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 Religions and Asian Studies before pursuing his PhD in Anthropology, Jason's research began as an exploration of the ritual lives of older people in urban Japan. This research tells the story of Japan's aging society through detailed portraits of older men and women as they actively anticipate...

Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, memoirist, essayist, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican heritage based in London. In 2021 Canongate published her highly acclaimed debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death. It is the winner of The Indie Book Award for fiction and The Peoples Book Prize 2022 and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, The Nibbies, British Book Awards Book Of The Year Fiction Debut, The Bad Form Book Of The Year shortlist and it featured in the Guardian books of the year...

Mandy Gosling is a UKCP and BACP accredited psychotherapist, researcher and author, specialising in unresolved grief experienced by adults and couples who were bereaved as children.  As a bereaved child herself, Mandy completed a research MA in 2016 to ‘Understand Childhood Parental Bereavement from a Psychological and Spiritual Perspective’ and then established ABC Grief, the central focus for her private practice in High Wycombe, Bucks.  She is a contributing author in the anthology ‘My...

Professor 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, mentor and a researcher. Alongside substantive interests in reproductive and non/parental identities; gender, health and wellbeing; loss and bereavement; travel and transport mobility and gender and identity within institutions she has always been fascinated by research methodology, including auto/biographical, feminist and...

Dr. Jillian A. Tullis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests focus on health communication, specifically communication about dying and death in healthcare settings. She returned to her home state, joining the faculty at the University of San Diego in 2015, after serving on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for 6 years. Dr. Tullis is former chair of the Ethnography...

This episode was recorded LIVE at the Death and Culture conference at York St Johns University in September 2022 and features several of the conference attendees at the close of the episode. Tune in to hear their experiences!  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 Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. She teaches...

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 Sciences at the University of Bath. John received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society. His Ph.D. dissertation, entitled "Technologies of the Human Corpse" was awarded the University of Minnesota's 2006 Best Dissertation Award in the Arts and Humanities. In 2020 MIT...

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 Modern American Life (Duke University Press, 1998) and other notable works on violence and representation.  Her most recent publications include work on Hilary Mantel, including a study of the moral geography of violence in Mantel's novels,  and the regeneration of the historical novel as literary...

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 Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, Secretary of the Association for the Study of Death & Society (ASDS) and a Council Member of the Folklore Society. She continues to research, publish and speak on the history and folklore of death, dying and bereavement, including appearances on the History Channel and BBC Radio. Helen’s book...

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 with an interest in crime and deviance, death studies and popular culture and celebrity. Ruth leads the Death and Culture Network at the University of York, co-edits the Death and Culture Book Series, and hosts the Death and Culture conference every two years. She also does regular public engagement events and media appearances. She is author...

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 the College of Arts and Sciences. Professor Eyetsemitan’s work in the field of aging spans almost three decades. His research interests include intergenerational relationships (within families and within skilled care facilities), cross-cultural gerontology, and adult grief outcomes. Prof...

In this episode, hear artist Lucy Willow talk about her work. 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 Cornwall and has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. Her work first received acclaim with a series of Dust carpets made on location and for specific environments, Smithfield abattoir (2005), Old Romney Church (2005), Make it Real, Whitstable, Kent (2006), Art Now Cornwall,...

Panagiotis Pentaris is an Associate Professor of Social Work and Thanatology in the School of Human Sciences at the University of Greenwich, England, UK, where he is also a member of the Institute for Lifecourse Development. Panagiotis is a council member for the Association for the Study of Death and Society, the Chair of the ASDS Ambassadors Scheme, a Research Fellow for the Faiths & Civil Society Unit at Goldsmiths, and over the last ten years he has researched and published on death,...

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 the Foundation Degree in Funeral Services until 2012. Kate has had articles and book chapters published on funeral costs, state support for funerals, mortuary practice, professional development, cemetery usage, the experience of researching in this area, and public dying. She is on the editorial board for Death...

Dr. Kami Fletcher is an Associate Professor of American & African American History and Co-Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies at Albright College. She teaches courses that explore the African experience in America and unpacks social and cultural U.S. history all at the intersection of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Her research centers on African American burial grounds, late 19th/early 20th century Black female and male undertakers, and contemporary Black grief and mourning....

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 body upon their death, including their embalming, their dissection and their eventual funeral. She has a BSc in Biology from Sheffield Hallam University and an MSc in Human Osteology and Funerary Archaeology from the University of Sheffield and has previously worked in Outreach. Georgina also volunteers her time at Bart's Pathology Museum and has...

In this episode, hear Deb Rawlings and Emma Clare discuss Death Doulas. 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 role. Deb is a member of the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying at Flinders University.She was an author and moderator on the successful Dying2Learn MOOC. Deb is Co-Lead...

In this episode, hear Dr. Khyati Tripathi discuss Death Studies, 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. Khyati is an Assistant Professor at UPES, the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies in Dehradun, India. She is a death researcher with a focus in psychosocial, cultural and religious studies and is the Ambassador for India for the...

In this episode, hear Dr. Erica Borgstrom discuss Death Studies, Thanatology, her research into End-of-Life Care, ethnography and her work as a journal editor for the Death Studies journal Mortality as well as ‘imposter syndrome’ in academia. 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 Royal Anthropological Institute and Senior Fellow of the...