*CFP* "DIFFICULT DEATH: CHALLENGING CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF DEATH, DYING AND THE DEAD IN MEDIA AND CULTURE", EDITED COLLECTION

Death and dying are difficult to avoid both in the global media and in popular culture. At times the representation of death, dying and the dead can be especially challenging for viewers. Yet at other times it can offer solace, escapism, or provoke engagement with mortality. 

Penfold-Mounce (2018) has examined how different popular cultural texts can promote both ‘safe’ and ‘provocative’ morbid spaces for engagement with death and the dead. For those who create cultural texts, ranging from novels to journalism to film and television, how to engage with and represent death, dying and the dead also represents particular challenges. Often, texts can themselves be challenged by those who engage with them for the difficult, revealing or problematic ways that they represent death. For example, as Luckhurst (2016) has argued, the representation of the living dead in zombie horror can be read as a form of social realism with its own necropolitics (Mbembe, 2003). From depictions of real or ‘natural’ death in documentary, journalism or narrative to dramatic depictions of violent deaths and the (un)dead in literature, film and television, there is ample opportunity to explore the ways in which death can be represented in difficult ways, can raise difficult questions, and can be difficult to engage with in media and culture.

Writing on death spans and transcends all academic disciplines, though much writing has recently found a locus in the developing field of Death Studies. Within Journalism Studies, more might be written about the interactions with death that many journalists encounter and must, as part of their career, prepare for. From the ‘death knock’ to reporting sensitive and traumatic events, investigations into this aspect of reporting tend to offer ethical guidance (see Luce, 2019) rather than a full exploration of the area. More research and discussion has taken place around photographic journalism and its encounters with death, with Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) and Barthes’ Camera Lucida (2000) offering widely cited explorations of the effect of photographic representation of the traumatised, dying and the dead. 

There are also photographers noted for their work in this area including Joel-Peter Witkin, Andreas Serrano (Morgue Series), Luc Delahaye and Robert Capa, all who have explored death through the camera lens.

Contributions might focus on:

• Representations of death and the dead in film, television and new media that can be read as ‘challenging’, or that might benefit from being ‘challenged’
• The challenges of reporting on death and dying
• The ways media can shape and inform responses to death and dying
• Cultural engagement with and representations of deaths often positioned or perceived as especially ‘difficult’ or ‘challenging’ (suicide, migrant deaths)
• Representations of ageing as a ‘problem’ in ways that conflate ageing and death
• The representation of difficult choices around euthanasia and palliative care

300-word abstracts along with a brief biography of no more than 150 words should be sent to difficultdeadbook@gmail.com by 1 May 2021.

At this stage, we have initial interest from two global publishers and will be submitting a full proposal once chapter abstracts have been collated. Authors will be contacted by 1 June to confirm whether their chapter has been selected and will be kept informed throughout the process.