The Death Studies Podcast

In this episode, hear Dr Richard Coker on public health, HIV/AIDS, being a medical doctor, dissection, infectious diseases, tuberculosis, and medical training Who is Richard? Richard Coker is Emeritus Professor of Public Health. He trained in medicine at St. Mary's Hospital, London and, in 1994, became consultant physician to the hospital and senior lecturer at Imperial College School of Medicine.  His interests include communicable diseases, in particular emerging infectious diseases, HIV, and tuberculosis, and health systems responses to disasters. In 1997, as a Harkness Fellow, he spent a year at Columbia School of Public Health in New York, USA, researching the causes and responses to the epidemic oftuberculosis that city witnessed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  His book, From Chaos to Coercion: detention and the control of tuberculosis, was one of the results from this work. He subsequently worked as a Wellcome Research Associate researching public health legislative responses to infectious disease threats. In recent years he has worked predominantly in SE Asia on public health responses to support control of infectious diseases. Today he talks about his book Timor Mortis: How we live with death, a memoir. Introductory Audio on DeathbotsDo you work or volunteer in a bereavement care role supportingbereaved individuals? Dr Georgia Wilson and colleagues from the Death, Dying and Bereavement Research Team at Manchester Metropolitan University are exploring the perspectives of those who support the bereaved on deathbots and other grief-related AI technologies. If you have at least one year's experience supporting bereaved people, we'd love to hear your views through a short anonymous survey.  Findings will be used to inform future guidance and training for those who support bereaved individuals who may use these technologies as part of their bereavement. Link to survey here:  Preparing Bereavement Care Providers for"Deathbots" – Fill in formHow do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use thefollowing citation: Coker, R. (2026) Interviewon The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 November 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.34876293

Who is Jane?Jane McCarthy is an English sociologist who has worked for many decades across various disciplines to focuson ‘family’, childhood, and relationality. In the last 25 years,since the death of her husband when their daughter was aged 5, she has built on this earlier work to explore death and its continuing aftermath in the everyday relational lives of the living, alongside ‘family troubles’ more broadly. She has approached these topics in terms of lived experiences, academic approaches, and professional practices and services. She has particularly offered a view of bereavement as a source of change, rather than the narrower view of ‘loss’, including in the lives of children experiencing a significant death in their lives. Her general approach to all these subjects is to set aside what may be considered ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’, ‘harmful’ or ‘beneficial’, and rather to focus on how disruptive change may be experienced in everyday relational lives, with multiple ramifications, and how people themselves make sense of these within the circumstances of their lives. Some of Jane’s work has involved research and collaborations in Senegal and China, but her primary experience is UK based, where she has particularly valued her involvement with the Community Voices network.  Since her ‘retirement’ in 2015, as an Honorary Associate at The Open University she has been able to extend this work to initiate an Open Societal Challenge on Existential Dis/Connections. This collaborative interdisciplinary hub seeks a decolonising lens to explore how existential threats are structurally shaped, as well as personally experienced and understood, in the era of modernity/coloniality, with its many forms of disconnect, including the ‘Othering’ of racialised capitalism. The work particularly highlights the dis/connections of existential threats of personal deaths, on the one hand, and the planetary existential threats rapidly (but unequally) emerging with the Climate and Ecological Emergency on the other. A ‘decolonising’ lens is therefore sought to explore dis/connections of many forms and through many means in regard to these concerns. The collaboration seeks a polyphonic approach with an emphasis on both ‘being’ and ‘doing’, towards both epistemological and ontological/cosmological justice. These issues require attention to the taken-for-granted Whiteness of knowledge in relation to death and its aftermath alongside the power and oppressions of necropolitics, in the era of modernity/coloniality.  In the podcast, in conversation with Bethan Michael-Fox, Jane explores some of the twists and turns of her life journey across these terrains over 40 years. ***In the podcast Jane refers to a proverb: "I am because we are one". She has since clarified that this should just be: "I am because we are". She notes that this is an error risking appropriating the proverb by adding her own meaning when the actual wording of the proverb is in any case strikingly powerful in its original form. She is aware that 'ubuntu' is a pervasive and complex philosophy that relates to many aspects of life.** Besides her position at The Open University, Jane is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Death and Society at Bath University, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Reading. She publishes extensively on these topics as Jane Ribbens McCarthy.  Demystifying Death Documentary For anyone interested in the Demystifying Death event in India in January, please contact Mariya directly on [email protected] To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: McCarthy, J. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 2 October 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.34056750

What's is this episode about? In this episode, hear Professor Joanna Stalnaker on death and philosophy, writing at the end of life, last works, Enlightenmentthinking, women and philosophy in the Enlightenment, teaching, pedagogy, and her experience of discovering she had a brain tumour causing an unexplained obsession with Harry Styles and fan fictionWho is Joanna?Joanna Stalnaker is the author of two books: The Rest Is Silence:Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death and The Unfinished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia. She teaches in the Department of French at Columbia University. She is currently developing a new course, co-taught with an art historian, called Birth, Death and the Human. Her currentproject is a memoir about her experience of living with an undetected brain tumor and developing an unexplained obsession with Harry Styles and fan fiction. You can read more about Joanna here. You can buy The Rest Is Silence:Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death her with code FAL25 for 30% off. How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: Stalnaker, J. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox,B. and Visser, R. Published 1 September 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.33406186 What next?Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Gota question? Get in touch.

Who is J.T. Welsch? J. T. Welsch is a writer and academic born in the US andbased in the UK, where he teaches at the University of York. He is the author of several books of and about poetry, including Orchids (2010), The Hell Creek Anthology (2015) and The Selling and Self-Regulation of Contemporary Poetry (2020). He also edited the anthology of migrant poetry Wretched Strangers (2018) with Ágnes Lehóczky. His writing has appeared in Poetry Review, Boston Review and the Guardian. In this episode hear about his new book on The Poetry of Suicide: Lessons in grief from the lives and deaths of poets. In the episode introduction, you heard from: Joshua Hurtado Hurtado, PhD, University of Helsinki and Jason Glynos, Professor at the Department of Government, University of Essex about their new article, "Thanabots, fantasy, and theethics of mourning", published in AI & Society. You can find ithere: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-026-03200-9  And then Dr. Mórna O’Connor on her and Dr Dorthe Refslund Christensen's new collection, Creative and Aesthetic Ways of Grief: "All Things Reimagined".How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: Welsch, J.T. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 August 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.33129308What next?Check out more ⁠episodes⁠ or find out more about the ⁠hosts! ⁠Gota question? ⁠Get in touch⁠.

What's the episode about? In this episode, hear about an event on Love and Loss: A DayAt Arnos Vale Historic Garden Cemetery, Bristol discussing love, romance, sex, death, culture, prison writing, slow suicide, creative writing, obituaries, epitaphs and more.You will listen to a range of academic research love, romance, death, grief and loss, all based or connected to the South West of England, and many of whom were recorded whilst walking around the rather hilly Arnos Vale Historic Garden Cemetery in Bristol, so do forgive any out of breath-ness!  The day in April 2026 at Arnos Vale began with a networking and idea generation event for researchers, followed by a guided tour open to the public with the theme of love and loss.This was filled with a rich mix of real-life tales — from couples united in life but separated in death, to daring elopements, parental love, and forbidden love. Some stories are touching, some tragic, and some wonderfully surprising.  This was followed by a creative writing workshop on the theme of love and loss, including practical activities and stimulus prompts drawn from the cemetery and the lives of its occupants. The aims of the day were: ●      To provide a forum for constructive discussion & preliminary dissemination of research works in progress.●      To identify potential future collaboration.●      To share research of high public interest with an openaudience in an established heritage setting. Links below for more information on the place and people inthis episode!Find out more about Arnos Vale. Find out more about newly appointed Associate Professor Dr JoParsons. Find out more about Janine Marriott. Find out more about Dr Andrew Griffiths.  A huge thank you to the Open University for their supportfor this event via the Academic Communities Fund!  How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use thefollowing citation: Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. (2026) The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 26 July 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.33089351 What next?Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Gota question? Get in touch.

Dead Women and Gendered Death in Visual Culture for MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture  Co-edited by Devaleena Kundu, Bethan-Michael-Fox, and Khyati Tripathi, Dead Women and Gendered Death in Visual Culture dives into the factors behind the deeply genderedrepresentations of death and dead bodies in visual culture.  In a world dominated by the visual, the female dead body is glamorised and eroticised for consumption.This focus issueexamines the various ways one negotiates with visual representations of femininity in death and the intersectional politics at work behind representations frequently divesting the female body of its agency even in death.  The issue features scholars from across the globe with contributions exploring subjects such as fetishisation of femalecorpses, necrophiliac fantasies, spectrality and haunted bodies, feminist necropoetics, gendered deaths and wartime propaganda, and female suicides. The issue invites readers to critically engage with the question of looking and consuming gendered representations of death and dying in visual culture.  There is a foreword my Michele Aaron, as her work has informed many of the articles, and you can also hear her on the podcast . There were 25 submissions overall, and in this episode you can hear from the editors and from 12 of the contributors.You can find the issue here: https://www.maifeminism.com/dead-women-and-gendered-death-in-visual-culture/  

What's the episode about? In this episode, hear Dr Molly Conisbee on social histories of death and mourning, liberation thanatology, lessons fromthe history of death, walking tours and being a bereavement councillorWho is Molly? Molly Conisbee is a social historian and visiting research fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath.  She has a PhD from the University of Bristol and has spent the last ten years researching the social history of death and mourning.  Conisbee is also a bereavement counsellor, has curated walks on the history of death around the country and has written for the Guardian and Ecologist.To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: Conisbee, M. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R.Published 1 July 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32866145

What's the episode about?In this episode, hear Professor Sandra Ruiz on poetry, writing, form, Brown Study, Ricanness, anticoloniality, grief-work, walking and being with the dead, and minoritarian aestheticsWho is Sandra?Sandra Ruiz is the author of Ricanness: Enduring Time in Anticolonial Performance; Left Turns in Brown Study; and Tears for Tears: Aesthetics in Grief Minor. Ruizis the co-author with Hypatia Vourloumis of Formless Formation: Vignettes for the End of this World and The Alleys: Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In andco-editor with Shane Vogel & Uri McMillan of the NYU Press book series Minoritarian Aesthetics. When not writing and editing, Ruiz curates and produces through the Minor Aesthetics Lab. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sandra Ruiz is the Sue Divan Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre.The special issue on gendered death in visual culture mentioned in the introduction is here.How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:Ruiz, S. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 June 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32529204What 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 Ruth E. Toulson on the necropolitics of the ordinary, dying and death in Singapore, anthropology, burials, funeral directors and morticiansWho is Ruth?At Johns Hopkins, Ruth E. Toulson is a lecturer for the Master of Arts in Museum Studies program. Toulson is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the dead body, and death’s material culture in Southeast and East Asia. Trained at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Toulson brings to Johns Hopkins a multi-sited collaborative international research agenda that combines long-term ethnographic fieldwork and in-depthwork in museum collections. Toulson brings significant teaching and advising experience at the graduate level in anthropology, material culture studies, and critical museum studies.As a whole, Toulson’s scholarship explores the intersection ofdeath and the state, particularly in moments of sociopolitical transition.Toulson probes this intersection by focusing particularly on the dead body as a form of highly politicized material culture. Supported through numerous external grants, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the Hong Kong Research Council, thisresearch program has resulted in published work, including a book and numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles, including in Journal of Material Culture.Toulson recently delivered the keynote address at University ofMelbourne, Redesigning Deathcare Conference, and has given invited lectures at the Gatty Lecture Series (Cornell), The Centre for the Study of Death and Society (University of Bath), The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (Harvard), and at the Council for Southeast Asia (Yale), among otherinvitations. Toulson is associate editor of the journal Anthropology and Humanism.How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: Toulson, R. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 May 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32143756 Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Gota question? Get in touch.

What's the episode about?In this episode, hear Professor Beverley Clack on philosophyof religion, failure, loss, neoliberalism, thinking about death and not freaking out, women, gender and good public conversations about difficult topics Who is Bev? Beverley Clack is Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. She is funded by the Westminster College Oxford Trust to research and create projects which enable flourishing in and outside the Methodist Church. Beverley taught for many yearsat Oxford Brookes University, where she is Professor Emerita in the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford Brookes University.  Her publications include Feminism, Religion and Practical Reason (Cambridge 2021); How to be a Failure andStill Live Well (2020); Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Introduction, co-authored with Brian R Clack (3rd edition published in 2019); Freud on the Couch (2013); Sex and Death: A Reappraisal of Human Mortality (2002); and Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition (1999). She is currently working on How to Think about Death (And Not Freak Out) for Bloomsbury. How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: Clack, B. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 April 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.31916916 What next?Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Gota question? Get in touch.