Online Talk · "A Smile that Makes Forever:” A Memento Mori of Teeth with Devon Deimler, PhD
7pm ET (NYC time)
Monday, May 19, 2025
$8
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org . A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
This talk is an expanded version of an original iteration delivered at Morbid Anatomy’s 2024 Memento Mori Festival.
With each gnash, smile, or showing of teeth, the human skeleton peeks through. Death, in this way, is not only out and about in the world of the living, but serves, through the teeth, as a vital social mediator and curious survival tool. This illustrated talk plays with the poetics and phenomenology of teeth via their appearances in science, art, myth, dental objects, dreams, pop culture, and cinema (including Twin Peaks and the Smile horror franchise). We will consider the psychological range, cultural conditionings, and aesthetic practices surrounding teeth, from the multileveled demand for teeth whitening, to mores against open-mouthed beaming, to archetypes of sardonic revenge and full-blown Cheshire grins. We will contemplate the setting of teeth in the same mouth-world that speaks and digests, and how the lips (with the eyes and other agents) shape a wide variety of existential messages and moods: bestowing love, promising death, seducing power, mocking authority, cherishing the moment, or even swallowing us into other dimensions. All along, we will entertain toothsome smiles as biting, ready-made memento mori and flashes of n/evermore in the everyday. Smile!
Devon Deimler, PhD is an East Coast-raised, Los Angeles-based writer, artist, mythologist, and lecturer for Morbid Anatomy. She is Assistant Professor of Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and Curator at OPUS Archives and Research Center, home to the collections of James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, and Marija Gimbutas. She has served as Scholar-in-Residence, Contributing Artist, and Special Editions Editor at the Philosophical Research Society, where she regularly gives talks and contributes to events, including her series, Cinemyth. Devon earned her PhD in Mythological Studies from Pacifica with an award-winning doctoral dissertation titled Ultraviolet Concrete: Dionysos and the Ecstatic Play of Aesthetic Experience. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and has led many arts and music projects over the years, including founding an independent record label, Wildfire Wildfire Productions, and serving as Assistant to the Director at the Dennis Hopper Art Trust. She is currently writing a monograph about dramaturg, Nor Hall, and developing written work on myth, aesthetics, and metamorphosis. More at devondeimler.com.
Image: Washington's Teeth, Jeff Dundas, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Monday, May 19, 2025
$8
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org . A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
This talk is an expanded version of an original iteration delivered at Morbid Anatomy’s 2024 Memento Mori Festival.
With each gnash, smile, or showing of teeth, the human skeleton peeks through. Death, in this way, is not only out and about in the world of the living, but serves, through the teeth, as a vital social mediator and curious survival tool. This illustrated talk plays with the poetics and phenomenology of teeth via their appearances in science, art, myth, dental objects, dreams, pop culture, and cinema (including Twin Peaks and the Smile horror franchise). We will consider the psychological range, cultural conditionings, and aesthetic practices surrounding teeth, from the multileveled demand for teeth whitening, to mores against open-mouthed beaming, to archetypes of sardonic revenge and full-blown Cheshire grins. We will contemplate the setting of teeth in the same mouth-world that speaks and digests, and how the lips (with the eyes and other agents) shape a wide variety of existential messages and moods: bestowing love, promising death, seducing power, mocking authority, cherishing the moment, or even swallowing us into other dimensions. All along, we will entertain toothsome smiles as biting, ready-made memento mori and flashes of n/evermore in the everyday. Smile!
Devon Deimler, PhD is an East Coast-raised, Los Angeles-based writer, artist, mythologist, and lecturer for Morbid Anatomy. She is Assistant Professor of Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and Curator at OPUS Archives and Research Center, home to the collections of James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, and Marija Gimbutas. She has served as Scholar-in-Residence, Contributing Artist, and Special Editions Editor at the Philosophical Research Society, where she regularly gives talks and contributes to events, including her series, Cinemyth. Devon earned her PhD in Mythological Studies from Pacifica with an award-winning doctoral dissertation titled Ultraviolet Concrete: Dionysos and the Ecstatic Play of Aesthetic Experience. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and has led many arts and music projects over the years, including founding an independent record label, Wildfire Wildfire Productions, and serving as Assistant to the Director at the Dennis Hopper Art Trust. She is currently writing a monograph about dramaturg, Nor Hall, and developing written work on myth, aesthetics, and metamorphosis. More at devondeimler.com.
Image: Washington's Teeth, Jeff Dundas, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Monday, May 19, 2025
$8
PLEASE NOTE: A link to a recording of this talk will be sent out to ticket holders after its conclusion. It will also be archived for our Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanayomy.org . A temporary streaming link will be emailed after the event concludes.
This talk is an expanded version of an original iteration delivered at Morbid Anatomy’s 2024 Memento Mori Festival.
With each gnash, smile, or showing of teeth, the human skeleton peeks through. Death, in this way, is not only out and about in the world of the living, but serves, through the teeth, as a vital social mediator and curious survival tool. This illustrated talk plays with the poetics and phenomenology of teeth via their appearances in science, art, myth, dental objects, dreams, pop culture, and cinema (including Twin Peaks and the Smile horror franchise). We will consider the psychological range, cultural conditionings, and aesthetic practices surrounding teeth, from the multileveled demand for teeth whitening, to mores against open-mouthed beaming, to archetypes of sardonic revenge and full-blown Cheshire grins. We will contemplate the setting of teeth in the same mouth-world that speaks and digests, and how the lips (with the eyes and other agents) shape a wide variety of existential messages and moods: bestowing love, promising death, seducing power, mocking authority, cherishing the moment, or even swallowing us into other dimensions. All along, we will entertain toothsome smiles as biting, ready-made memento mori and flashes of n/evermore in the everyday. Smile!
Devon Deimler, PhD is an East Coast-raised, Los Angeles-based writer, artist, mythologist, and lecturer for Morbid Anatomy. She is Assistant Professor of Mythological Studies with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and Curator at OPUS Archives and Research Center, home to the collections of James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, and Marija Gimbutas. She has served as Scholar-in-Residence, Contributing Artist, and Special Editions Editor at the Philosophical Research Society, where she regularly gives talks and contributes to events, including her series, Cinemyth. Devon earned her PhD in Mythological Studies from Pacifica with an award-winning doctoral dissertation titled Ultraviolet Concrete: Dionysos and the Ecstatic Play of Aesthetic Experience. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and has led many arts and music projects over the years, including founding an independent record label, Wildfire Wildfire Productions, and serving as Assistant to the Director at the Dennis Hopper Art Trust. She is currently writing a monograph about dramaturg, Nor Hall, and developing written work on myth, aesthetics, and metamorphosis. More at devondeimler.com.
Image: Washington's Teeth, Jeff Dundas, 2025