Accommodating the Dead

This series explores the evolving and multifaceted subject of the dead body, and the diverse ways in which humans engage with it. While the dead body has long been recognized as a cru-cial factor in human encounters with death, its presence and implications remain under-theorized in many areas of scholarship. Accommodating the Dead addresses this crucial gap by bringing together research on the materialities, technologies, and ritual practices associated with the treatment of the dead across diverse historical, cultural, and social contexts.

While Death Studies is inherently multidisciplinary, the series provides a sharper focus on re-sponses to the materiality of human remains. The dead body demands care, treatment, place-ment, and ritual. Responses to these demands evolve over time and are shaped by religion, poli-tics, science, law, business, and economics. Each book in the series engages with these respons-es, creating a coherent yet multifaceted commentary on the core subject. In addition, the series seeks work that critically interrogate foundational concepts, including what it means to be "dead," what constitutes a "dead body" in funerary practice, and how "disposing" of the dead can and should be understood in different social, legal, and technological contexts.

By foregrounding the materiality of the dead body and the evolving ways societies engage with it, it will advance critical discussions on death, disposal, and commemoration, fostering a global and interdisciplinary conversation on an essential yet often overlooked subject. It will therefore be an essential collection for academics working in the dedicated interdisciplinary field of Death Studies, as well as in a broad range of fields including anthropology, archaeology, cultural geog-raphy, history, law, planning, religion, sociology, social policy and theology.

For further information or to submit a proposal for consideration, please contact:

Series Editor: Brenda Mathijssen - [email protected]

Series Editor: Julie Rugg - [email protected]

Routledge Commissioning Editor: Alice Salt – [email protected]