Forthcoming events

19.05.12
Night at the (Future) Cemetery

26.05 - 02.09.12
Presence: The art of portrait sculpture

30.05.12
End of life care of adults with a learning disability

07-08.07.12
London Funeral Exhibition

21-23.08.12
At the Margins of Life

13.09.12
Attachment Theory

19.11.12
Death and the Family

05.12.12
Violent Death

Events

Here you will find a selection of events, symposia and workshops happening over the next few months.

Some of these events are organised and run by CDAS, others have CDAS involvement and some are organised by other organisations that we feel may be of interest to you. Please see the contact details section under each event for who to contact for further details and to book.

To see details of conferences, visit our conference page.

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

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

For past events, seminars and conferences organised by CDAS or which involved CDAS members, visit our past events archive

Night at the (Future) Cemetery

19 May 2012, 19.30
Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol

Arnos Vale’s “Future Cemetery” brings stories to life for visitors this Saturday 19th May in a Night to remember in the Cemetery...

This summer, Arnos Vale tests new technologies to augment the visitor experience at the cemetery, as part of the REACT Heritage Sandbox project. The REACT Heritage Sandbox project is one of four Knowledge Exchange Hubs for The Creative Economy, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and based at the Watershed. It aims to link university academics with creative industries across the South West, to develop and test new ways of bringing stories to life in our heritage sites. Read more about the project on our research pages.

The Future Cemetery project at Arnos Vale aims to use digital technology to bring new stories to life in Arnos Vale.

Felicia Smith, Public Engagement Manager at Arnos Vale Cemetery, says:
“This is a really exciting opportunity for us to develop new and creative ways to engage visitors with the rich stories to be found here at Arnos Vale. We’re researching a range of technologies we might like to use, from image projection to soundscapes, theatre to smartphone apps. We will be testing these on unsuspecting members of the public at this Saturday’s Night at the (Future) Cemetery guided tour, to see what works and what doesn’t. But we also want to discover what visitors most enjoy, and how they feel about visiting a cemetery.”

 The Future Cemetery project will commission some original writing and test a range of technologies at public events happening in May and June, starting with this weekend’s evening tour, Night at the (Future) Cemetery, Saturday 19th May at 7.30pm, before sharing the findings in a Future Cemetery public event on Saturday 30th June at Arnos Vale.

Follow the Future Cemetery Project:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefuturecemetery       
Twitter: @FutureCemetery and #futurecemetery
Blog: http://www.watershed.co.uk/ished/heritagesandbox/projects/2012/the-future-cemetery/

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture

26 May 2012 - 2 September 2012
Holburne Museum, Bath
Admission £6.95 / concessions

This original and inventive exhibition brings together some of the most striking sculpted portraits from the ancient world to the modern day. The first exhibition of sculpture to be held at Bath’s transformed Holburne Museum, Presence: the Art of Portrait Sculpture includes astonishing heads from Ancient Greece and Rome; eighteenth century masterpieces; works by some of the 20th century’s greatest sculptors including Giacometti and Brancusi, the waxwork of Henry Moore once at Madame Tussaud’s and sculptures by such major contemporary artists as Marc Quinn and Ron Mueck.

With exceptionally generous and important loans from the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and Tate, as well as from regional and private collections the exhibition collects together many supreme examples of the sculptor’s art to explore the often troubling power of the sculpted portrait. The exhibition considers the ways in which sculptors have exploited this potency to make the absent present or the dead seem alive; from the mummy masks of ancient Egypt (on loan from the British Museum) to the extraordinary death mask of the painter Thomas Lawrence, cast with the sheet and pillow of his death bed (from the National Portrait Gallery collection).

For further information on the exhibition, visit http://www.holburne.org/portrait-sculpture/

End of Life care of adults with a learning disability

30 May 2012
Sobell House, Sobell Study Centre, Oxford
£90

There are 1.5 million people in the UK with a learning disability and, due to improved health and social care, this number will increase by over 30% during the next 10 years. Consequently there is a pressing need to develop good practice in end of life care for this population. This study day id offered by two of the leading practitioners in the field and will explore the complex issues involved in providing end of life care for adults with a learning disability. Noelle Blackman and Linda McEnhill will explore how to talk about death and dying, how to help people make choices about their end of life care and the importance of developing partnerships with carers and other professionals.

This interactive study day will help participants to:

• Gain an understanding of the complex issues involved in providing end of life care for people with a learning disability
• Gain confidence in communicating with people about end of life care and their choices
• Gain understanding of the difference settings in which people with a learning disability may be living and how to support them in these settings
• Develop awareness of the importance of developing partnerships to combine learning disability expertise with end of life expertise.

This day will b of interest to all whose work brings them into contact with people who have a learning disability.

For an application form and full details, visit the Sobell House website:
Web:  http://www.sobell-house.org.uk/

London Funeral Exhibition
‘If you go down to the woods today’

07-08 July 2012
Chiltern Woodland Burial Park

The Funeral Exhibition with a difference, this event is open to the public and to trade. Set in 72 acres of mature woodland, exhibitors will be in the beautiful Woodland Hall, courtyard and woodland.

Space is available now for exhibitors to book, £150 per space (6m x 4m). Exhibitors need to supply their own tables, chairs and canopies, refreshments will be provided free of charge.

For more information and to book your space, contact:
Tel: 01494 872158
Email: angie.whitaker@woodlandburialparks.co.uk
          Peter.taylor@woodlandburialparks.co.uk

You can find more information on last year’s event at:
http://www.woodlandburialparks.co.uk/London-Funeral-Exhibition-2011.ice
Further details of the programme will be announced closer to the date.

At the Margins of Life and Death: Doctoral Course

21-23 August 2012
The University of Copenhagen, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies
Price: 4.680 DKK

This course focuses on notions, materialities and regulations of life and death in the laboratory, in the clinic, and among patients and users of medical science and technology. It looks at how borders between life and death are established in socio-material practices and it takes up issues of suffering, dignity and the quality of life related to medical science and technology. The course will be structured around three themes: beginnings of life, extensions of life, and endings of life. The life in question may be the cell, the embryo, the newborn, the comatose, the old, the demented, the research animal. Analytically and methodologically the course draws on sociological, historical, and anthropological approaches to practices of beginning, extending and ending life.

Doctoral students from public health and the social sciences in Denmark and elsewhere are eligible to apply. The course language will be English.

The course will take the form of lectures in the mornings, with student presentations and discussions in the afternoons.

ECTS-credits: 5,2

Course directors:
Associate professor Mette N. Svendsen
Professor Lene Koch

Invited lecturers:
Professor Sharon Kaufman, Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine, University of California, San Francisco.
Professor Lynn Morgan, Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts

Registration: Before 15 May 2012 via the web application: http://phdkursus.sund.ku.dk/frontPlanner/DetailKursus.aspx?id=95753

On acceptance participants will be asked to submit a paper of five pages by the 1st of August. Papers should describe how the PhD project takes up the theme of life and death. During the course each participant will have 20 minutes to present his/her paper, which will be followed by comments from resource persons (course directors and invited lecturers) as well as a general discussion. The two invited lecturers, Sharon Kaufman and Lynn Morgan, will take part in the entire course. Admission for Ph.D. students will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Applications from external participants will be considered after the closing date. The application must be sent via the web-application.

Attachment Theory – Latest Thinking: Understanding threats, stresses and losses in child and adult life

John Bowlby's insights into the role of the attachment system continue to be fleshed out by new research. One approach which raises important      questions for those involved in counselling others comes from the functionalist theory of emotions – what evolved functions their expressive and experiential components may serve, and how this relates to clients'    attachment styles. Modulating one's counselling style to take account of this and also of their stage along the life-span and their socio-demographic    position can hopefully improve the way we help with distress

For more information and to book, please visit www.stchristophers.org.uk

Death and the Family
Social Aspects of Death, Dying and Bereavement (DDB) Study Group

19 November 2012
BSA London Meeting Room, Imperial Wharf
£40, £35 BSA members, £25 Postgraduate students

Currently much is made of the dying individual, but their deaths take place in a wider social context, in particular the family. Relationships at the end of life and post-death are central to how death, dying and bereavement are experienced. Sociologically, how death is handled within families can reveal much about the networks in which people operate, and the ways in which people create meaning and attribute value in light of life and death.

We invite papers that theoretically and empirically consider our understanding of the family in relation to death. It is anticipated that topics covered by this call could include, but are not limited to: caring and carework, advocacy, fictive and new forms of kinship, ageing and generational difference(s), social networks/capital, reproductive loss, social death, bereavement and continuing bonds, funeral participation, mourning and memorialisation, as well as ethical issues surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Please send 250 word abstracts to Erica Borgstrom (eb442@medschl.cam.ac.uk).

Deadline for abstract submission is 5pm Monday 10th September 2012.

Symposium fees: Early Bird Registration for the symposium closes on Monday 29th October. Fees are £25 for Postgraduates, £35 BSA members, £40 for non-members. Registrations after 30th October incur a £5 late booking fee.

Please visit the event website http://www.britsoc.co.uk/specialisms/DDB.htm#_activity to register and for further symposium details.

For more details about the study groups please visit
http://www.britsoc.co.uk/specialisms/DDB.htm

Please direct any administrative enquiries to the BSA office at events@britsoc.org.uk and any academic enquires to k.v.woodthorpe@bath.ac.uk.

Violent Death: Can an understanding of love and loss help to break cycles of  deadly conflict?

5 December 2012, 14.00-16.00
St Christopher’s Hospice, London
£35

 In our work with dying and bereaved people we learn a great deal about fear, love and loss. In recent years Colin has been working with two groups familiar with the problems to which these give rise. They are exploring the relevance of this knowledge for an understanding of the roots of cycles of deadly conflict at group and national level. At this meeting he will present a progress report covering the roots of extremism, responses to terrorism (including 9/11), and the psychological factors playing a part in the peace processes in Ireland and Rwanda.

For more information and to book, please visit www.stchristophers.org.uk