For a long time, the story goes (and with a strong nod towards M. Foucault), we twenty-first century humans supported a post-Victorian death-denying culture, and we continue to be dominated by it even today. Thus the image of the late twentieth century/early twenty-first century death-denying prude is emblazoned on our restrained and mute denials of death. So this epic story goes and is repeated on a daily basis. Indeed, it seems far easier to present the death is now denied and repressed thesis while making nostalgic gestures towards the Victorians than actually discussing death.

But if everyone is discussing how death is repressed and denied, then aren’t we still talking about death?

A new 21st century approach to death, dying, and the dead body is only possible if we First World Humans reject the denial and repression thesis and come to understand our increasingly technologically mediated mortality.

Dr. John Troyer is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. His interdisciplinary research focuses on contemporary memorialization practices, concepts of spatial historiography, and the dead body’s relationship with technology. Dr. Troyer is also a theatre director and installation artist with extensive experience in site-specific performance across the United States and Europe. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website (http://www.deathreferencedesk.org), the Future Cemetery Project (http://www.futurecemetery.com) and a frequent commentator for the BBC. His forthcoming book, Technologies of the Human Corpse (published by the University of North Carolina Press), will appear in 2015.

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