New Perspectives on Urban Deathscapes

Establishing a new set of international perspectives on experiences of death, disposition and remembrance in urban environments, this book brings deathscapes – material, embodied and emotional places associated with dying and death – to life. It pushes the boundaries of established empirical and conceptual understandings of death in urban spaces through anthropological, geographical and ethnographic insights.

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.

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.