Episodes

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Heidi Kosonen discuss representations of voluntary death suicide, posthumanism, planetary death, emotion, affect, disgust and gender Who is Heidi?  Heidi Kosonen is a postdoctoral researcher (Contemporary Culture) at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, with research expertise covering varied affective contemporary cultural phenomena. She defended her PhD on…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Evie King discuss council funerals, being a funeral officer, the unidentified dead, Section 46, dying alone, rituals, respect for the dead, marginalisation and her book Ashes to Admin Who is Evie?  Evie King is a council worker and writer. A former stand up comedian, she has always written…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr. Minakshi Dewan on last rites and rituals in India, gender, faith, religion, funeral pyres, sky burial, caste, gender, discrimination and the professionalisation of rites and funerals Who is Minakshi? Dr Minakshi Dewan is a researcher and writer with a PhD degree in social medicine and community health…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Nina Lykke on on queer and feminist death studies; posthumanism; the more than human; necropolitics; philosophy, atheism and death; vibrant death; mourning, and ongoing relationships with the dead Who is Nina?  Nina Lykke, Dr. Phil., Professor Emerita, Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden, and Adjunct Professor, Aarhus…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Hannah Gould on death and the dead in Japan, changing death rituals, necromaterials, death rites, caring for the dead, death technologies, vertical burial, material culture and ethnographies of things. Who is Hannah?  Dr. Hannah Gould is a cultural anthropologist studying religion, materiality, death, and discarding with…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Juliet Hooker discuss her book Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss, language and social justice, democracy, and killings by the police in the US Who is Juliet?  Juliet Hooker is the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University, where she…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Yasmin Gunaratnam discuss transnational dying and end-of-life care in cities, ethnography, being a carer, writing, education with end-of-life-care professionals, artful risky care, using art methods in social sciences research, palliative art, hospitality, migration and death, an anti-colonial death studies and climate crisis, the genocide in Gaza, yoga,…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear M. F. (Mike) Alvarez on suicide, mental health and illness, autoethnography, fine art, reflexive writing, creative writing, interdisciplinarity and biases in the academy  Who is M.F. Alvarez?  M. F.  (Mike) Alvarez is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, USA. He is…

In this episode, hear author and vocal coach Clare Hogan discuss death anxiety, breath work, transpersonal psychology, performing death, death cafes and seeing death as an adventure and gateway to more life. Who is Clare?  After completing her GMus at the Royal Northern College of Music, Clare went on to do a Masters by Research…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Lucy Easthope discuss disaster recovery, emergency planning, risk, the Grenfell and Hillsborough disasters in the UK, humanitarian disasters, pregnancy loss, hope and wellbeing. Who is Lucy?  Lucy Easthope is a UK expert and adviser on emergency planning and disaster recovery. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Ann Luce on suicide, the ethical reporting of suicide, suicide prevention, the Bridgend suicides, emotional labour in research self-care, and living with post-Covid complications and long Covid. Who is Ann?  Dr. Ann Luce is a Professor of Journalism and Health Communication at Bournemouth University on the…

What’s the episode about? This episode accompanies the edited collection Difficult Death, Dying and the Dead in Media and Culture edited by Sharon Coleclough and podcast hosts Bethan Michael-Fox and Renske Visser. In it you will find a discussion between the editors and an interview with the author of the foreword, Professor Ruth Penfold-Mounce, as…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Christopher Hood discuss the world’s largest single plane crash, memorials, disasters, Japan and Japanese memorial cultures, writing fiction, plane crashes, mental health and academia, suicide and academia, and much more! Who is Chris?  Dr. Christopher Hood is a Reader in Japanese Studies at Cardiff University. His…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Foluke Taylor discuss Black feminist writing and the permission to write (and think) differently, the limits of decolonisation, citational practices, therapy, language, grief, biomythography, creatique, different pathways in reading and what ‘we’ should and shouldn’t read, empathy, therapy, the power of not knowing, and the notion of…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Angeline Morrison at the 2023 Falmouth University Haunted Landscapes conference on voicing Black British ancestors through music, folk music and death, W. E. B. Du Bois and sorrow songs, unregistered lives, the stories of Frances Elizabeth Johnson and Caesar, a formerly enslaved African buried in Hartlepool, as…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Ru Callender discuss funerals, radical undertaking, eco-funerals, green undertaking, bereavement, grief and loss. Who is Ru?  Ru Callender is author of the book What Remains? Life, Death and the Human Art of Undertaking. He was moved to become an undertaker through his experience of bereavement and its aftermath. He…

What’s the episode about? Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes on horror studies, the Gothic, graveyards and death, body horror, horror and trauma, film and English literature and experiencing a transient ischaemic attack, plus highlights from the Death Online Research Symposium (DORS) conference 2023! Who is Xavier?  Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes is Reader in English Literature and…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Tony Walter at the 2023 University of Bath CDAS conference on innovation, climate and ecological emergency, mass mortality, grief, loss and social change, as well as highlights from the conference! Who is Tony?  Tony Walter is a sociologist and Emeritus Professor of Death Studies at the…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr. Caroline Bennett on the Cambodian Genocide, mass graves, the Khmer Rouge regime, the identification of bodies, DNA identification, human remains, genocide research, anthropology, ethnography, notions of haunting, karma, post-genocide and getting involved in research into genocide. Who is Caroline? Caroline Bennett is a socio-cultural anthropologist, who…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr. Hazel Marzetti discuss suicide, LBGT+ mental health, suicide in/as politics, qualitative health research and critical suicide studies as well as collective care and peer support in death studies research. Who is Hazel?  Hazel Marzetti is a post-doctoral Research Associate in the University of Edinburgh’s School of…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Jeremy Cohen on new religious movements, radical-longevity, immortality, transhumanism, ethnography and cryonics, as well as tree planting, music and the Salem Witch Trials and mass hysteria, anthropology and the project Talk Death Daily Who is Jeremy?  Jeremy Cohen is an Assistant Professor at McMaster, in the…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Helen Wheatley discuss death in film and television, corpses, grief and loss on screen, the Gothic, assisted suicide on television, haunting on TV and cultural trauma, as well as death in children’s television and live death on screen. Helen also discusses her extensive work with television…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Esther Ramsay-Jones discuss palliative psychotherapy, grief work, writing about grief, and psychotherapy and maternal figures in dementia care. Esther discusses her mother’s death and her experiences of writing memoir. Who is Esther?  Esther Ramsay-Jones is a practising psychodynamic psychotherapist and Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear a breakdown of the Death and the Screen Special Issue of the academic journal Revenant and an interview with editor-in-chief Professor Ruth Heholt on ghosts, haunting, the Gothic, Catherine Crowe, the supernatural and starting a journal. This special episode accompanies a Special Issue of the academic journal…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr. Jason Danely discuss ageing, Japan, loss, ageing subjectivities unwitnessed death and anthropology. Who is Jason? Jason Danely is a Reader in Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University, where he is the Chair of the Healthy Ageing and Care Research Innovation and Knowledge Exchange Network. Having studied Comparative…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Salena Godden discuss poetry, her book Mrs Death Misses Death, depicting death as a Black woman, memoir, and talking about death. Who is Salena? Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, memoirist, essayist, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican heritage based in London. In 2021 Canongate published her…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Mandy Gosling on psychotherapy, grief experienced by adults and couples who were bereaved as children, her experience of bereavement as a child, the loss of mothers and delayed and prolonged grief. Who is Mandy? Mandy Gosling is a UKCP and BACP accredited psychotherapist, researcher and author, specialising…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Gayle Letherby discuss reproductive loss, auto/biographical methodologies, loss and bereavement, childlessness, and academic and creative writing practices approaches. Who is Gayle? Gayle Letherby is a Visiting Professor of Sociology at the University of Plymouth and Visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich. She is a teacher,…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Jillian A. Tullis discuss end-of-life care and communication, resisting the hospice narrative, autoethnography and its ethical implications, truth in qualitative research, spirituality and cancer care and innovative teaching approaches. Who is Jillian? Dr. Jillian A. Tullis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Trish Biers and Dr Katie Stringer Clary discuss museums, heritage, and death, the ethics of human display, curation and working in museums and heritage education. This episode was recorded live at the Death and Culture Conference in York, 2022. Who is Trish? Dr Trish Biers is…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr John Troyer discuss technology and the human corpse, necrowaste, necrophilia laws, transdisciplinary death studies, grief and the death of his sister and mother. Who is John? Dr John Troyer is the Death Studies Scholar-at-Large and former director of the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr. Sara Knox discuss murder, serial killers, pet death, inequality in death and dying, violence and representation and writing novels. Who is Sara?  Dr Sara Knox is Associate Professor in the Writing and Society Research Group and the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Helen Frisby discuss Victorian funeral customs, traditions of death and burial, sineaters and being an independent researcher whilst working in professional services in a university. Who is Helen?  Dr Helen Frisby obtained her PhD on Victorian funeral customs from the University of Leeds in 2009. Helen…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Ruth Penfold-Mounce discuss crime, deviance, death and popular culture, celebrity death, pedagogy and public engagement with death, death walks and gender inequality after death. Who is Ruth?  Dr Ruth Penfold-Mounce is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the Sociology Department at the University of York. Her…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Frank Eyetsemitan discuss the psychology of death, ageing, intergenerational relationships, cross-cultural gerontology, and grief. Who is Frank?  Professor Frank Eyetsemitan is Professor of Psychology at Roger Williams University in Bristol Rhode Island, where he previously held the position of Associate Dean for Social Sciences Division of…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Lucy Willow discuss death and fine art, performance art and visual culture, photographing the dead, mourning, loss, grief and artistic practice, as well as research and being a celebrant. Who is Lucy?  Born in Whitstable, Kent Lucy Willow graduated with first class BA in Fine Art from…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Panagiotis Pentaris discuss thanatology, hospice social work, bereavement therapy, end-of-life strategy, religious literacy in hospice care and death in a transhumanist and posthumanist society. Who is Panagiotis?  Panagiotis Pentaris is Director of Research and Research Studies Senior Lecturer of Social Work & Thanatology at Goldsmiths, London.…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Kate Woodthorpe discuss funeral practice and policy, state funeral support, death and loss as relational, public dying, and working in academia. Who is Kate?  Kate Woodthorpe became CDAS (the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, UK) Co-Director in 2021, having joined CDAS…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Kami Fletcher on death and American and African American history, African American burial grounds, late 19th and early 20th century Black undertaker and contemporary Black grief and mourning. Who is Kami? Dr. Kami Fletcher is an Associate Professor of American & African American History and Co-Coordinator…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Gina Bond discuss a career as an anatomy technician, body donation, dissection, anatomy, death education, digitalising donor registers, annual memorials for donors and the support available in this field of work. Who is Gina?  Georgina Bond is an anatomy technician in the Medical Teaching Unit at the…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Deb Rawlings and Emma Clare on Death Doulas, death education, the language we use around death and dying, emotional labour in deathcare, Covid-19 and doing death differently! Who is Deb?  Deb Rawlings is a Senior Lecturer in postgraduate palliative care at Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia. With…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr. Khyati Tripathi on the psychology of death, death anxiety research, Covid-19 in India, qualitative and autoethnographic work, Psychosocial Studies and her own experiences of studying for a PhD whilst living with Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Who is Khyati?  Khyati Tripathi is a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard University.…

What’s the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Erica Borgstrom discuss End-of-Life Care, anthropology, palliative care, ethnography, thanatology and death studies, as well as ‘imposter syndrome’ in academia. Who is Erica? Erica is a medical anthropologist and professor at the Open University, where she is the Qualifications Lead for Health and Social Care and…