The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland

Bielawski, K. (2024) The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland, Brookline, MA: Academic Studies Press.

This text offers a comprehensive examination of the history of Jewish cemeteries in Poland, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Holocaust history. Beginning with the settlement of Jewish communities in Poland, the book covers the establishment and subsequent destruction of over 1,200 Jewish cemeteries within the country’s present borders. Krzysztof Bielawski draws on meticulous research and first hand experience to explore the complex dynamics behind the destruction, exposing the roles played by various actors. Through a detailed analysis of texts, iconographic sources, and archival materials, the book not only documents the destruction but also seeks to identify the perpetrators, challenging common misconceptions and offering a nuanced perspective on this dark chapter in history.

Listen to the author being interviewed by Ari Barbalat on the New Books Network.

Kapinės už miesto, miške. Katalikų laidojimo kraštovaizdžiai XIX a. Vilniuje

Bazaraite, E. (2024) Kapinės už miesto, miške. Katalikų laidojimo kraštovaizdžiai XIX a. Vilniuje, Vilnius: Lapas.

Cemeteries Beyond the City, in a Forest: Catholic Burial Landscapes in 19th-century Vilnius presents research on Roman Catholic burial landscapes in Vilnius during the early 19th century. Given the prevalence of Catholicism in Vilnius, the research examines three significant cemeteries – Rasos, Bernardine, and Saulės – as representative examples of the city’s dominant burial practices and spaces.

These cemeteries were established in compliance with the law of the Russian Empire, which mandated that cemeteries should be located outside the city limits. However, at the time of their creation, there was no established cemetery model to follow either from foreign examples or local practices. Moreover, the responsibility of burying and managing the burial landscape in Vilnius remained with religious institutions that lacked political power and financial resources. As a result, the cemeteries underwent organic development.

The analysis is conducted through the lens of Western European burial practices, with a particular focus on processes that took place in France, Italy, and Great Britain. The three case studies in Vilnius are examined as a set of spatial components within the broader historical, political, and cultural contexts of both the city and the wider region.

Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent

Kristine McCusker (2023) Just Enough to Put Him Away Decent: Death Care, Life Extension, and the Making of a Healthier South, 1900-1955, University of Illinois Press.

This book takes, as its focus, the combined history of death and health in the American South between 1900 and 1955. The text is ambitious in scope, and weaves together multiple oral histories to create a nuanced and engaging narrative. McCusker charts the ways in which low life expectancy in the South was regarded as problematic by commercial life insurance firms, concerned that their customers were paying insufficient dues before mortality provoked funeral expenditures, and the various Churches seeking to save souls before an untimely demise robbed them of the opportunity. Both agencies were heavily invested in health care. McCusker expertly weaves further threads into this complex narrative: Southern funeral practices, the theological basis  for strong belief in family re-union at death, and racial divides that created exclusions and opportunities for the Black Americans to express their own deathways, increasingly supported through commercial enterprise. Two World Wars test and refine common frameworks for organizing the dead, and McCusker underlines the importance, amongst other things, of etiquette guidance on the correct ways to grieve and to express condolence.

Visit the New Books Network to listen to Kristine McCusker discuss her book with Julie Rugg.

Des Morts qui Dérogent: Á L’Écart des Normes Funéraires XIXe-XXe siècles

Anne Carol & Isabelle Renaudet (eds) (2023) Des Morts qui Dérogent: Á L’Écart des Normes Funéraires XIXe-XXe siècles, Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universaires de Provence.

Since the nineteenth century, European societies have developed a funeral system that places the body at the centre of the care that the living give to the dead, and that revolves around the grave and the cemetery. However, bodies are sometimes deprived of this care, or its implementation is disrupted, whether intentionally or not. This book uses a number of exemplary cases to offer a panorama of the dead who deviate from the funerary norm.

These departures from the norm may stem from the marginal or exceptional status of the dead: stillbirths, executed criminals, anonymous deaths, political icons; in other cases, they may stem from the anomalous circumstances in which death occurred: wartime, epidemics, industrial disasters or massacres; finally, the a-normality may lie at the heart of the very practices of which the body is the target: necrophilia, cremation, exhumation, burial outside the cemetery.

For each of these cases, the texts gathered here will seek to show how the funeral process is suspended, deviated from, degraded or even subverted, and to assess the impact of these dissidences on contemporary sensibilities; but also to identify the efforts, however minimal, to repair and re-establish a semblance of normality in funerals, and to identify the actors involved in both cases.

The text is in French.

The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death, and Ghosts in Urbanizing China

Kipnis, A. B. (2021) The Funeral of Mr. Wang: Life, Death and Ghosts in Urbanizing China, Oakland CA: University of California Press.

This text examines social change in urbanizing China through the lens of funerals, the funerary industry, and practices of memorialization. It analyzes changes in family life, patterns of urban sociality, transformations in economic relations, the politics of memorialization, and the echoes of these changes in beliefs about the dead and ghosts.

Listen to Andrew Kipnis discuss his book with anthropologist Suvi Rauto on the New Books Network.

Death and Funeral Practices in Portugal

Rafaela Ferraz Ferreira, Ana Júlia Almeida Miranda & Francisco Queiroz (2022) Death and Funeral Practices in Portugal, London: Routledge.

Funerary Practices in Serbia

Aleksandra Pavićević (2021) Funerary Practices in Serbia, Emerald Insight: Bingley.

The Chinese Deathscape: Grave Reform in Modern China

Mullaney, Thomas S. (ed.) (2019) The Chinese Deathscape: Grave Reform in Modern China, Stamford University Press.

This remarkable interactive publication is readable online and combines narrative analysis, visualized data and dynamic maps.

Visit the New Books Network to listen to Thomas S. Mullaney discuss Chinese funeral practices with Kristian Peterson.

Funerary Practices in England and Wales

Julie Rugg & Brian Parsons (2018) Funerary Practices in England and Wales, Bingley: Emerald.

Cemetery and Churchyard: Tradition and Modernity in Rural North Yorkshire

Julie Rugg (2013) Cemetery and Churchyard: Tradition and Modernity in Rural North Yorkshire, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

This key text explains the operation of the Burial Acts in England by tracing the history of burial in over 200 villages and towns in rural North Yorkshire. 

‘Anyone bent on writing seriously about almost any aspect of burial ground provision in England and Wales from the 1850s onwards will ignore this book at their peril.’

Stephen White, Ecclesiastical Law Journal.

Purchase the hardback via a local independent bookstore at the reduced cost of £30

Cultural Studies on Death and Dying in Scandinavia

Gustavsson, A. (2011) Cultural Studies on Death and Dying in Scandinavia, Oslo: Novus Press.

Anders Gustavsson, (b. 1940), professor of cultural history at the Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages, University of Oslo, 1997-2010 and senior professor since 2011. PhD from the University of Lund, 1972, then reader in ethnology at Lund, part time also in Gothenburg and Bergen; professor of ethnology, University of Uppsala, 1987-1997. His research has concerned popular religion, popular movements with emphasis on temperance and revivalistic movements, coastal culture, cultural meetings, tourism, border cultures, rites of passage, gravestone symbolism, memorial internet websites, popular paintings, fieldwork methodology, etc. This text brings together papers delivered at the International Society for Folk Narrative ­Research, SIEF (The Society Inter­national of Ethnology and Folklore) and NNT (Nordic Network of Thanatology) and translated into English.