What's the episode about? 

In this episode, hear Sydney Campbell on Medical Assistancein Dying for mature minors, children’s participation, policy, assisted dying, childism, participatory research and end-of-life contexts

 Who is Sydney? 

Dr. Sydney Campbell is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University.

 

She completed her PhD in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto wherein she generated conceptual and empirical evidence to inform ongoing discussions related to Medical Assistance in Dying for mature minors in Canada.



As a whole, Sydney’s work aims to advance perspectives on the participation and engagement of young people, rethinking policy action and analysis with a child-inclusive lens, and improving children’s overall health and well-being inseveral facets of their lives, including in end-of-life contexts.

 

What was the conference mentioned at the start of the episode?

 

The conference 'Funeral and Death Ritual for the Modern World. Co-creation, participation, exploration' [https://naturalendings.co.uk/conference-funeral-and-death-ritual-for-the-modern-world/] is on 14th June 2025 at Natural Endings in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, UK. It's a gathering of undertakers , ceremonialists, writers/authors, artists and theatre makers. 

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use thefollowing citation:

Campbell, S. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 May 2025. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28911446

 What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Got a question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].

Dr. Sydney Campbell on Medical Assistance in Dying for mature minors, children’s participation, policy, assisted dying, childism, participatory research and end-of-life contexts

What's the episode about?

In this episode, hear Claire Nally on literature, Goth, Steampunk, death memoirs, representations of dead women, death positive libraries & working in academia
Who is Claire?

 Claire Nally is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Northumbria University, UK, where sheresearches Irish Studies, Neo-Victorianism, Gender and Subcultures.

She published her first monograph, Envisioning Ireland: W. B. Yeats’s Occult Nationalism, in 2009, followed by her secondbook, Selling Ireland: Advertising, Literature and Irish Print Culture 1891–1922 (written with John Strachan).

She has co-edited a volume on Yeats, and two volumes on gender, as well as the international library series ‘Gender and Popular Culture’ for Bloomsbury (with Angela Smith).

 

She has written widely on a number of modern and contemporary topics, and her most recent monograph is Steampunk: Gender, Subculture and the Neo-Victorian, published by Bloomsbury in 2019.



She was co-I (with Stacey Pitsillides) on the Death Positive Library Project.

 

Her next book is entitled The Death Memoir in ContemporaryCulture.

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Nally, C. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 April 2025. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28704131

What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Gota question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].

Professor Claire Nally on literature, Goth, Steampunk, death memoirs, representations of dead women, death positive libraries & working in academia

What's the episode about?

In this episode, get an overview of the 2025 Edited Collection Death and Institutions: Processes, Places and the Past

 

What is the Book About?

Institutions play a crucial role in shaping experiences of end-of-life care, dying, death, body disposal and bereavement. However, there has been little holistic or multidisciplinary research in this area, with studies typically focusing on individual settings such as hospitals and cemeteries, or being confined to specific disciplines.

This interdisciplinary collection [https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/death-and-institutions] combines chapters on process, place and the past to examine the relationships both within and between institutions, institutionalization and death in international contexts.

 

Of broad appeal to students and academics in areas including social policy, health sciences, sociology, psychology, anthropology, cultural studies, history and the wider humanities, this collection spans multiple disciplines to offer crucial insights into the end of life, body disposal, bereavement and mourning.

 

Introduction - Kate Woodthorpe, Helen Frisby and Bethan Michael-Fox

 

1. Culture as an Institution: Assessing Quality of Death in China - Chao Fang

 

2. The Market for Human Body Parts: Institutions,Intermediaries and Regulation - Lee Moerman and Sandra van der Laan

 

3. Secrecy, Judgement and Stigma: Assisted Dying inAotearoa New Zealand - Rhona Winnington

 

4.  Institutional Thoughtlessness: Prison as a Place forDying - Renske Visser

 

5. Out of the Ashes in New York City: Body StorageBottleneck in COVID-19's First Wave - Sally Raudon

 

6. Governing the Dead's Territory - Hajar Ghorbani

 

7.  'The Bluecoat Boys to Walk and Sing an Anthem before the Corpse': The Children of Christ's Hospital in London Funerals of the 18th Century - Dan O'Brien

 

8. Inside-Out and Outside-In: Learned Institutions andGarden Cemeteries in 19th-Century Britain - Lindsay Udall



9. ‘They Attached No Blame to the Staff in Charge': TheRole of Dublin Workhouse Administration in Preventing and Contributing to Institutional Mortality, 1872–1913 - Shelby Zimmerman

 

10.  Tenets and Tensions: A Critical Exploration of the Death Positive Movement - Anna Wilde

11.  Representations of Immortality and Institutions in 21st-Century Popular Culture - Devaleena Kundu and Bethan Michael-Fox

 

12. ‘I Was So Lost … and Who Brought You Back? Me.' - Deathstyle Gurus and the New Institutional Logics ofMourning on Instagram - Johanna Sumiala and Linda Pentikäinen

Afterword - Kate Woodthorpe, Helen Frisby and Bethan Michael-Fox

Want to publish with Bristol University Press and the Death and Culture series? Find out more. [https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/death-and-culture]



How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

 

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

 

Woodthorpe, K., Frisby, H. and Michael-Fox, B. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R.Published 11 March 2025. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28572215



What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! </ [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]

Death and Institutions: Processes, Places and the Past

What's the episode about?

In this episode, hear highlights from the 7th International Symposium of the Death Online Research Network (DORS#7) and Tamara Kneese on digital death, genAI, ethics, moving from academia to the private sector, data, society & collective action



What was DORS#7?

The 7th International Symposium of the Death Online ResearchNetwork (DORS#7) on October 3rd–5th, 2024 was titled Digital Death: Transforming History, Rituals and Afterlife.

Hear soundbites and learn about the conference presentations and events in this episode!

Who is Tamara?

Dr. Tamara Kneese directs Data & Society Research Institute's Climate, Technology, and Justice program. Previously, she led Data & Society's Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab (AIMLab). Before joining D&S, she was lead researcher at Green Software Foundation, director of developer engagement on the Green Software team at Intel, and assistant professor of Media Studies and director of Gender and Sexualities Studies at the University of San Francisco.

 

She is the author of ⁠Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism FailsUs in This Life and Beyond⁠ [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300248272/death-glitch/] (Yale University Press, 2023).

 

Tamara holds a PhD in Media, Culture and Communication from NYU.

⁠www.⁠ [http://www.datasociety.net/]⁠tamarakneese.com⁠ [http://tamarakneese.com] | ⁠@tamigraph.bsky.social⁠ [https://bsky.app/profile/datasociety.bsky.social]



How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Kneese, T. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox,B. and Visser, R. Published 4 March 2025. Available at: ⁠www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com⁠ [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28531994



 What next?

Check out more ⁠episodes⁠ [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the ⁠hosts! ⁠ [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Got a question? ⁠Get in touch⁠ [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].



The 7th International Symposium of the Death Online Research Network (DORS#7) and Tamara Kneese on digital death, genAI, ethics, data, society & collective action

What's the episode about?

In this episode, hear Todd Meyers on grief, anthropology, entanglements, addiction, language, overdose death, opioid crisis, life’s incoherence and knowing your limits

Who is Todd?

Todd began his career as a painter, earning a BFA in studio from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  His interests slowly moved to the history of medicine, public health, and anthropology, earning a PhD in anthropology from the Johns Hopkins University.   

Todd began teaching in the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill University in 2020, after previous appointments at New York University–Shanghai (2015-2020) and Wayne State University in Detroit (2009-2015).  He is currently Professor and Marjorie Bronfman Chair in Social Studies of Medicine at McGill.

In addition to his current book, Gone Gone (2025), Todd is the author and co-author of several other books, including All That Was Not Her (2022), which follows the life and death of a woman in Baltimore spanning twenty years, and The Human Body in the Age Catastrophe (2018, written with Stefanos Geroulanos), on the history of integration and disintegration in the study of human physiology at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

Todd's current work is an ethnography of hate related violence and legal psychiatry told through the murder of a gay man over thirty years ago.

 

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Meyers, T. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 February 2025. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28327976



What next? Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Got a question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].



 Todd Meyers on grief, anthropology, entanglements, addiction, language, overdose death, opioid crisis, life’s incoherence and knowing your limits 

What's the episode about?

 

In this episode, hear Michele Aaron discuss filmmaking and end of life care, hospice documentary, death and LGBTQIA+ communities, palliative care, film practice, ethics and visual culture and dying



Who is Michele? 


Michele completed her BA in English Literature at Queen Mary’s (or QMW as it was then) and both my MA, (in Culture and Social Change) and PhD (in contemporary film and fiction) at the University of Southampton.

 

She joined Warwick [https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/scapvc/film/staff/aaron/] in 2017 from the University of Birmingham where she was based from 2004 having previously taught at Brunel University.

 

In 2016-17, she was the principal investigator on the AHRC funded project ‘Digital Technology and Human Vulnerability: Towards an Ethical Praxis’. In 2019-20.

 

She was the principal investigator for the follow-on project 'Life:Moving Onwards: Ethical Praxis and the use of film in the International End of Life Community'.

 

She is the director/curator of Screening Rights Film Festival, the Midlands International Festival of Social Justice film and debate, which launched in 2015.

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Aaron, M. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 3 January 2025. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28131629 What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Got a question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].



Professor Michele Aaron on filmmaking and end of life care, hospice documentary, death and LGBTQIA+ communities, palliative care, film practice, ethics, visual culture and dying

What's the episode about?

 

In this episode, hear live recordings and interviews from the DEATHxDESIGNxCULTURE conference at Falmouth University in September 2024. The episode features discussion of death, culture, older age rational suicide (OARS), film, design, grief, knitting, jewellery and memento mori, material culture, museums, and memorial reefs

 

What was DEATHxDESIGNxCULTURE? 

DEATHxDESIGNxCULTURE: [https://deathxdesignxculture.info/] Radical Re-Imagining for the End of Life brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, practitioners, and designers to critically explore the role of design in relation to death and dying. With a strong focus on interdisciplinarity, the event facilitated knowledge exchange between experts in social sciences, the humanities, and various design fields.  

 

Contributions came from a diverse range of areas, including graphic design, architecture, digital design, fashion design, and product design, highlighting the versatility and expansive nature of design in addressing issues of mortality.  



The event was organised by Falmouth University senior lecturers Dr Robyn Cook [https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/staff/dr-robyn-cook], Nikki Salkeld [https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/staff/nicola-salkeld] and Ashley Rudolph [https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/staff/ashley-rudolph] in partnership with the Death and Culture Network at the University of York (UK) [https://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/research/death-and-culture/], Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan (USA) [https://stamps.umich.edu/], and the Glasgow End of Life Studies Group at the University of Glasgow (UK) [https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/endoflifestudies/].

Nikki Salkeld and Ashley Rudolph, are the co-founders of MOTH [https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoth.org.uk%2F&data=05%7C02%7CJon.Baglow%40falmouth.ac.uk%7Cdd47022258484a62e8f308dcf8fcc813%7C550beeb36a3d4646a111f89d0177792e%7C0%7C0%7C638659011780338523%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=y8vIkJs6%2BvrVwh8duQwOO8semzRK8HlzfVaKLhf4nv4%3D&reserved=0], which started as a research project in 2013.

 Find out more about the conference here. [https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/news/death-x-design-x-culture-falmouth-hosts-conference-exploring-designs-role-death] Find out more about Mortem Stores here. [https://mortemstores.online/home]



How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?



To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. (2024) Conference Episode of The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 December 2024. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27933669

What next? Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Got a question?

DEATHxDESIGNxCULTURE conference episode on death, culture, older age rational suicide (OARS), film, design, grief, knitting, jewellery and memento mori, material culture, museums, and memorial reefs

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 suicide cinema from the perspectives of taboo and biopower Fall 2020 and is currently focused on the question of planetary death in her personal post-doc.

She has studied hate speech, toxic speech, and counterspeech on several research projects and has especially specialized in the performative use of disgust through the Disgust Network, which she co-founded.

Her research connects affect studies approaches to social justice and taboo-related questions in contemporary culture. She is an editor-in-chief of Finnish gender studies journal Sukupuolentutkimus-Genusforskning and a vice chair of The Society for Cultural Studies in Finland.

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Kosonen, H. (2024) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published November 2024. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27434706

What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]Got a question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].



Dr. Heidi Kosonen on representations of voluntary death suicide, posthumanism, planetary death, emotion, affect, disgust and gender

What's the episode about?

 

In this episode, hear Evie King discuss council funerals, being a funeral office, 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 short form pieces in the margins of her various day jobs, contributing to New Humanist, Guardian Comment is Free, BBC Comedy and Viz Comic. Since moving to the seaside and going part-time she has had more time for writing and has completed her first book - Ashes to Admin - about her job arranging council funerals under her pen name. She is currently working on a second. 

The book mentioned in the introduction by podcast co-host Dr Renske Visser and the podcast’s first ever guest Professor Erica Borgstrom is Critical Approaches to Death and Bereavement [https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Approaches-to-Death-Dying-and-Bereavement/Borgstrom-Visser/p/book/9781032330624?srsltid=AfmBOopYgRNL7SR_6NymBb-QPGhhEnc6sZ_weXcndNlIPb1VYDhar6gg]. Discount code: SMA23

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

King, E. (2024) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 October 2024. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27141447 What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]



Got a question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].



Evie King on council funerals, being a funeral office, the unidentified dead, Section 46, dying alone, rituals, respect for the dead, marginalisation and her book Ashes to Admin 

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 from Jawaharlal Nehru University and a master's degree in social work from TISS Mumbai. She possesses extensive experience in health, gender, and community mobilization with grassroots and international development organizations. She has contributed chapters in academic publications on tribal health and healing rituals. Her writings have appeared in leading Indian and international publications and address a range of issues, including, health, human rights, the environment and culture. She has also written a non-fiction title for children. The Final Farewell: Understanding the Last Rites and Rituals of India’s Major Faiths, is her debut non-fiction book with Harper Collins, India.  

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?

To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:

Dewan, M. (2024) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 September 2024. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com [http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/], DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.26886349

What next?

Check out more episodes [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/] or find out more about the hosts! [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/]

Got a question? Get in touch [https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/].



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

The Death Studies Podcast is a platform for the diversity of voices in, around and contributing to the academic field of Death Studies. Find out more at www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com

The Death Studies Podcast

Shows