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 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, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.28131629 What next?

Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Got a question? Get in touch.

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: 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, Nikki Salkeld and Ashley Rudolph in partnership with the Death and Culture Network at the University of York (UK), Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan (USA), and the Glasgow End of Life Studies Group at the University of Glasgow (UK).

Nikki Salkeld and Ashley Rudolph, are the co-founders of MOTH, which started as a research project in 2013.

Find out more about the conference here. Find out more about Mortem Stores here.

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, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27933669

What next? Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Got a question? Get in touch

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, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27434706

What next?

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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 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 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: http://www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com/, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.27141447 What next? Check out more https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/episodes/ or find out more about the https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/the-hosts/ Got a question? https://thedeathstudiespodcast.com/contact-us/.

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, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.26886349

What next?

Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts!

Got a question? Get in touch.

What's the episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Nina Lykke 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 University, Denmark.

Nina participated in the building of Feminist Studies in Scandinavia and Europe more broadly for many years.

She is also a poet and writer, and co-founder, in 2016, of the international Network for Queer Death Studies.

Current research interests: queering of cancer, death, and mourning in posthuman, queerfemme, new-materialist, decolonial, eco-critical and spiritual-material perspectives; feminist and femme-inist theory; intersectional methodologies; autophenomenography; poetic writing; eco-critical storytelling.

She has recently published articles in journals such as Australian Feminist Studies; NORA; Catalyst; Environmental Humanities; Social Identities; Kerb Journal; Lambda Nordica; Forum+; Women, Gender and Research and Somatechnics. She is also author of numerous monographs such as Cosmodolphins (2000), Feminist Studies (2010), Vibrant Death (2022) and Feminist Reconfigurings of Alien Encounters (2024, with K.Aglert and L.Henrksen).

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

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

Lykke, N. (2024) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 August 2024. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.26422072

What next?

Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Got a question? Get in touch.

Find out more at: https://deathxdesignxculture.info/ or follow the gram

RADICAL RE-IMAGININGS FOR THE END OF LIFE

From 4-6 September, the Department of Graphic Design, Falmouth University (UK), and the Death and Culture Network, University of York (UK); in partnership with the Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan (USA), and the Glasgow End of Life Studies Group, University of Glasgow (UK) are hosting the DEATHxDESIGNxCULTURE: RADICAL RE-IMAGININGS FOR THE END OF LIFE conference.
The conference seeks to open discursive space for ‘traditional’ as well as practice-based and practice-led research to critically reflect on the role of design as it relates to death, dying, and disposal at individual, community, and broader cultural levels, and to suggest radical alternatives for the future. 
With a focus on interdisciplinarity, the conference aims to support knowledge exchange between researchers within the social sciences, the humanities, and design. Design is positioned as an expanded field inviting contributions from subject areas including, but not limited to: graphic design; multidisciplinary design; architecture; digital design; fashion design; and product design.
A multi-modal approach will stretch the conventions of a conference format, incorporating experience design; exhibitions and pedagogic interventions; university-industry knowledge transfer; and opportunities for traditional academic papers.