assurances of innocence and reconciliation.”1 Museums must accept that they are haunted by their past by acknowledging and living with their colonial history, which they cannot resolve, forget, or hide. The Hunterian Museum at London’s Royal College of Surgeons of England has just reopened after refurbishment. The controversial remains of Byrne, who had acromegaly and died in 1783, will no longer be on …

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“爱尔兰巨人”和困扰医学博物馆的问题

亨特博物馆的重新开放再次引发了人们对使用人类遗骸作为博物馆标本和非殖民化博物馆藏品的问题和担忧，Órla O'Donovan 写道。查尔斯·伯恩 (Charles Byrne) 的遗骸，被称为“爱尔兰巨人”，已成为公众关注的主题再次讨论，恢复继续困扰医学和科学博物馆的辩论。博物馆必须学会忍受过去一直持续到现在的不公正现象的幽灵，而不是徒劳地努力结束他们的殖民历史。非殖民主义学者，如 Eve Tuck 和 C Ree，强调被这些不公正所困扰是殖民化的恐怖和征服以及博物馆在其中的作用的代价；它是“不屈不挠的回忆和提醒，不会被定居者社会对纯真与和解的保证所平息。”1博物馆必须承认，他们被过去所困扰，因为他们承认并生活在他们无法解决、忘记、或隐藏。位于英国伦敦皇家外科医学院的亨特里安博物馆刚刚在整修后重新开放。患有肢端肥大症并于 1783 年去世的伯恩备受争议的遗体将不再出现在……