Trouble with Death: Making Sense of Mortality in the Anthropocene

Are we accepting of death, or in denial of it? What insights can we gain from the ways death has been imagined, theorized, and organized throughout Western social and intellectual history that might help us respond meaningfully to the climate emergency?

This interdisciplinary study begins with the role of tragedy in Greek antiquity and examines European attitudes toward death, especially their entanglement with colonial atrocities and politically organized killings.

Drawing on the work of philosophers, sociologists, historians, and psychoanalysts, this is a resounding call to confront our responsibility for the lives of others―and the future of life itself―amid the existential threats of the Anthropocene.

Finn Bowring is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University.