Conferences

For details of the CDAS seminar series, visit our seminar page.

For a full list of all activities chronologically, please view our calendar.

To read about past conferences CDAS have been involved in, including the Death, Dying and Disposal series, visit our past events pages.

CDAS Conference 2010

• Call for Papers and Booking Form (pdf)

Related Links

• Seminar series
• Events
• Calendar
• News from CDAS
• In the news
• Past events

Centre for Death & Society Annual Conference

A Good Send Off: Local, Regional & National Variations in how the British Dispose of their Dead

Saturday 19 June 2010, 9:30-17:00
at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, Bath, UK

Booking Form (pdf)

A full programme will be posted in spring 2010.

CALL FOR PAPERS

There are major variations in funerals, burial and cremation within Britain. Ethnic and class variations have, to some extent, been explored, but regional variations – though common knowledge among funeral professionals and folklorists – are rarely analysed rigorously or comparatively. This conference will examine regional and local variations in how the dead are, and were, disposed of in the UK, including funeral rites, burial, cremation and commemoration. It will aim to untangle what is British, what is national (Scottish, English, Welsh, Irish), and what is regional or local about how the British dispose of and commemorate their dead, and why variations take the form they do.

Papers are invited on any aspect of this theme, for example:
• What has been the influence of Scotland and England’s different legal systems, and their very different 16th century reformations?
• Does funeral dress vary regionally, and why?
• In a number of places only men attend the burial – is this related to region (e.g., Celtic fringe), or economy (e.g., fishing or mining communities)?
• Princess Diana was England’s Rose. Was her mourning more English than British?
• Are there regional variations in woodland burial? Does it appeal to a specifically English, rather than British, culture of trees and countryside?
• How is Welsh or Irish identity expressed in funerals?
• How are ancient burial practices read through the lens of today’s local or national identities?
• Who do the ancient dead belong to – local community, nation state, or the world?

Papers are invited from scholars in sociology, anthropology, archaeology, folklore, geography, history, theology, religious studies, cultural studies, literature, psychology, law and from practitioners in the funeral, cemetery and cremation industries. Please send a title and provisional abstract (under 200 words) to Tony Walter, jaw34@bath.ac.uk or tel: 0044 (0)1225 383595, by 20 January 2010 at the latest.

The conference will be held in the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, located in Queens Square in the centre of historic Georgian Bath (car park nearby, Bath Spa station 10 mins walk, Bristol Airport 1 hour). The cost will be £25 (includes coffee and a light lunch). For those staying in Bath, there will be opportunities to socialise informally over a drink (Friday evening) or meal (Saturday evening).

Please check this page for conference updates.

For information about the venue, local area and accommodation, see the following websites:
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute
City of Bath
Accommodation in Bath
Hostels in Bath