The Death Studies Podcast

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. Who is Trish? Dr Trish Biers is the Collections Manager at the Level of Curator of the Duckworth laboratory (human and non-human primate remains and an archive) in the Centre for Hum...

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 his sister and mother’s deaths. 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 Society in the Department of Social and Policy Scien...

What's the episode about? In this episode, hear 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 Western Sydney. She is the author of Murder: a Tale of Moder...

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 is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Cent...

What's the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr 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 background in Sociology is united...

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...

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 Falmouth College of Art in 2003. Willow lives and works in Corn...

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, Lo...

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 in January 2010, and acting as Programme Leader for t...

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 of Women’s and Gender Studies at...

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 University of Sheffield. She deals with people who chose to donate their bod...

In this episode, hear Deb Rawlings and Emma Clare on Death Doulas, death education, the language we use around death and dying, and doing death differently! Who is Deb?  Deb Rawlings is a Senior Lecturer in postgraduate palliative care at Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia. With a background in palliative care nursing, Deb is an academic/researcher with an interest in the Death Doula r...

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 . was formerly an Assistant Professor at UPES, the Univ...

In this episode, hear Dr. 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 lecturer at the Open University , where she is the Qualifications Lead for Health and Social Care and the lead for Open Thanatology . She is a Fellow of the Roya...