Death’s Social and Material Meaning beyond the Human
Edited by Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker and Philip R. Olson
ISBN
978-1529230147Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529230154Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University PressISBN
978-1529230154Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Bristol University Press
Death’s Social and Material Meaning beyond the Human
Death studies typically focus on the death of humans, overlooking the wider factors involved in social and natural processes around death. This edited volume provides an alternative focus for death studies by looking beyond human death, to reveal the complex interconnections among human and more than human creatures, entities and environments.
Bringing together a diverse range of international scholars, the book sheds light on topics which have previously remained at the margins of contemporary death studies and death care cultures. Organised around three themes – Knowledge and Mediation, Care and Remembrance, and Agency and Power – this book pushes the boundaries of death studies to explore death and dying from beyond the perspective of a nature/culture binary.
“A crucially important book that radically expands how we humans can and should consider the end-of-life. The editors shift conventional views on death and dying by including cross-species mortality alongside the destruction of the environment. This is an extremely urgent book to read right now.” John Troyer, University of Bath
“An important contribution to the intellectual development of Death Studies, taking death beyond the human and bounded subject, as well as a timely reminder of death’s transdisciplinary relevance and insight.” Hannah Rumble, University of Bath
"This is a bold, original collection of studies exploring human and more-than-human entanglements in relation to death. A must-read for scholars interested in the intersection of death, ecology and politics.” Brenda Mathijssen, University of Groningen
Jesse D. Peterson is Lecturer and Assistant Professor with the Radical Humanities Laboratory at University College Cork.
Natashe Lemos Dekker is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University.
Philip R. Olson is Associate Professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech.
Introduction - Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Philip R. Olson
Part I: Ontologies & Epistemologies
1. ‘Seeing for real’: Forensic Pathologists Testing the Demonstrative Power of Postmortem Imaging - Céline Schnegg, Séverine Rey, Alejandro Dominguez
2. Death at a Planetary Scale: Mortality’s Materiality in the Context of the Anthropocene - Philip R. Olson
3. Death in the Fields: Microbial ‘Destruction’ in Polluted Soils - Serena Zanzu
4. Can the Baltic Sea Die? An Environmental Imaginary of a Dying Sea - Jesse D. Peterson
Part II: Care & Remembrance
5. Viral Flows and Immunological Gestures: Contagious and Dead Bodies in México and Ecuador during COVID-19 - Rosa Inés Padilla Yépez, Anne W. Johnson
6. Advertising the Ancestors: Ghanaian Funeral Banners as Image Objects - Isabel Bredenbroker
7. Dying Apart and Buried Together: COVID-19, Cemeteries, and Fears of Collective Burial - Samuel Holleran
8. Spirit Mediums at the Margins: Materiality, Death, and Dying in Northern Zimbaabwee - Olga Sicilia
Part III: Troubling Agencies
9. Rehabilitate or Euthanize?: Biopolitics and Care in Seal Conservation - Doortje Hoerst
10. Troubling Entanglements: Death, Loss and the Dead in and on Television - Bethan Michael-Fox
11. Material Entanglements of the Corpse - Marc Trabsky and Jacinthe Flore
12. The Dead Who Would be Trees and Mushrooms - Hannah Gould, Tamara Kohn, Michael Arnold, Allison Fraser
Concluding Discussion
13. Beyond the Norms - Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Philip R. Olson
