People

Tony Walter

Office:              3 East 4.3
Telephone:      +44 (1225) 383595
Email:              j.a.walter@bath.ac.uk

1. Professor of Death Studies (half-time). Previously freelance writer, before becoming in 1994 Lecturer (then Reader) in Sociology at the University of Reading.
2. Also freelance trainer, in particular working with the churches and Civil Ceremonies Ltd training funeral celebrants.
3. Book review editor of the journal Mortality

RESEARCH

My main research interest since the late 1980s has been the sociology of death, dying, bereavement, funerals, pilgrimage and afterlife beliefs. How do societies organise, symbolise, theorise and ritualise the exit of their members? How does a country (say the UK) each year care for ½ million dying people, dispose of ½ million corpses, manage more than ½ million bereaved members, and (depending on your point of view) help ½ million souls on to the next life, not to mention represent all this in art, television and other media? What occupations mediate between the living and the dead? How are public figures mourned? Even within the industrialised West, different societies tackle these fundamental tasks in very different ways, opening these questions up to intriguing comparative and historical analysis. Such questions are clearly central for the sociology of medicine, the sociology of the body, the sociology of religion, and the sociology of the mass media. I have also built up wide-ranging contacts with archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and psychologists working in this area.

Up to the late 1980s, I worked on the sociology of deviance, family, religion, landscape, tourism, work and unemployment. My PhD (Aberdeen 1975) was an interactionist study of a school for young offenders. Four themes have permeated much of my work: 
* Late 1980s to the present: the sociology of death. 
* Early 1980s to the present: Public policy concerning work and money (an interest deriving from my own experience of employment, unemployment and self-employment) 
* Late 1970s to the present: The physical space in which social interaction and ritual take place (hence the interest in landscape, tourism, pilgrimage, crematoria, etc. Part of me always wanted to be a geographer, another part an architect!) 
* Early 1970s to later 1980s: The relation between sociology and religious faith (this deriving from my earlier religious faith, though I am now agnostic)

To hear Tony speak about the sociology of death, click here. This will direct you to the UK Future TV site, you will need a media player to view the file.

BOOKS ON THE SOCIOLOGY OF DEATH

On Bereavement: the culture of grief, Open University Press, 1999.
This is the first attempt at a sociology of bereavement since the work of Gorer (1965) and Marris (1974). Drawing on Durkheim’s concepts of integration and regulation, it explores a) the positioning of bereaved people between the living and the dead and b) the ‘policing’ of grief by families and other social groups.

The Mourning for Diana, Berg, 1999. Editor.
A collection of ethnographies, documenting what happened in the week or two after Princess Diana’s death, together with a small number of analytical essays. Published in an anthropology list with a special interest in material culture.

The Eclipse of Eternity - a sociology of the afterlife, Basingstoke: Macmillan, New York: St Martin’s Press1996
If religion, historically at least in the West, has been about fear/hope of death and life after death, it is extraordinary that the sociology of secularisation has almost totally ignored the question of afterlife beliefs in a secular society. The book reviews relevant evidence/literature, in order to clarify the research questions that need to be addressed. The book is unusual in bringing together the sociology of religion and a sociological understanding of death in modern society.

The Revival of Death, London & New York: Routledge1994.
This is the first book since Lofland in the late 1970s to sociologically analyse the ‘death and dying’ social movement. In so doing, it breaks new ground in relating recent work in the medical sociology of death to wider sociological debates on modernity and postmodernity.

Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, Basingstoke: Macmillan 1993. Ed., with Ian Reader.
Several of the pilgrimages described in the book are to shrines made sacred by their association with the dead, whether a medieval saint, Elvis, soldiers or war protesters.

Funerals - and how to improve them, London: Hodder 1990.
The first book I wrote on death, a bit upside down in that I wrote this book for the popular market before I’d done the academic research. However, this book is thoroughly informed sociologically, historically and anthropologically, and illustrates the value of a sociological approach to funerals. Some reviewers’ comments:
‘Sets us free to choose whether to follow established traditions or to do something different’ - Colin Parkes
‘This book is of fundamental importance’ - The Archbishop of Canterbury
‘Deserves to be widely read and discussed’ - British Humanist Association
‘A paperback mini-encyclopaedia that reads as enticingly as fiction’ - Methodist Recorder

Quick links

Research

Books - sociology of death

Articles on death and dying

General
Spirituality
Mourning
Public Mourning
Pilgrimage and tourism to sites of death
The Spatial Context
Representation
Reincarnation
Viewing human remains
Funerals
Medium and mediators
Comparative sociology

Articles on other subjects

Sociology of landscape & place
Unemployment/Social Security
Criminology/Penology
Sociology of Religion

PhD Students

Back to list of CDAS members

Articles on Death in Academic Journals, & Chapters

General

(2008) ‘Sociology of Death’, Sociology Compass, 2(1): 317-336. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00069.x  
(1999) (with Peter Jupp) ‘The Healthy Society’ in P. Jupp & C. Gittings, eds Death in England: an illustrated history, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
(1995) ‘Natural Death and the Noble Savage’ Omega, 30(4): 237-48.
(1993) ‘Sociologists Never Die: British Sociology & Death’, in D Clark, ed The Sociology of Death, Blackwell.
(1991) ‘Modern Death: Taboo or Not Taboo?’ Sociology, 25(2). Abbreviated version reprinted in D . Dickenson & M. Johnson, Dying, Death and Bereavement, Sage, London 1992.

Spirituality

Drawing on the sociology of religion, these articles analyse different spiritual traditions and in particular the rise of interest in spiritual care within secular health care settings – do these open up a new space for the spiritual or whether they subtly secularise the spiritual?

(2003) ‘Hospices and Rituals after Death: a survey of British hospice chaplains’, Int Jnl of Palliative Nursing, 9(2): 80-85.
(2002) 'Spirituality in Palliative Care: opportunity or burden?', Palliative Medicine, 16(1).
(1997) ‘Developments in Spiritual Care of the Dying’ Religion, 26: 1-11.
(1997) ‘The Ideology and Organisation of Spiritual Care: Three Approaches’, Palliative Medicine, 11,: 1-10.
(1996) ‘Secularisation’, pp. 166-87 in P. Laungani, C.M. Parkes & W. Young, eds Death and Bereavement Across Cultures, London: Routledge.
(1993) ‘Death in the New Age’ Religion, 23(2): 1-19.

Mourning

These pieces look sociologically at a phenomenon more usually seen as in the domain of psychology.

(2009) 'Grief and the Seperation of Home and Work', Death Studies, 33: 402-410
(2007) (with Jeff Hass) 'Parental Grief in Three Societies: networks and religion as social supports in mourning'. Omega 54(3): 179-198
(2007) 'Postmodern Grief', commissioned article for special issue of International Review of Sociology/Revue Internationale de Sociologie, 17(1): 123-34
(2006) ‘What is Complicated Grief? A social constructionist answer’, Omega, 52(1): 71-79.
(2001) (with D. Klass) ‘Continuing Bonds and Creating Biographies’, pp.431-48 in M. Stroebe, R. Hansson, W. Stroebe & H. Schut (eds) Handbook of Bereavement Research: Consequences, Coping and Care, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
(2000) ‘Grief Narratives: the role of medicine in the contemporary policing of grief’, Anthropology & Medicine, 7(1): 97-114.
(1997) ‘Letting Go and Keeping Hold: a reply to Stroebe’ Mortality, 2(3):263-6.
(1997) ‘Emotional Reserve and the English Way of Grief’ in K. Charmaz, G. Howarth & A. Kellehear (eds) The Unknown Country: experiences of death in Australia, Britain and the USA, Macmillan,
(1996) ‘Bereavement Models’ Progress in Palliative Care, Vol 4.
(1996) ‘A New Model of Grief: Bereavement and Biography’ Mortality, 1(1).

Public Mourning

Diana, Hillsborough, etc.

(2008) ‘Public Mourning: Genuine Grief or Crocodile Tears?’, commissioned chapter for M. Stroebe, R. Hansson, W. Stroebe & H. Schut, eds Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice: 21st century perspectives, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
(2001) 'From Cathedral to Supermarket: mourning, silence and solidarity', Sociological Review, 49(4): 494-511.  
(1998) (with Lucy Biddle) ‘The Emotional English and their Queen of Hearts’ Folklore, 108: 96-9.
(1998) ‘Diana, Queen of Hearts: mourning and social solidarity’ pp. 49-57 in C. Sugden ed. Death of a Princess: making sense of a nation’s grief, London: Silver Fish Publishing.
(1991) ‘The Mourning After Hillsborough’ Sociological Review, 39(3): 599-625.

Pilgrimage and tourism to sites of death

(2009) ‘Dark Tourism: Mediating Between the Dead and the Living’, pp.39-55 in R. Sharpley & P. Stone, eds The Darker Side of Travel: the theory and practice of dark tourism, Bristol: Channel View Publications.
(1993) ‘War Grave Pilgrimage’, pp. 63-91 in I. Reader & T. Walter, eds, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
(1993) (with RW Sellars) ‘From Custer to Kent State: heroes, martyrs and the evolution of popular shrines in the USA’, pp 179-200 in I. Reader & T. Walter, eds Pilgrimage in Popular Culture

The Spatial Context

These publications pick up my earlier interest in the sociology of place and in material culture. (See also the publications on Diana, and on funerals below.)

(2010) Gittings, C & Walter, T. 'Rest in Peace? Burial on Private Land', in A. Maddrell & J. Sidaway, eds New Spaces for Death, Dying and Bereavement, Aldershot: Ashgate
(2010) Walter, T & Gittings, C. 'What will the Neighbours Say? Reactions to Field and Garden Burial' in J. Hockey, C. Komaromy, K. Woodthorpe, eds, The Matter of Death: space, place and materiality, Basingstoke: Palgrave
(1999) ‘A Death in our Street’ Health and Place, 5: 119-24.
(1993) ‘War Grave Pilgrimage’, pp. 63-91 in I. Reader & T. Walter, eds, Pilgrimage in Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
(1993) (with RW Sellars) ‘From Custer to Kent State: heroes, martyrs and the evolution of popular shrines in the USA’, pp 179-200 in I. Reader & T. Walter, eds Pilgrimage in Popular Culture
(1988) ‘Stone’, Landscape 30(1): 12-14.
(1984) ‘Death as Recreation: armchair mountaineering, Leisure Studies 3(1) Jan.

Representations

These publications both look at public, and especially graphic (but also musical), representations of death. Ariès and other historians have argued that visual representation of death stopped around the early 20c. I show that this is far from the case, once one shifts the gaze from art to more popular representations.

(2010) 'Jade and the Journalists: media coverage of a British celebrity dying of cancer', Social Science and Medicine
(2009) 'Jade's Dying Body: the ultimate reality show', Sociological Research Online, 14(5) http://www.socresonline.org.uk/14/5/1.html
(2005) ‘Disaster, Modernity, and the Media’ in K. Garces-Foley, ed. Death and Religion in a Changing World, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
(1995) (with Katherine Froggatt) ‘Hospice Logos’  Jnl of Palliative Care, 11(4).
(1998) (with J. Littlewood & M. Pickering) ‘Good Wives and Wicked Women: They All Died Happily Ever After?’ in J. Littlewood, ed. Images of Women, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
(1997) (with J. Littlewood & M. Pickering) ‘Beauty and the Beast: sex and death in the tabloid press’, in D. Field, J. Hockey & N. Small, eds, Death, Gender & Ethnicity, London: Routledge.
(1995) (with M. Pickering & J. Littlewood) ‘Death in the News: the public invigilation of private emotion’, Sociology, 29(4): 579-96.
(1992) ‘Angelic Choirs: on the non-secularisation of choral music’ The Musical Times, June
(1991) ‘The Mourning After Hillsborough’ Sociological Review, 39(3): 599-625..
(1984) ‘Death as Recreation: armchair mountaineering, Leisure Studies 3(1) Jan.

Reincarnation

On popular belief in reincarnation in the modern West.

(2003) (with Helen Waterhouse) ‘Reincarnation Belief and the Christian Churches’, Theology, 106 (829): 20-28
(2001) (with Helen Waterhouse) ‘Lives-Long Learning: the effects of reincarnation belief on everyday life in England', Nova Religio, 3(1): 85-101.
(2001) ‘Reincarnation, Modernity and Identity’, Sociology, 35(1): 21-38.
(2001) (with Helen Waterhouse) ‘Une Simple Coquille: le corps et la réincarnation’ (‘Just an Overcoat: the body and reincarnation’), Recherches Sociologiques,.
(1999) (with Helen Waterhouse) ‘A Very Private Belief: Reincarnation in Contemporary England’ Sociology of Religion, 60(2): 187-97.

Viewing Human Remains

On Gunther von Hagens’ BodyWorlds / Körperwelten exhibition and other public viewings of human remains.

(forthcoming) ‘Seventeen Ways to View a Corpse’, commissioned chapter for G. Howarth, ed. Modern Death, Reaktion Books.
(2008) 'To See for Myself: informed consent and the culture of openness' Journal of Medical Ethics Vol 34 (9) pp675-8
(2004) ‘Plastination for Display: a new way to dispose of the dead’, Jnl of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10(3):
(2004) ‘Body Worlds: clinical detachment or anatomical awe?’, Sociology of Health & Illness, 26(4): 464-88.

Funerals

On funerals, burial and cremation.

(2006) ‘Three Ways to Arrange a Funeral’, Mortality, 10(3): 173-92.
(2005) (with G. Cook) ‘Rewritten Rites: language and social relations in traditional and contemporary funerals’ Discourse & Society, 16(4): 365-91.
(2001) ‘I Funerali Alla Svolta del Millennio’, pp. 37-42 in M. Sozzi, ed. La Scena degli Addii: morte e riti funebri nella società occidentale contemporanea, Torino: Paravia Scriptorium.
(1996) ‘Funeral Flowers - a response to Drury’ Folklore, 107: 106-7
(1993) ‘Dust Not Ashes: The American Preference for Burial’ Landscape, 32(1).
(1997) ‘Committal in the Crematorium: theology, death and architecture’ in P. Jupp & T. Rogers (eds) Funerals, Bereavement and Christian Theology, London: Cassell.

Mediums and Mediators

On occupations that mediate between the living and the dead.

(2009) 'Dark Tourism: Mediating Between the Dead and the Living’, pp.39-55 in R. Sharpley & P. Stone, eds The Darker Side of Travel: the theory and practice of dark tourism, Bristol: Channel View Publications.
(2009) ‘Communicating with the Dead’ in C. Bryant & D. Peck, eds Death and the Human Experience, Sage.
(2007) ‘Mediums and Mourners’, Theology. 110(854): 92-100
(2006) 'Telling the Dead Man's Tale: bridging the gap between the living and the dead', Bereavement Care, 25(2): 23-6
(2005) ‘Mediator Deathwork’, Death Studies, 29(5), 383-412.

Comparative Sociology

My most long-standing interest in the sociology of death concerns variations within the modern world in practices around death.

(forthcoming) ‘Seventeen Ways to View a Corpse’, commissioned chapter for G. Howarth, ed. Modern Death, Reaktion Books.
(2007) (with Jeff Hass) ‘Parental Grief in Three Societies: networks and religion as social supports in mourning’, Omega, 54(3): 179-198.
(2006) ‘Three Ways to Arrange a Funeral’, Mortality, 10(3): 173-92.
(1999) On Bereavement, Buckingham, Open University Press, ch.8.
(1997) ‘Emotional Reserve and the English Way of Grief’ in K. Charmaz, G. Howarth & A. Kellehear (eds) The Unknown Country: experiences of death in Australia, Britain and the USA, Macmillan
(1993) ‘Dust Not Ashes: The American Preference for Burial’ Landscape, 32(1)

PUBLICATIONS ON OTHER SUBJECTS 

Sociology of Landscape & Place

Several of these publications analyse landscape perception, including tourist behaviour, drawing on a number of sociological perspectives, e.g. Durkheim, Mary Douglas, Fred Hirsch.
(2001) 'From Cathedral to Supermarket: mourning, silence and solidarity', Sociological Review, 49(4): 494-511.   (Also listed above)
(1996) ‘From Museum to Morgue? Electronic Guides in Roman Bath’ Tourism Management, 17(4): 241-5.
(1988 ) ‘Stone’, Landscape30(1)
(1987 ) ‘Hubris & Humility: Ralph Allen of Bath’. Landscape29(3)
(1985) ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?  The American Lawn’ Landscape Research 10(3)
(1985) ‘Order and Chaos in Landscape’, Landscape Research 10(1) Spring
(1983 ) ‘You'll Love the Rockies’, Landscape 27(2)
(1982) The Human Home: the myth of the sacred environment, Tring: Lion, 224pp.
(1982) ‘Social Limits to Tourism’. Leisure Studies 1(3) Sept.

Unemployment/Social Security

Basic Income and Fair Shares concern social policy, setting out the pros and cons of various kinds of social security reform.
(1993) ‘Basic Income in Europe’ Jnl of Progressive Human Services, 4(1): 19-28.
(1988) Basic Income: freedom from poverty, freedom to work, London & New York: Marion Boyars, 175pp
(1985) Hope on the Dole, London: SPCK, 206pp   An interview study of creative unemployment.
(1985) Fair Shares? an ethical guide to income tax and social security reform, Edinburgh:Handsel Press, 152pp

Criminology/Penology
 
These publications arose from my doctoral work on staff-inmate interaction in a residential school for young offenders, using participant observation and symbolic interactionism.
(1980) ‘Towards Eliminating the Jericho Road: privatisation, responsibility and delinquency’, Howard Journal of Penology & Crime Prevention 19(1)
(1978) Sent Away: a study of young offenders in care, Aldershot: Gower, 178pp.
(1978) ‘Talking About Trouble: accounting for untoward behaviour in a List D school’, British Journal of Criminology 18(4) Oct.
(1977) ‘A Critique of Sociological Studies of Approved Schools’, British Journal of Criminology 17(4) Oct

Sociology of/and Religion

The last three works analyse implicit religion in secular society. See also the articles listed earlier on spiritual care.
(1999) ‘Sociology in Evangelical Theological Colleges’, pp. 104-12 in L. Francis (ed.) Sociology, Theology and the Curriculum, London: Cassell.
(1997) Charismatic Christianity: sociological perspectives, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Ed., with Steven Hunt & Malcolm Hamilton.
(1996) The Eclipse of Eternity - a sociology of the afterlife, for details, see above.
(1998) (with Grace Davie) ‘The Religiosity of Women in the Modern West’ British Jnl of Sociology, 49(4): 640-60.
(1998) (with Steve Hunt) ‘The Charismatic Movement and Contemporary Social Change’ Religion, 28(3): 219-21.
(1995) ‘Being Known: Mutual Surveillance in the House Group’ Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 89: 1-14. Participation observation study in a charismatic Anglican church.
(1993) Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, for details, see above.
(1985) All You Love is Need, London: SPCK, 173pp. Published in USA as Need: The New Religion, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press
(1979) A Long Way from Home: a sociological exploration of contemporary idolatry, Exeter: Paternoster, 210pp. Published in USA as Sacred Cows, Grand Rapids: Zondervan

Plus 100 articles in encyclopaedias, professional journals, serious magazines and newspapers.

PhD STUDENTS

Tara Bailey – Feminisation of the contemporary British funeral
Gaelle Jolly – Conservation of historic cemeteries
Ann Malamah-Thomas – The grief of nations: Lebanon, Palestine, Israel
Elizabeth Purcell – Denial of dying
Joe Scofield – Local churches and community development

Natasha Donnelly (University of Reading)  - Suicide narratives