On December 14, 1650, 22-year old Anne Greene was led up the gallows in Oxford. She had been charged with […]
The Deathbed and the Sound of Rebirth
What is the soundscape of the deathbed? Most often, for Chinese Buddhists, it has involved the sound of human voices […]
“Heroic Effort Beyond the Call of Duty”: Death Care Workers and the 1947 Texas City Disaster
On April 16, 2020, the New York Times published an op-ed about the challenges facing overwhelmed funeral directors around the […]
Death, Distance, and the Digital World
My neighbor died as I was finishing this essay. We were two weeks into the stay-at-home order during the COVID-19 […]
Plastered Skulls: What can a 10,000 year old tradition teach us about coping with death?
Teaching about Death and Burial “Design your own burial” is an activity on my course syllabus. No matter how many […]
Straightened Up and Dying Right? Queering Puritan Deathbeds
When I was ten, I was present at a close family friend’s deathbed, an experience that sparked my lifelong curiosity […]
A Different Kind of Expert
In the spring of 1813, Abigail Adams wrote to her friend Julia Rush inquiring after the death of Julia’s husband […]
Death before Birth: Pregnancy Loss and Funerals in England
A pregnancy loss is a site of tension, situated between waiting for the baby, the unanticipated loss, and the often […]
Dying Like the Savior, Dying Like the Saved
Sister Alberta Marie Hanley felt like Christ on her deathbed. Blood seeping into her eyes from a low platelet count, […]
Heart Transplantation, Democracy, and Collective Forgetting in Contemporary Spain
Throughout my life, Spain – the country where I was born and raised – has been the global leader in […]
