{"id":1550,"date":"2017-10-31T14:11:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T14:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reading.ac.uk\/the-forum\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2017-10-31T14:11:03","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T14:11:03","slug":"bringing-death-to-life-through-games-and-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2017\/10\/31\/bringing-death-to-life-through-games-and-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing death to life through games and discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr Yota Dimitriadi, Institute of Education, University of Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pain and fear of death is a topic that unites us all.<\/p>\n

Generous funding by the ESRC is allowing us to put together a community event during the upcoming Festival of Social Science to discuss the unspoken \u2018D\u2019 word.<\/p>\n

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Bringing death to life<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reading is a multi-culturally rich community where celebrations of its diversity are usually initiated in isolation by each ethnic group. At these times of uncertainty and social unrest, as social scientists we are contemplating how we can support community healing, solidarity and celebrate life in sensitive and positive ways.<\/p>\n

Inspired by research as well as the folklore and mythology around death, we are offering a carousel of innovative and interactive workshops organised around scholarly themes such as good death, death rituals in urban and rural areas, digital inheritance and data legacy, dark tourism and commodification of death, power relationships and feminist perspectives on traditions and rituals of death.<\/p>\n

These key topics of the event will be centred around practical activities that will give our participants space and opportunity to listen, talk and ask questions\u00a0about the ideas shared. As we are organising this event with families in mind, there is a strong focus on arts, crafts and digital making with the view to engage young people as well in social science research.<\/p>\n

There are some aspects of this event that are most probably appropriate for adults. The talks by Lucy Coleman Talbot (researcher, writer and co-founder of the internationally acclaimed \u2018Death and the Maiden<\/em>\u2019 project) and Kevin Toolis (journalist, writer and BAFTA-winning film maker) may lend themselves more to the palates of adult audiences. Others, such as Jazmine Miles-Long\u2019s interactive talk on ethical taxidermy are offered for adults and younger people.<\/p>\n

We will be signposting our workshops with three levels in mind:<\/p>\n