Books
Afterlives of the Saints: Stories from the Ends of Faith
In Afterlives of the Saints, Colin Dickey presents us with a history of faith as told through some of the strangest stories of the saints. These are saints who murder, saints who gouge out their own eyes and hold them out for inspection, saints who minister to the petty and the bizarre and the maligned. These are saints who, when visited in a contemporary context—as saints in the cities—actually enlarge our concept of faith.
Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius
The after-death stories of Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Emanuel Swedenborg, Sir Thomas Browne and many others have never before been told in such detail and vividness.
“Dickey’s well-vetted account…illuminates the mystery and controversy of a bizarre tradition throughout the ages.” — Publishers Weekly
“Colin Dickey… has served up a fascinating book. Well-researched, clear and concise, this book is full of interesting historical anecdotes.” — ForeWord Magazine
“Weaving the story’s details among other equally bizarre episodes of renowned craniums gone missing, Dickey fairly considers what motivated graveyard pilferers….Those with a taste for the macabre who may have read Brian Burrell’s Postcards from the Brain Museum (2005) and Russell Shorto’s Descartes’ Bones (2008) will enjoy Dickey’s eccentric tales.” — Booklist
“…smartly written account….” — Maclean’s Magazine [Canada]
More about Cranioklepty here.
Buy Cranioklepty on Indiebound here.
Buy Cranioklepty on Amazon here.
Failure! Experiments in Social and Aesthetic Practices
(co-editor, with Nicole Antebi & Robby Herbst)
With a design that’s half pocket book, half zine, this provocative volume offers an array of essays, interviews and artworks that describe a minor history of failure. Tracing the idea of failure through contemporary art, activism, literature and philosophy, the work cuts against notions of forward-moving progress, instead exploring various dead ends on the timeline of history. Edited by Nicole Antebi, Colin Dickey and Robby Herbst, “Failure ” offers directions for mapping our lives along paths that go nowhere—or worse. Contents include an illustrated study of the afterlife of Valerie Solanas and her “Scum Manifesto”; an exploration of the Morningstar Commune in Northern California, which was deeded to God; a comparison between the architecture of the Three Stooges and Frank Gehry; explorations of the legacies of the Weather Underground and a series of interviews with contemporary artists including Sam Durant, William Pope.L and Assume Vivid Astro Focus.
Buy Failure! on Indiebound here.
Buy Failure! on Amazon here.
