Sociology: death & dying

This book combines Western history of death with sociology and philosophy to explore our approach to death. It examines sociological debates, the cultural construction of death and uses existential phenomenology and Freudian psychology to examine the search for meaning in our finite lives.

Featuring previously unseen images, stories and anecdotes, this book explores the visual culture of death and the gross anatomy lab through the tradition of dissection photography, examining its historical aspects from both photographic and medical perspectives.

This book provides an alternative focus for death studies by looking beyond traditional perspectives of a nature/culture binary. Bringing together a range of international scholars, it sheds light on topics which have previously remained at the margins of contemporary death studies and death care cultures.

Academics, activists and artists remember and reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic in an inclusive commemorative overview which honours the experience of a global disaster lived up close and suggests the steps needed to ensure we do better next time.

Bringing 25 years of research and teaching in the sociology of death and dying to this important book, Tony Walter engages critically with key questions around this universal fact.