Seven postgraduate students from the University of Winchester will see their work published alongside established academics in a new book about our interactions with death.
Religion, Death and the Senses, co-edited by Dr Christina Welch, Reader in Religious Studies and Death Studies, features chapters written or co-written by students from the University’s Death, Religion and Culture (DRC) programme.
Many of the students on the DRC Masters course bring their own practical expertise to the subject as they are people whose work is directly involved with death - such as funeral directors, embalmers, mortuary staff, bereavement counsellors and palliative care nurses.
Christina said: "There is a need to include the voices of these students, who are connected to death in their professional practice and who are rarely heard in the academic world.
“Getting their work published, often for the first time, gives the students prestige and confidence and can also help in their professional development and in the running of their business.”
Chapters in the new book include The Sense of Smell and the Odour of Death by Dr Wendy Birch, who manages the anatomy lab at University College London. She examines the way humans react to the scent of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) given off by our bodies after death.
In addition to smell, our other four physical senses are all covered in the book along with a sixth sense, movement, and three cultural senses – humour, decency and loss.
Funeral director Lucy Jacklin has co-authored a chapter with Christina, in which she uses her professional experience to explore our sense of decency with the relation to the display of human remains, specifically the plastinated body parts which make up the hugely successful Body World exhibitions.
Decency is also covered in a chapter on ‘dark tourism’ co-authored by Christina and Dr Alasdair Richardson, a Reader in Education and a specialist in Holocaust Education.
Other Winchester academics who have contributed to the book include: Laura Hubner, Professor of Film and Media, who looks at death and humour; Dr Olu Taiwo, a Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, who describes how the Yoruba people of West Africa perform masquerades to remember their ancestors and Dr Heidi Dawson-Hobbis, a Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, who explores the part played by touch in the examination of skeleton remains.
“I think this book showcases the breadth of the DRC Masters which is one of the few degrees of its kind and attracts students from all over the world,” said Christina.
She and twelve of the contributors will be taking part in an online launch of the book on 12 September at 6pm which is open to the public. Visit (20) UoW Press Office (@_UoWNews) / X to find details of the Teams meeting.
Religion, Death and the Senses co-edited by Jasmine Hazel Shadrack of Western University in Canada is published by Equinox priced £24.95 and is part of the publisher’s Religion and the Senses series.
Back to media centre