These are recordings of the 2025 – 2026 online events series. Please enjoy them at your leisure, and follow our new YouTube channel @DeathAndSociety.
Chair: Dr Panagiotis Pentaris
Speakers Presentations:
Dr Tamara Borovica, Dr Katrin Gerber & Prof. Larissa Hjorth – Environmental grief and how ecological crises reshape death and mourning practices.
Prof. Lionel Obadia – Digital afterlives and “deadbots,” examining the intersection of technology, culture, and inequality in postmortem representation.
Dr George Gumisiriza – Repatriation of bodies and ancestral remains, highlighting identity, justice, and colonial legacies.
Speakers Presentations:
Joshua Hurtado Hurtado – Death, grief, and remembrance under necropolitical violence in Latin America.
Dr Stacey Pitsillides, Dr Reem Tahlouk & Dr Sena Cerci – Druze beliefs around reincarnation, migration, and grief as cultural agency.
Dr Jane Ribbens McCarthy & Dr Sukhbinder Hamilton – Drawing on our lived experiences, we explore the implications of neo-coloniality in shaping the ‘reality’ of ‘bereavement’ and the ‘tasks’ of grief.
This medicalization and distancing creates a vacuum, where individuals no longer have an anchoring mourning practice and will lean on technologies that destroy the body as a crutch for a societal acceptance for grieving and slowing down.
While not a uniquely American problem, the United States is a convenient case study as it was the first nation to have a formalized crematory which could be argued worked as a catalyst for other technologies related to corpse management.
Feedback, personal stories and ideas for “what’s next” would be encouraged.
Speaker bio: Aspen is a student and Research Assistant for the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Towson University.
This session will explore how emerging grief technologies—referred to as DeathTech—can provide innovative pathways to support grieving individuals in correctional facilities. Incarcerated populations often experience profound loneliness and limited access to traditional mourning practices. Drawing from professional experience and technological expertise, Ronaldo Nooks will highlight tools such as virtual memorialization, AI-driven grief support, and funeral streaming technologies that bridge these emotional gaps. The event will also examine the ethical, cultural, and societal dimensions of using technology in grief care, particularly for marginalized and justice-involved communities. Attendees will be invited to reflect on how digital solutions may disrupt or reinforce social inequalities surrounding grief, and how DeathTech can be responsibly implemented. This presentation is aimed at professionals, researchers, and practitioners across disciplines who are interested in the intersection of technology, grief, and justice. It encourages a broader conversation on modernizing grief care while centering compassion and inclusivity. Speaker bio: Rolando Nooks is a technologist, Solution Architect, and Grief in Corrections Advocate with over 25 years of experience in the technology field. He is the founder of Compassionate Reprieve, an organization dedicated to addressing grief and loss within correctional facilities. Rolando bridges technology with trauma-informed care, specializing in the integration of grief technology (DeathTech) solutions. He is the author of AI and Grief in Corrections: Safer, Healthier Connections and a strong voice for marginalized, justice-involved populations.
Perinatal loss has a significant effect on the psychosynthesis of the mother. Such a loss is associated with future psychological complications and represents a key risk factor for the appearance of depressive symptoms. Even though approximately 6.3 million perinatal deaths occur per year according to the WHO, many parents who experience a perinatal loss feel they have no right to express the feeling of loss and grief, unlike those who mourn for socially recognized deaths. The recognition and acceptance of women’s perinatal loss constitutes the main stage of dealing with perinatal bereavement and in this condition healthcare scientists, take a center stage to contribute. Maria Papalampropoulou is a social worker and counselor with women who have experienced gender-based or domestic violence. Concurrently, she is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Western Macedonia in the field of Anthropology of Health. Her research investigates perinatal bereavement and women’s ability to adjust through the grieving process, including the need for psychoeducation of health professionals dealing with the issue of perinatal death. Her scientific interests also include theoretical and methodological approaches to gender issues as well as inclusive practices to ensure the equality of LGBTI+ people. She gives lectures to gender courses as a Ph.D candidate at the Department of Communication and Digital Media of the University of Western Macedonia.
In this presentation he will outline the main elements of what we call “the radical fact of death” in contemporary political theory, in particular in the works of Elias Canetti, Jacques Derrida and Ernest Becker. We will show that, for all of them, politics must be understood within its own immersion in the mystery of death.
She shows how the core concept of personhood connects disparate political themes when pregnancies end in death. This includes the politics of personhood and the foetus; abortion politics; biopolitics and the state; the power of biomedicine; hierarchies of loss and grievability; and resistance and agency in bereavement and mourning.
The talk critically examines religious freedom in Italy within the broader European integration context, advocating for stronger policies to support religious expression at the end of life and exploring how funeral laws can either foster or hinder social cohesion among minority communities.
Have we got preferences for the place we want to die and how have these been shaped? What are the drivers and nuances which influence and define where we are going to die? What is the role of family / loved ones / community in the decision making?