Historical examples of how corpses are handled

Jeremy Bentham
the head thing is super creepy.
 * http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/jeremy-bentham
 * http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/who/autoicon (with citations)
 * A. Lipsett, 'How to give a dead man a makeover: first freeze-dry the carpet beetles in his hair...', article in The Times Higher Education Supplement, 16 September 2005.
 * C.F.A. Marmoy, 'The "Auto-Icon" of Jeremy Bentham at University College London', Medical History, 2 (1958), 77-86.
 * R. Richardson, 'Bentham and Bodies for Dissection', The Bentham Newsletter, x (1986), 22-33.
 * R. Richardson and B. Hurwitz, 'Jeremy Bentham's self-image: an exemplary bequest for dissection', British Medical Journal, 295 (July- Dec. 1987).
 * P. Schofield, Bentham: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2009)
 * E. Smallman, '181-year-old corpse of Jeremy Bentham attends UCL board meeting', article in The Metro, 12 July 2013.
 * http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project

Bodies as religious artifacts
(bodies and parts of bodies used by institutions to conduct the power (for positive or negative means) they have in society); your arrangements are in essence a vote for increasing the power of the receiving institution.

Memento Mori

 * John Donne's statue at St Paul's http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/donne.htm
 * Hugh Ashton's two artistic representations of his body at St John's College, Cambridge
 * http://deathlyponderings.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/death-in-cambridge-hugh-ashtons-tomb/
 * https://deathlyponderings.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/020.jpg

Relics

(science too)

Funerary remains, and controversies with museums, academics, governments

 * Samuel J.M.M. Alberti*, Piotr Bienkowski** and Malcolm J. Chapman. Should We Display the Dead? Museum and Society, Nov 2009 https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/museumsociety/documents/volumes/alberti2.pdf
 * Suicide Tourism controversies around the globe

Tupac

 * Legal affordances for reanimation / holographic representation / etc.
 * http://www.ipbrief.net/2012/04/19/tupac-hologram-rocks-coachella-and-ip-laws/
 * Implications of Tupac Hologram on Copyright: http://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1427&context=student_scholarship

Victorian Post-mortem Photography

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-mortem_photography
 * Valentina Lari, who did a photography show, The Deformity of Beauty at the Mutter Museum

Books made of Human Skin

 * Autobiography reputedly bound in the skin of the author http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/boston-athenaeum

Notable Embalmed People
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin%27s_Mausoleum
 * Xin Zhui (d. 163 BCE) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Zhui
 * La Doncella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Llullaillaco
 * Vladimir Lenin: embalmed and on display at the Lenin Mausoleum
 * "A Photographic Guide to the world's embalmed leaders" (Washington Post)

Elmer McCurdy
people thought that his body was a mannequin
 * http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/04/11/the_corpse_of_elmer_mccurdy_and_how_it_ended_up_in_a_long_beach_fun_park.html

People who have arranged for their works to live on in possibly modified states

Phineas Gage
can be seen at the Warren Anatomical Museum on the Green Line
 * Gage's Story

Examples in Pop Culture

 * DKP systems
 * Foundation series (example of someone's will over time reaching into the future, in tension with the will of people in a given time)
 * The Ender Saga - Speaker for the Dead