Cholera first appeared in Britain in 1831, originating from India, where it had spread across Europe during a time of increasing global mobility. Subsequent outbreaks of cholera occurred throughout the nineteenth century, most notably in 1848-49. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20 marked a culmination of a century of infectious disease and subsequent burial reform. These diseases not only claimed countless lives, but they also overwhelmed local authorities and an infant and overstretched burial industry. Somewhat out of necessity, […]

The paper attempts a socio-political study of coffin-less burial practices adopted by two Catholic churches in the district of Alappuzha, Kerala. The paper argues that the practice reterritorializes and deterritorializes the contemporary churchyard scene while also examining its scope of expansion as a sustainable practice. The Kerala Catholic Church has traditionally relied on coffin burials, where coffins of varying quality and wood were used, typically as an indicator of social status. However, the increasing plastic content in the materials has hampered the decaying process of the body, […]

This presentation reflects on a three-year collaboration (2023–25) between the Metropolitan Cemetery Board and the School of Design at Rockingham Regional Memorial Park. Here, Master of Landscape Architecture students developed innovative masterplans addressing contemporary challenges of cemetery design, memory, and memorialisation through research, fieldwork, mapping, and design exploration. Harkening back to the elemental origins of Landscape Architecture as a discipline, students engaged with landform as well as the intersection between future ecology and existential inquiry, to create personalised designs underpinned by creativity and scholarly rigor. […]

To what extent was cremation practised among the Bradford Reform Jewish community? What role did social class and migrant status play in shaping Jewish cremation rates? How did the practice of cremation among the Bradford Reform Jewry and Berlin’s Jewish communities shape the topography of their cemeteries? Previous studies of the rise of cremation among Jewish and non-Jewish Germans have overlooked the German Jewry in the diaspora. Therefore, this paper provides new insight into the ongoing dialogue between migrants and their country of origin by conducting a transnational study of cremation. […]