The Future of the Corpse

The Future of the Corpse

Changing Ecologies of Death and Disposition

Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt, Editors

Copyright © 2021 by ABC-CLIO, LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a
review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rothstein, Karla Maria, editor. | Staudt, Christina, editor.

Title: The future of the corpse : changing ecologies of death and
disposition / Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt, editors.
Description: Santa Barbara, California : Praeger, [2021] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021023944 (print) | LCCN 2021023945 (ebook) | ISBN
9781440869051 (hardcover ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781440869068 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dead—United States. | Funeral rites and ceremonies—United
States. | Death—Social aspects—United States. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE
/ Death & Dying | ARCHITECTURE / Sustainability & Green Design
Classification: LCC GT3203 .F88 2021 (print) | LCC GT3203 (ebook) | DDC
393.0973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023944
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021023945
ISBN: 978-1-4408-6905-1 (print)
978-1-4408-6906-8 (ebook)
25 ​24 ​23 ​22 ​21   1 ​2 ​3 ​4 ​5
This book is also available as an eBook.

Praeger
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
147 Castilian Drive
Santa Barbara, California 93117
www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

 In memory of all who died
and in honor of those who served and
cared for others
during the pandemic of 2020–2021
 Contents

Figures ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xv
Christina Staudt and Karla Rothstein

Chapter 1 History and Background: How Our American

Burial Traditions Emerged 1
Joseph W. Dauben
Chapter 2 Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition
Methods: Impact on Urban Centers and
the Environment 29
Caitlin Campbell and Karla Rothstein
Chapter 3 From Deathbed to Morgue: “Rebooting”
the System 47
Christina Staudt
Chapter 4 Redirecting Funeral Rituals and
Mourning Practices 74
Christina Staudt
Chapter 5 Modernizing the Law of Human Remains:
Challenges and Opportunities 95
Tanya D. Marsh
Chapter 6 Nature versus Culture: Shifting Values in
American Cemeteries 119
David Charles Sloane
viiiContents

Chapter 7 Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 143

Lee Webster
Chapter 8 Digital Tools: Grieving through Screens 178
Candi K. Cann
Chapter 9 A Covenant among Generations: Keeping Trust
in the Republic and the Law 198
Bruce Jennings and Catherine M. Hammack-Aviran
Chapter 10 New Mortuary Technologies and
Memorial Designs 226
Caitlin Campbell and Karla Rothstein

Onward 245
Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt

Essential References 247

About the Editors and Contributors 253

Index 257
 Figures

1.1 Paulo Fumagalli, “Right Side of the Street

of Tombs in Pompeii” (1827) 3
1.2 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Sepolcro di Cecilia
Metella” (1762) 4
1.3 William Miller, after a design by J. W. M. Turner,
Paris as seen from Père Lachaise. Frontispiece 6
1.4 Laurel Hill Cemetery, as seen in an early
engraving by A. W. Graham from a drawing
by William Croome 11
1.5 James Smillie, Green-Wood Cemetery,
“Ocean Hill” (1847) 15
1.6 The Beecher Mausoleum in Beecher, Illinois,
designed by Cecil E. Bryan, completed in 1914 (1917) 21
10.1 Recompose, natural organic reduction vessel
with door open 231
10.2 DeathLAB: Democratizing Death, at the 21st Century
Museum of Contemporary Art, in Kanazawa, Japan 234
10.3 Sylvan Constellation, at the Victorian Arnos Vale
Cemetery in Bristol, England 236
10.4 A network of AfterLight vessels grafted onto
the Manhattan Bridge interweaves new public
space into the New York City skyline 238
xFigures

10.5 Plan of Constellation Park, with AfterLight vessels,

public pathways, and gathering spaces 239
10.6 Civic-sacred space supporting the coexistence of
diverse celebrations of life amid AfterLight vessels 239
 Acknowledgments

This volume is an expansion of Designing for Life and Death: Sustainable

Disposition and Spaces of Remembrance in the 21st Century Metropolis, a col-
loquium comprised of academics, urban advocates, and funerary industry
practitioners, focused on the opportunities and challenges of realizing
innovative solutions to the disposition of human remains and the design
of sustainable public memorial spaces. The daylong event, held at Colum-
bia University in 2016, was designed to present and discuss feasible solu-
tions to the scarcity of urban cemetery space, excessive resource
consumption, changes in the role of faith, and the need for meaningful
memorialization in the 21st century—content that has been advanced
within the chapters of this book. Designing for Life and Death was jointly
organized by Columbia University’s DeathLAB and the University Semi-
nar on Death and would not have been possible without the support of
Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation,
the University Seminars, the Earth Institute, and the Institute for Reli-
gion, Culture and Public Life. We are obliged to all within these institu-
tions who accommodated and supported the colloquium and who have
continued to sustain us throughout this book project.
The Columbia University Seminar on Death is the crucible that brought
us to organize the colloquium jointly and as such is foundational to this
book. We are grateful to our seminar colleagues and guests for the regular
rhythm of convening in stimulating dialogue and generative debate. Rob-
ert Pollack, longtime director of the University Seminars, and Alice New-
ton, who followed as interim director, have been steadfast supporters of
the Seminar on Death, now in its fiftieth year of interdisciplinary explora-
tion. As a lifelong academic leader committed to enlightening critical
engagement and transformative ethical impact, Dr. Pollack has joined us
xiiAcknowledgments

in intellectual pursuits around the essential interdependencies and mys-

teries of life and death. Alice Newton is a trusted adviser who unfailingly
seeks to find creative solutions. They have both facilitated publication
support from the Leonard Hastings Schoff and Suzanne Levick Schoff
Memorial Fund, for which we are enormously thankful.
The contributors to this book’s chapters are each critical thinkers
within a particular facet of the complex subjects of human death, disposi-
tion, memorialization, and grief. We are in awe of their individual gener-
osity and knowledge. Amid the myriad difficulties that have constituted
the year 2020, their diligence and camaraderie have been a welcome,
thoughtful salve. The conversations prompted across chapters will surely
catalyze further collaborations, opening unanticipated potential to impact
future mortuary landscapes and society’s evolving needs. We appreciate
the dedication and commitment of each of them to this project.
We are grateful to the team at ABC-CLIO/Praeger for their early inter-
est in publishing this work, the third book under their imprint to emerge
from Columbia University’s Seminar on Death, following Speaking of
Death: America’s New Sense of Mortality (2009) and Reshaping Our Journey
to the End (2014). Particular gratitude goes to our editors, Kevin Downing
and Robin Tutt, together with the terrific staff at ABC-CLIO for their col-
lective scaffolding of the process and consistently meticulous feedback
and support. We are honored to have this volume join the lineage of pub-
lic impact that is an outgrowth of the seminar’s interdisciplinary and
interinstitutional studies.
A MacDowell Fellowship in the fall of 2018 offered Karla the rare hos-
pitality and solitude to focus on DeathLAB’s vision and the beginnings of
both this and a second coauthored manuscript. LATENT Productions
continues to buttress DeathLAB’s endeavors in countless ways every day.
Christina acknowledges her several informal circles of wise partners in
the “death space,” who continually shape and challenge her in ongoing
discourse. Too many to mention, she hopes they all understand her debt
to them.
As in any complex ecosystem, many friends, family members, col-
leagues, and students have contributed to the process of realizing this
book. Their patience and belief in each of us and the larger project of
carefully reenvisioning death, disposition, grief, and memorialization are
indispensable. We recognize that part of what makes engagement with
this work meaningful is that the effort is so much larger than any one
person. We are indebted to the countless individuals and groups across
the globe working to make the visible and invisible realities of death more
Acknowledgments xiii

sustainable and inspiring. Public education is a crucial aspect of this

humane work, and we are most grateful for the interest of our readers and
the fertile conversations that this book may inspire.

Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt

New York City, December 2020
 Introduction
Christina Staudt and Karla Rothstein

Mortality’s temporal constraint propels us to uncover meaning and pur-

pose in life. Consciously recognized or not, the inevitability of death is
foundational to cultural manifestations and production, and influences
personal predilection and acquired thought.1 It drives basic survival mea-
sures, spurs legacy inclination, mobilizes us to placate threatening forces,
and intensifies empathy. Death is our eventual fate. From this simple
truth emanate the entangled stories that shape individuals and construct
civilizations.
Around the globe, roughly 165,000 individuals die every day (over 60
million in the year 2020),2 yet each death is unique. Death is common-
place and particular, intimate and strange. How we understand it is con-
tingent on community, time, and place. Located in different geographies,
socialized in various legal and cultural institutions, and belonging to
diverse faith traditions (or none), populations seek compatible ways to
integrate this enigmatic event into life’s communal fabric. Some societies
maintain a relatively steady state of practices across generations and cen-
turies. In other periods and parts of the world, shifting values and actions
have disrupted the social order and reshaped mortuary rituals.
Human beings are complex, adaptable creatures, and our ideas about
what is—or feels—right or wrong in the care of dying individuals and
corpses is culturally and contextually conditioned. In some communities,
the deceased body needs to be lovingly handled by close family members.
In others, the corpse is considered to be full with the evils of the world,
and handling it necessitates ritual and actual cleansing. Cutting into a
corpse only minutes after a death may be a desecration in some contexts,
yet millions of families of differing ethnic backgrounds and religious
beliefs find comfort in a loved one’s donation improving, or perhaps even
saving, someone else’s life through post mortem organ retrieval and
transplant.
xviIntroduction

In his overview of attitudes to death in the Western world during differ-

ent epochs, the French historian Philippe Ariès labeled the 20th century
the period of the “hidden death” or “death denied.”3 His often-cited research
ended in the late 1970s, a time when the veil around death was thickest and
the vast majority of Europeans and Americans died behind closed doors in
a hospital. In the forty years since, matters of death and dying have steadily
reemerged. “Death recognized” or “death acknowledged” has developed as
an apt characterization for the early part of the new millennium.4 As we
write this introduction—isolated amid the 2020 pandemic, with sweeping
concerns about transmission of a ubiquitous, unseen, aerosolized, and
deadly virus—death is literally “in the air.” This may be both an appropri-
ate description of the menacing ambiance currently permeating the United
States and many other countries and an apt metaphor for the readiness of
many to reconsider and reimagine funerary praxis.
Initiatives and developments toward death recognition that began in
the last two decades of the 20th century have accelerated, as manifested
in increased acceptance of hospice care; public discourses (academic, lay,
and institutional conferences; “death cafés,” “dinners with death”); legis-
lative struggles to allow new options for the terminally ill and for corpse
disposition; a rich output of death-related materials in literature and
media, covering every field from anatomical dissections to Zen posthu-
mous vigils. Death is increasingly a presence, which segments of society
admit and explore with a combination of newfound agency, curiosity,
timidity, lingering denial, excitement, and controversy.
The direction is toward illumination rather than a return to the grotto.
However, attitudes and praxes around mortality change erratically; tradi-
tion and innovation are interlaced. Historicizing death and postulating
generalized attitudes to death is precarious. New customs can gradually
gain traction but sometimes also flow forward surprisingly quickly. Doc-
trinally permissible changes in funeral practices may be resisted by reli-
gious adherents, but the lay flock may also adopt habits that defy their
clerics: Vatican II (1963) sanctioned cremation decades before large num-
bers of Roman Catholics were ready to accept it. Yet once cremation became
a common form of disposition, many of the 30–40 percent (2015) of Amer-
ican Catholics who choose cremation ignore the stricture against scattering
the ashes or keeping the urn at home or another unsanctioned place,
actions that instigated clarifying guidelines from the Vatican in 2016.5
In 2020, we daily witness total numbers of COVID-19 fatalities
approaching, and then surpassing, some of the deadliest events in human
history. Stories and images pervade of tearful spouses and children say-
ing their final goodbyes to a screen image of their family member, unable
Introduction xvii

to be physically near at death. Our hearts ache for them and bereaved
families forced to compromise the “aftercare” they desired for deceased
loved ones.6 Death is in the news and in our lives in ways and degrees
never before experienced. Yet, even as it is pouring out of its 20th-century
containment and happening all around us, it remains often difficult to
contemplate. When we open the door to mortal matters, the potency can
be overwhelming.
Individual perspectives, expectations, practices, and discourses differ.
Most people have little guidance and experience in how to respond to or
address the concerns that emerge with death. Those who are designated
to direct and inform often appear mired in an obsolescent realm. Wel-
coming spaces for gathering and grieving are lacking, and prevailing dis-
position methods hark to an era with substantively different values.
Mortal matters have been long absent from the public square. Rites and
phrases from practices that have remained in place and largely unques-
tioned for generations feel fossilized, unsuited to present situations. Sig-
nificant changes in culture and society have occurred in recent months
and decades and certainly since large segments of society accepted the
cloaked equilibrium that a “hidden death” allowed half a century ago.
This book’s contributors address pertinent and pressing issues related
to the management of the dead in the 21st-century United States. Human-
ity has devoted effort to appropriately shape death care for thousands of
years. The solutions may appear obvious: bury or burn; ritualize and cre-
ate memorials; find comfort in community. However, adjustments to
these enduring habits and needs are required for the 21st-century world.
Technology and shifting priorities have opened new possibilities and cre-
ated new demands at the end of life for disposal of the corpse, for rethink-
ing the legacy of the person, and for redefining and reprioritizing
communities and cultures.
In this volume the reader is skillfully guided into the future, as the
authors delineate the present and point to how individuals and groups
can build on emergent practices to create positive change. Joseph W.
Dauben lays the groundwork with “History and Background: How Our
American Burial Traditions Emerged.” Following a brief history of the
treatment of human remains from prehistoric times to the 19th century,
this chapter focuses on the history of cemeteries and disposition places in
the United States, and the religious, social, and political forces behind
their creation until the mid-20th century. The overview demonstrates the
cultural contingency of funerary needs and choices across time and place.
Embalmed, earthen burial and cremation have dominated the American
funerary landscape for many decades. Environmental and logistical
xviiiIntroduction

concerns with these disposition forms, especially in dense population

areas, are revealed in the second foundational chapter, “Corpse Preserva-
tion and Final Disposition Methods: Impact on Urban Centers and the
Environment,” written by Caitlin Campbell and Karla Rothstein.
While many changes in after-death practices evolve slowly within soci-
eties, adaptations to culture and technology tend to occur in spurts. Some
time spans are more tumultuous than others. It is a thesis of this book
that the third decade of the 21st century will be a pivotal period in the
United States. Societal, political, and cultural issues that may have been
secondary or unconsidered in the past are racing to the forefront of
national discourse. They filter into the death space as queries and con-
cerns: How can we make our burial practices consistent with our desire
to respect the environment? What do we do when we run out of earthen
burial space in dense urban areas? How can the ritual needs of those who
do not practice a religion be satisfied? How does awareness of mortality
figure into daily life? How can dignity be democratized at death? These
questions, arising at this moment, make the time ripe for creating mourn-
ing rituals and mortuary designs that satisfy an increasingly diverse and
visible population who oppose the status quo. Calls for systemic change
can be heard across sociocultural and political arenas. Christina Staudt
uses a few real-life stories in chapters 3 and 4, “From Deathbed to Morgue:
‘Rebooting’ the System” and “Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning
Practices,” to illuminate the problems that families may encounter under
current circumstances. She highlights the need for structural changes, as
well as incipient trends within an emerging death-positive demographic.
Legal requirements and cumbersome processes for changing statutes,
which may have been on the books for centuries, often account for persis-
tent customs that have lost their relevance in contemporary times. Legal
scholar Tanya D. Marsh addresses this in “Modernizing the Law of Human
Remains: Challenges and Opportunities.” She uses select cases across the
United States to demonstrate the degrees to which the legal framework
may be receptive to change of statutes necessary to advance innovation.
Laws and regulations that apply to corpses vary across individual states
and municipalities. Underpinning conservation of existing conditions,
rather than promoting novelty and experimentation, most center on what
we are permitted, forbidden, and required to do with human remains and
where we are allowed to conduct such activities.
The chapters that follow, “Nature versus Culture: Shifting Values in
American Cemeteries,” by David Charles Sloane, and “Rethinking the
Role of the Funeral Director,” by Lee Webster, each center on critical
stakeholders and influencers in death care: cemeteries and funeral
Introduction xix

directors. Sloane and Webster describe how evolution in these respective

fields is integrated with the choices that families make and how broader
developments in society condition these critical participants in aftercare
services. Specifically, these authors explore how a growing environmental
sensibility in the United States favors sustainability in the built environ-
ment, respectful stewardship of natural resources, and a lifestyle with
minimally destructive impact. These trends have expanded the “green
burial movement” and induced further changes in after-death practices.
If laws and cultural constructs may protract engrained habits, technol-
ogy hastens change. Innovations, developed in and for other sectors of
life, wind their way into the mortuary space, adapting to and enriching
stale funerary praxes. In “Digital Tools: Grieving through Screens,” Candi
K. Cann examines the public and private intersection of digital memori-
als, demonstrating how the internet and cyberspace can be harnessed to
meet the enduring needs of engaging the death of loved ones in personal
and communal ways and of reintegrating the deceased into public life.
How communal values and responsibilities are necessary to enrich
practices and deepen the connection between the living and the dead is
the subject Bruce Jennings and Catherine M. Hammack-Aviran explore in
“A Covenant among Generations: Keeping Trust in the Republic and the
Law.” Solidarity across generations is at the heart of their text. They argue
for secular, sacred covenants that support, cherish, and uphold the rights,
well-being, health, and dignity of our fellow human beings across time, a
comprehensive response to a question addressed from multiple perspec-
tives in this book: How will we better integrate death into life in our com-
munities and realize our responsibility for each other? The book
culminates with an overview of new and emerging sustainable mortuary
technologies, and proposed public memorial spaces that emanate from
DeathLAB, an innovative, transdisciplinary research and design project
founded at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Plan-
ning and Preservation. In “New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial
Designs,” Caitlin Campbell and Karla Rothstein review processes beyond
traditional burial and cremation, notably alkaline hydrolysis, aerobic
composting, and anaerobic controlled, accelerated decomposition. They
discuss the state of development and the potential of each to become
mainstream. Aided by explanatory illustrations, they present design pro-
posals for new civic-sacred infrastructure in the urban realm. Through
these innovative projects, the scales and diversity of daily life intertwine
with spaces of death and remembrance.
Demographics and value systems are being reordered in the first quar-
ter of the 21st century: the “greatest generation” is dying out; baby
xxIntroduction

boomers are becoming the elderly, and having grown accustomed to

choice and control in their lives, they desire the same in their deaths. Mil-
lennials, shaped in part by the societal unease following 9/11 and the
expansion of global digital connectivity, are redefining communities and
reprioritizing society’s responsibility to the planet. Today’s youth are
attuned to uncertainty and the essential qualities of resilience and care;
these collaborative leaders of tomorrow sustain our optimism. Science
and technology continue to present new possibilities, fanning hope of
extending time on earth but outrunning the ability to keep pace legisla-
tively, socially, and ethically. Regulatory “best practices” intended to alle-
viate thorny medical issues prevalent thirty years ago are now caught in
the evolved realities of technical advancements. This is a vibrant time of
multiple voices and frictions around how to recognize and respond to the
mortal(ity) conundrums of the 21st century.
Death and dying are not matters to be sequestered from public view.
Accepting our finitude as a natural human event relies upon access to,
and expression through, social, literal, and metaphoric language. We
need to communicate in private conversations; in public debates; in works
of art, architecture, and literature; and in diverse communal practices.
This book participates in that comprehensive convening, arguing that in
conjunction with mortal matters returning into public discourse, spaces
of dying, disposition, and remembrance should be accommodated within
our communities in ways that acknowledge diverse demographics and
beliefs, promote communal solidarity, enhance civic space, respect the
earth’s ecology, and enrich both quotidian and spiritual life.

Notes
1. See, for example, Jacques Choron, Death and Western Thought (New York:
Macmillan, 1963); Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1973); Eric Fromm, To Have or to Be? (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).
2. CIA,“ The World Factbook: Death Rate,” accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/fields/346​
.html#XX; “Current World Population,” of the Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, Worldometer, accessed December 20, 2020, https://www.world​
ometers.info/world-population.
3. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1981; orig. L’homme devant la mort [Paris: Editions du Seuil,
1977]).
4. Christina Staudt, “From Concealment to Recognition,” in Speaking of
Death: America’s New Sense of Mortality, ed. Michael K. Bartalos (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2009), 3–41.
Introduction xxi

5. Holy See Press Office, Summary of Bulletin, “Instruction Ad resurgendum

cum Christo Regarding the Burial of the Deceased and the Conservation of the
Ashes in the Case of Cremation, 25.10.2016,” accessed January 14, 2019, http://
press.vatican.va /content /salastampa /en /bollettino/pubblico/2016/10/25​
/161025c.html.
6. “Death care” and “aftercare” are terms that have come into common use in
the 21st century to cover all forms of spiritual and physical care, as well as vigils,
funeral rituals, and practical matters. Christine Quigley’s exhaustive Death Dic-
tionary: Over 5,500 Clinical, Legal, Literary and Vernacular Terms of 1994 includes
neither “aftercare” nor “death care.” In this book, “aftercare” refers to activities
that involve the corpse; “death care” is more comprehensive and includes all that
is done around the death of a person, from deathbed to disposition, as well as
mourning by the family, professionals, and the surviving community.
 CHAPTER ONE

History and Background:

How Our American Burial
Traditions Emerged
Joseph W. Dauben

Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will
measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its
people, their respect for the law and their loyalty to high ideals.
—Attributed to William E. Gladstone

Cemeteries in the Ancient World

The practice of burying or otherwise preserving or honoring human
remains is as old as human history itself. Well before written documents
attest to rituals and other means of commemorating the dead, archaeo-
logical evidence helps to reveal ancient funerary customs. The Neander-
thals were the first human species to bury their dead with stone tools,
animal bones, and other artifacts in shallow graves. Among early orga-
nized grave sites are those of the ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians.
The cemetery of Ur, central Babylonia, was the site of thousands of burials
between 2600 and 2000 BCE, and in Egypt the early necropolis sites at
Dra’ Abuˉ el-Nagaˉ and El-Assasif near Thebes contain burials as early as the
2 The Future of the Corpse

Seventeenth Dynasty (ca. 1580–1550 BCE) and later. Of cemeteries to be

found in Europe, among the earliest are those of the so-called Urnfield
culture of the late European Bronze age, so named for their practice of
cremating the dead and preserving the ashes in shallow pits or urns
interred in a common area.
The most elaborate burial rituals from ancient times were those of the
Egyptians, involving mummification of the body and entombment in
majestic structures such as the step pyramid of Djoser in the Saqqara
necropolis (27th century BCE) or those more famous pyramids at Giza
near Cairo, dating to the mid-26th century BCE. Smaller tombs such as
those in the Valleys of the Kings near Thebes include the magnificent
tomb of Tutankhamen (14th century BCE), discovered by the British
archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922.
Among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was the mid–4th cen-
tury BCE tomb of Mausolus, the Persian leader whose Mausoleum at Hali-
carnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey) is the namesake of the modern
mausoleum. However, of all the seven ancient wonders, the only one to
survive is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, the tomb of the Pharaoh
Khufu, who reigned from 2589 to 2566 BCE.
Undoubtedly the most magnificent of ancient tombs, at present only
partially excavated, is that of the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang
(秦始皇), whose burial in 210 BCE is described by the Western Han
dynasty historian Sima Qian (145–90 BCE). Writing only a century later,
Sima explains how construction of the grave site began in 246 BCE and
involved more than 700,000 workers. It is estimated that in all, the
necropolis covers more than 2,000,000 square meters, whereas the tomb
itself occupies only about a tenth of this, which has yet to be excavated.
To date, three pits of terracotta warriors have been studied, roughly
20,000 square meters containing more than 8,000 life-size figures.
According to Sima Qian, the site includes—in addition to the army and
important officials—vast palaces, scenic towers, valuable utensils, and
“wonderful objects,” all overarched with a ceiling studded with pearls
and precious gems to represent the heavens, the stars and planets, while
below, on the ground, major features of the emperor’s terrestrial realm
were depicted, including mountains and 100 rivers flowing with mer-
cury. Preliminary soundings have indeed discovered higher than normal
amounts of mercury on the site.
The practice of setting aside special areas for the collective commemo-
ration of the dead dates back to well before the Christian era. In ancient
Greece, Mycenaean cemeteries were located just outside city walls, such
as those excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in 1847 at Mycenae,
History and Background 3

Figure 1.1 Paulo Fumagalli, “Right Side of the Street of Tombs in Pompeii”
(1827). (From Paolo Fumagalli. [1833] Pompeia: traité pittoresque, historique et géo-
métrique: ouvrage dessiné sur les lieux, dans les années 1824 au 1827. Florence: Aux
dépenses de l’auteur, 1833. Available online at https://archive.org/details/gri
_33125008704682/page/n75)

including the famous tholos tomb of Agamemnon (ca. 1250 BCE). Out-
side of Athens, the earliest interments in the Kerameikos cemetery date to
about 1200 BCE.1 This was the site where Pericles delivered his famous
funeral oration in 431 BCE, honoring those who had fallen during the
first year of the Peloponnesian War. Later, the area was leveled by the
Romans during the sack of Athens in 86 BCE. The site continued in use
until it was finally destroyed by marauding invaders in the late 6th cen-
tury, and it remained unknown until rediscovered in 1863.
In Italy, the Etruscans as early as the 9th century BCE began to inter
their dead in tombs often resembling homes they had inhabited while liv-
ing. The necropolis of Banditaccia near Cerveteri is organized on a city
plan with streets and public squares; likewise, the Etruscan necropolis at
Tarquinia, Monterozzi, contains more than 6,000 graves and is famous
for the hundreds of wall paintings found in many of the tombs there. Both
are protected UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Like the Greeks and Etruscans, the Romans customarily buried their
dead in mausoleums or necropolises in areas outside the city walls or pome-
ria (sing., pomerium). The most historic of the ancient Roman underground
4 The Future of the Corpse

Figure 1.2 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “Sepolcro di Cecilia Metella” (1762).

(Giovanni Battista Piranese, engraving, Sepolcro di Cecilia Metella, from Vedute di
Roma (1762). Yale University Art Gallery)

cities of the dead is the pre-Constantinian necropolis atop which St. Peter’s
Basilica was erected in what today is Vatican City. In addition to such grave
sites, traces of the ancient Roman practice of lining the major roads leading
from urban centers may still be seen along the “Street of Tombs” outside of
Pompeii (see figure 1.1) or on the Via Appia Antica leading south from
Rome, where the tomb of Caecilia Metella is a reminder of the impressive
monuments to the dead left by the Romans (see figure 1.2). Also along the
Via Appia are the underground catacombs where early Christians buried
their dead and would meet, especially in times of persecution. Of these, the
catacombs of San Callisto, San Domitilla, and San Sebastiano are among
the most visited today.

Medieval Cemeteries
Of prominent medieval burial sites, few can rival the remains first
excavated in 1938 at Sutton Hoo, near Woodbridge in East Anglia, UK. Of
the two cemeteries found there, the remains include cremations in urns,
bodies in coffins, execution burials, and a famous ship burial that may
have been the final resting place of one of the kings of East Anglia.
History and Background 5

It was Christian practice, perhaps dating from the times when perse-
cuted believers met secretly in catacombs such as those in Rome, that
the dead were no longer relegated to spaces beyond city limits but were
interred or entombed either in churches or in land directly adjoining a
church, giving rise to church graveyards. Among medieval European
cemeteries, one of the most impressive is in Pisa, the Camposanto
(literally, “holy field”), which dates back to 1278, when crusaders
returned from Jerusalem with sacred soil from Golgotha. Subsequently,
the soil was incorporated into earth that was first a cemetery and then a
monumental edifice, several centuries in the making, that became the
burial grounds for Pisan nobility. The Camposanto cloisters are lined
with monuments to the dead, including more than eighty ancient Roman
sarcophagi that were recycled, used again for later Renaissance
funerals.

18th- and 19th-Century European Cemeteries

Although in rural settings church cemeteries would remain common,
by the 19th century and the onset of large-scale urbanization, major cities
soon discovered they could no longer permit the unsanitary—not to say
unsightly and unpleasant—custom of burials within cities. Among the
earliest critics of the urban church graveyard was the English architect
and man of science, Sir Christopher Wren. In fact, the idea of garden
cemeteries harkens back to the early 18th century, when Wren suggested
landscaped grounds in appropriate rural settings to the commissioners of
London as they considered the construction of new churches in 1711.
Wren, in fact, objected strongly to burials within churches, which imme-
diately raised the question of where, if not in churches, the dead should
be buried:

I could wish that all burials in churches might be disallowed, which is not
only unwholesome, but the pavements can never be kept even nor pews
upright, and if the churchyard be close about the church, this is also
inconvenient because the ground being continually raised by the graves,
occasions in time a descent by steps into the church, which renders it
damp and the walls green, as appears evidently in all old churches.
It will be inquired, where then shall be the burials? I answer, in ceme-
teries seated in the outskirts of the town. A piece of ground of two acres in
the fields will be purchased for much less than two roads among the build-
ings: this being enclosed with a strong brick wall and having a walk round
and two crosswalks decently planted with yew trees. . . . It may be consid-
ered further that if the cemeteries be thus thrown into the fields, they will
6 The Future of the Corpse

Figure 1.3 William Miller, after a design by J. W. M. Turner, Paris as seen from
Père Lachaise. Frontispiece. (From The Miscellaneous Prose Works of Sir Walter
Scott, Bart. Embellished with Portraits, Frontispieces, Vignette Titles and Maps. The
Designs of the Landscapes from Real Scenes by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Edinburgh:
Robert Cadell, Edinburgh; Whitaker, Arnot, and Company, London; John Cum-
ming, Dublin 1834–1836)

bound the excessive growth of the city with a graceful border, which is
now encircled with scavengers’ dung stalls.2

However, it was not until the beginning of the next century that the
French architect, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, established such a gar-
den cemetery outside of Paris in response to demands that all burials
within Paris city limits be relocated for hygienic reasons well beyond the
city. Commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte, Brongniart designed the
Mount-Louis Cemetery, today known as Père Lachaise, after the Jesuit
confessor to Louis XIV, Père François de la Chaise, who had lived on the
land on which the cemetery was to be built (see figure 1.3). Brongniart,
who would later design the Paris Bourse, was inspired by the example of
English landscape architects and their natural, verdant gardens and
parks, and he laid out the cemetery with grand avenues and squares that
were a reflection of Paris itself, but a Paris of the dead.3 It is not surprising
that the Brongniart style of cemetery soon became popular in England,
and among examples, there are St. James Cemetery in Liverpool (1826),
Glasgow’s Necropolis (1832), London’s Kensal Green (1833), Norwood
History and Background 7

(1837), Brompton (1840), and Abney Park (1940), all of which, like Père
Lachaise, are carefully landscaped with fitting sculpture, monuments,
and mausoleums.
In 1806, when Napoleon’s 1804 Edict of Saint-Cloud was applied to
Italy, an edict that forbade burials in churches and within towns, the
design of the Staglieno cemetery for the city of Genoa was first contem-
plated, but the project was not realized for several decades. Although
plans were finally approved in 1835, construction of the cemetery did not
begin until in 1844; the cemetery opened seven years later in 1851. Stagli-
eno is especially well known for the monumental sculptural elements that
have made it one of the world’s prominent cemeteries.
By the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution not only necessitated
but also made possible the establishment of large exurban cemeteries
more distant but easily accessible by rail from major civic centers. In Eng-
land, a devastating cholera epidemic that raged through London in 1831
resulted in government action that put an end to any new burials in
churchyards, encouraging instead the creation of new cemeteries beyond
the city limits. Among a number of cemetery acts passed in the following
decades, one in particular created the London Necropolis and National
Mausoleum Company, which established Brookwood Cemetery on 500
acres of land in Surrey twenty-three miles southwest of London. Brook-
wood was linked to the city by a dedicated railway line, the London
Necropolis Railway. Opened in 1854, the cemetery’s city station was next
to Waterloo, with two stations in the graveyard itself, one serving the
Anglican part of the cemetery, the other for those visiting the noncon-
formist sections. At the time, Brookwood was the largest cemetery in
the world.

First Cemeteries in the United States

In the United States, quaint churchyard cemeteries date from the
early 17th century; among the oldest are the Myles Standish Burial
Ground in Duxbury, Massachusetts, in use since the late 1630s, and in
Boston, King’s Chapel Cemetery, founded in 1630. The earliest graves
were scattered randomly throughout the grounds and followed no pre-
determined plan. Later efforts to maintain the site rearranged the grave-
stones neatly in rows but not necessarily corresponding with the bodies
beneath.
In New Haven, Connecticut, the oldest cemetery was established on
the New Haven Green in 1638, with enough space to accommodate those
to be spared from the presumed Second Coming of Christ, some 144,000
as estimated by John Davenport, Puritan clergyman and a founder of the
8 The Future of the Corpse

New Haven colony in Connecticut.4 But by the end of the 18th century,
the cemetery was near capacity when yellow fever epidemics occurred in
1794 and 1795. These inspired creation of the first private cemetery in the
world, the New Haven Burying Ground (today the Grove Street Ceme-
tery), the brainchild of local businessman and U.S. senator James Hill-
house. Hillhouse was largely responsible for the design of the cemetery, a
grid divided into nine squares reflecting the layout of New Haven itself.
Unlike most cemeteries of its era, where interments were helter-skelter,
with bodies placed according to no particular plan, the New Haven cem-
etery was organized into plots according to the families who purchased
them. Separate areas were set aside for members of the different churches
in the city. The planned layout included paved streets and avenues, with
careful thought given to the trees and other plantings in the cemetery.
There was space for Yale University, for Blacks, and even an area for
those who might die as visitors to New Haven with no other personal
connections.
By the beginning of the 19th century, three new churches had been
built on the New Haven Green, where the old cemetery was increasingly
regarded as an eyesore that had been deteriorating for decades. Eventually
it was concluded that the best solution was to level the Green entirely and
move the headstones from the old cemetery to the new burial ground on
Grove Street when its expansion was completed (in 1821). But while the
headstones moved, the bodies did not, and to this day an estimated 5,000
or so remain under the turf of the New Haven Green.5 As for the new
cemetery, it was not until 1845 that it was completely enclosed by a
wrought iron fence and given its monumental sandstone arch designed by
New Haven architect Henry Austin in Egyptian Revival—a style then in
vogue and theologically neutral, as befitting a nondenominational pub-
lic space.

Early Burial Places and Cemeteries in New York City

The earliest cemetery in New Amsterdam was included on maps no
later than 1660, when “The Old Graveyard” appeared on the Castello Plan
of the lower tip of Manhattan, showing its location on the west side of
Broadway, near present-day Morris Street. Records show that as early as
1656, city officials recognized the necessity of establishing a new ceme-
tery, and the 1686 Charter of the City of New York clearly identified a
“new burial place without the gate of the city.” In 1703, the City gave this
land to Trinity Church, and it now comprises the northern portion of the
Trinity Church Cemetery, between Wall and Pine Streets.
History and Background 9

In addition to churchyard cemeteries, when much of Manhattan was

still farmland, especially in the northern regions, plots were also laid out
on private land as cemeteries for families and their relations. One exam-
ple was the Nagle burying ground, so identified on a map of 1836, which
was the final resting place for several related families, including the Dyck-
mans, Vermilyes, Ryers, and Hadleys.
Additionally, the city also provided land for burial of the indigent. In
1797, the city established a potter’s field on part of an old farm purchased
for $4,500 to create a public cemetery on what is today Washington
Square. Then adjacent to several church cemeteries, within thirty years
the site was near capacity due largely to devastating yellow fever epidem-
ics that ravaged the city at the turn of the 19th century. Without bother-
ing to relocate the bodies, the square was declared a public space in 1827,
when it was covered over to create the Washington Military Parade
Ground, used at one point to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the sign-
ing of the Declaration of Independence.6
By 1823, a new, larger potter’s field had already been opened at what is
today Bryant Park, at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street. When this
location was chosen as the site for a new reservoir (prior to it becoming the
home of the New York Public Library), the bodies were disinterred and
relocated to Wards Island in 1840, when those from another of the city’s
potter’s fields at Madison Square were likewise removed to Wards Island.
In 1868, the commissioners of the New York City Departments of Pub-
lic Charities and Correction were authorized to purchase new grounds for
a public cemetery, to be under the management of the Department of
Charities. That same year, Hart Island had been purchased by the city
from John Hunter and his son for $75,000, and there nearly half the island
(45 of the slightly more than 100 acres) was designated a potter’s field. On
April 20, 1869, the first burial, the body of an orphaned young woman
who had died in Charity Hospital, was buried on Hart Island. Today the
Department of Correction and the Department of Welfare have joint
jurisdiction over the potter’s field on Hart Island, where prisoners from
nearby Rikers Island continue to provide the muscle to bury the bodies of
the unknown, the unclaimed, and the indigent of New York City in what
is the world’s largest such public facility.7
In addition to municipal, church, and family burial places, along with
its potter’s fields for the indigent, the city also had its private cemeteries,
and among the city’s oldest nonsectarian cemeteries are the New York
Marble Cemetery and New York City Marble Cemetery, both created in
the early 1830s after ordinances forbade further public burials in the
lower parts of the city. These cemeteries consist of underground marble
10 The Future of the Corpse

vaults in what is now the East Village on Second Avenue between Second
and Third Streets, not far from the churchyard cemetery of St. Mark’s.
Eventually, burials in Manhattan would be prohibited altogether, and all
but a few especially historic cemeteries would be required to relocate to
other cemeteries in the outer boroughs or beyond the city.
Partly in response to the recurring epidemics that plagued the city
repeatedly throughout the early 19th century, as early as 1823 laws were
passed forbidding burials south of Canal, Sullivan, and Grand Streets,
and by 1851 this prohibition was extended as far north as 86th Street,
with the exception of burials in private vaults and cemeteries. Moreover,
as the city continued its expansion northward and land for development
became increasingly scarce and correspondingly more valuable, construc-
tion of streets, avenues, and new buildings led to the destruction or relo-
cation of graveyards, often to the consternation of those who decried the
violation of sacred burial places where the dearly departed could expect
no permanent residence or peace. As the 19th-century New York lawyer,
civic leader, and philanthropist George Templeton Strong noted in his
diary, “In this city of all cities some place is needed where a man may lay
down to his last nap without the anticipation of being turned out of his
bed in the course of a year or so to make way for a street or a big store or
something of that kind.”8

The 19th-Century Rural Cemetery Movement in the United States

The first of the rural garden cemeteries in the United States was Mount
Auburn Cemetery near Boston, the creation of Harvard professor Jacob
Bigelow with the cooperation of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society
in 1831. As Bigelow himself explains,

About the year 1825 my attention was drawn to some gross abuses in the
rites of sepulture as they then existed under churches and in other recep-
tacles of the dead in the city of Boston. At the same time, a love of the
country, cherished by the character of my earlier pursuits, had long led me
to desire the institution of a suburban cemetery, in which the beauties of
nature should, as far as possible, relieve from their repulsive features the
tenements of the deceased; and in which, at the same time, some consola-
tion to survivors might be sought in gratifying, as far as possible, the last
social and kindred instincts of our nature.9

The legacy of Mount Auburn cemetery was the inspiration for rural
cemeteries and public parks throughout the country. Citing Andrew
History and Background 11

Figure 1.4 Laurel Hill Cemetery, as seen in an early engraving by A. W. Graham

from a drawing by William Croome. (From John Notman, Guide to Laurel
Hill Cemetery, near Philadelphia, with numerous illustrations. Philadelphia, PA:
C. Sherman, 1844)

Jackson Downing, America’s first landscape designer and editor of The

Horticulturalist, a leading popular periodical of its day, the U.S. Depart-
ment of the Interior’s assessment of Mount Auburn’s significance, in its
National Register of Historic Places, reads as follows: “As he [Downing]
later noted to President Millard Fillmore, urging the development of the
Mall in Washington, ‘A national park like this . . . would exercise as much
influence on public taste as Mount Auburn in Boston has done. Though
only twenty years have elapsed since it was laid out, the lesson there
taught has been so widely influential that at the present moment the
United States, while they have no public parks, are acknowledged to pos-
sess the finest rural cemeteries in the world.’ Gradually, cities across the
nation began to build parks, creating landscapes similar to Mount Auburn
but without its graves.”10
Following Mount Auburn’s example, the next venture into the plan-
ning of a successful rural cemetery in the United States was undertaken
in another colonial sister city to the south of Boston—namely Laurel Hill
Cemetery—founded in Philadelphia in 1836 (see figure 1.4). In the case
of Laurel Hill, the initial organization of the new cemetery was the inspi-
ration of a Quaker and head of the Library Company of Philadelphia,
12 The Future of the Corpse

John Jay Smith (1798–1881). Responsibility for the architectural elements

at Laurel Hill was entrusted to a young Scottish émigré, John Notman,
whose use of broad lawns and irregularly shaped flower beds represented
significant departures from traditional landscape and formal garden
geometry.
While access to Laurel Hill was largely restricted to the affluent and
most socially acceptable of the residents of Philadelphia, Smith neverthe-
less was proud of the fact that he had helped to change attitudes among
Quakers, in particular, about the most basic of funeral practices.
Although himself a Quaker, Smith disagreed with the tradition of not
permitting gravestones because of the confusion to which this led about
the actual location of interments. He also criticized the general lack of
care given to graveyards and took considerable pride in the role he saw
himself playing through Laurel Hill in changing public perceptions
regarding death and the manner of burial in particular: “This, with the
great number of clergymen who now own and use my cemetery, marks a
great change in public sentiment, such as it was my object to accom-
plish. The idea of impiety, which once attached to leaving the church or
the meeting-house proper, is gone, and the influence has extended
throughout the land. . . . The project of Laurel Hill met with little favor
at its inception; but now, at the end of thirty-five years, the new custom
is almost universal.”11
It would not be long after the founding of Laurel Hill before the experi-
ence John Jay Smith had acquired in creating the likes of Père Lachaise
and Mount Auburn would be of service in the founding of another new
cemetery, namely Green-Wood Cemetery, established in Brooklyn, New
York, in 1838. In this, John Jay Smith would also play a part as a some-
time advisor.
Green-Wood Cemetery was New York City’s first landscape cemetery.
Although many had spoken of the need for a cemetery in Brooklyn,
among the first to give serious attention to the matter were Henry Evelyn
Pierrepont and Major David Bates Douglass. As early as 1832 Pierrepont
had visited Mount Auburn and was thereby inspired to achieve some-
thing similar for New York. The following year he traveled to Europe,
where he was also impressed by Père Lachaise in Paris and the Cam-
posanto in Pisa.
At first there were two obstacles standing in the way of a large rural
cemetery in Brooklyn, one financial, the other primarily psychological:
“New Yorkers of that day still clung to the charnel-house and churchyard.
There their fathers and their kindred had been laid, and there, very natu-
rally, they wished to lay themselves down. This was not the only thing
History and Background 13

which operated adversely to the rural cemetery. Violations of the grave for
scientific purposes had occurred in some parts of the country, and had
awakened fear as well as indignation. To bury their friends in a rural cem-
etery, seemed to many like burial in some open field, where the sacred
relics would be subject to unrestricted depredation.”12
Fortunately for Green-Wood, once established, it soon successfully
allayed any such fears the public may have had about its distant rural set-
ting or the security of interments. But until the Panic of 1837, land prices
in Brooklyn made the purchase of sufficient land on the Gowanus Hills
prohibitively expensive. With a substantial drop in real estate prices, land
on the Gowanus Hills was suddenly affordable.13 In less than a year, the
New York State Legislature officially incorporated “The Green-Wood
Cemetery” on April 18, 1838, authorizing it to purchase up to 200 acres.
Meanwhile, the founders had decided to change in one very substantial
way the principles by which the cemetery would operate. Since the major
landholders had agreed to cede their property to the cemetery in return
for shares in the cemetery rather than demand payment in cash, it was no
longer necessary to operate as a stock investment company in order to
raise the large sum of money as previously anticipated to establish Green-
Wood. Instead, “to remove from the enterprise all ideas and motives of
private gain, by making it a general trust, was not only more consistent
with the character and purpose of a cemetery, but had been the original
design of the projectors.”14
By October 1839, lots were advertised for sale. Nevertheless, the early
years were not easy for Green-Wood. As its historian, Jeffrey Richman,
explains, “Yet, despite the forces that prompted Green-Wood Cemetery’s
birth, it was far from an overnight success. Rather, it was soon forced into
a struggle for survival. After two years of landscaping work, its first buri-
als occurred on September 5, 1840. . . . But fewer than 400 burials fol-
lowed in the next three years. Some prospective lot-buyers were reluctant
to commit their money to the new idea of burial distant from the church
where they worshipped. Others were reluctant to have their family buried
at Green-Wood because it would mean separation from their already-
interred ancestors.”15
Ultimately, Green-Wood was able to succeed due to increasing pres-
sure for burials outside of Manhattan, which was less than three miles
from Green-Wood, making it increasingly attractive. The cemetery’s for-
tunes began to change when figures of note were interred in the cemetery.
Among the earliest of these was De Witt Clinton, governor of New York,
who died in office in February 1828, unexpectedly and penniless. At first
he was buried in Albany, but a decade or so later, a proper reinterment
14 The Future of the Corpse

was arranged and Clinton’s remains were moved to Green-Wood, facili-

tated in part by the cemetery itself, which donated the ground where a
suitable monument was provided to honor the ex-governor’s memory:

By the 1850s, Green-Wood Cemetery was still struggling to survive, and

was desperate for publicity. The acquisition of De Witt Clinton’s remains,
with the erection of a suitable monument, would be just the public rela-
tions bonanza that the cemetery needed. . . . Henry Kirke Brown (1814–
1886), the first American sculptor to cast in bronze in this country, . . .
began work on his Clinton sculpture in 1850. Financed by public sub-
scription, it was displayed in City Hall Park in New York City upon its
completion in June, 1853. At a time when there was virtually no public
sculpture in New York, its exhibition was front page news, and caused a
sensation.16

By the time Governor De Witt Clinton was laid to rest in Green-Wood,

the cemetery had successfully weathered its first decade, as the numbers
of interments and annual lot sales make clear. Having achieved a modi-
cum of financial stability, Green-Wood was further supported by the New
York State Legislature, which passed measures allowing the cemetery to
purchase an additional 125 acres to expand beyond its initial 200 acres
that had originally been approved. By the end of the century, more land
purchases were also approved by the legislature, enabling Green-Wood to
grow to its present 478 acres, making it until recently the largest land-
scaped cemetery in the world.17
Green-Wood soon became immensely popular with the public as a
destination for a day’s outing (see figure 1.5). By the 1850s, the cemetery
was attracting as many as 100,000 visitors a year; a decade later, that fig-
ure had quintupled to a half million.18 Guidebooks recommended that
tourists visit the cemetery, and stereopticon, three-dimensional photo-
graphs popularized its landscaped beauty from coast to coast, throughout
the nation. Visitors could ride the Brooklyn City Railroad to the cemetery
gates or reach the main gates by coaches from the Brooklyn ferry land-
ings. Maps were provided, making it easy to find one’s way around the
cemetery.
By 1866, the New York Times was extolling Green-Wood as a leading
institution, a model of its kind recognized throughout the world, having
become a major tourist attraction: “Green-Wood is as permanently associ-
ated with the fame of our city as the Fifth Avenue or the Central Park. It
is one of the institutions to be served up to strangers, and no guest has
been courteously entertained until he has been driven through its
winding avenues and looked down upon the bay and city from its
History and Background 15

Figure 1.5 James Smillie, Green-Wood Cemetery, “Ocean Hill” (1847). (James
Smillie, engraving, from Nehemiah Cleavelend [1847]. Green-Wood Illustrated.
New York, R. Martin).

commanding heights. It is the ambition of the New Yorker to live upon

Fifth Avenue, to take his airings in the [Central] Park, and to sleep with
his fathers in Green-Wood.”19
Meanwhile, farther west, a major innovation in cemetery design was
taking place in Cincinnati, Ohio. Like its predecessors, it was initially
inspired by the unsightly and overcrowded appearance of the local
churchyard cemeteries in Cincinnati, as well as by medical concerns
raised by the ever-present threat of infectious diseases. Also like its fore-
runners in Boston and Philadelphia, the leading figure initially advocat-
ing the idea of a rural cemetery for Cincinnati was a local physician,
Dr. Daniel Drake.
As early as 1810, Drake urged his fellow citizens to undertake a major
effort in reforming local burial practices. Specifically, he called for “a new
field of sepulcher, without the pale of the population, whither the con-
tents of the present should be removed.”20 Speaking as a physician, he was
especially concerned about the likelihood of epidemics spreading from
the Presbyterian Burying Ground, one of the oldest in Cincinnati, the
church itself having been the first to be founded in Cincinnati in 1790. As
the city continued to grow and the population surged well beyond the
limits of what its cemeteries could accommodate, Drake feared with
16 The Future of the Corpse

regard to the Presbyterian cemetery, for example, that as “interments have

become double or treble what they now are, its exhalations must inevita-
bly produce disease.”21
Somewhat more than a decade later, Drake’s reasons for taking an
interest in a new cemetery for Cincinnati became intensely personal when
his wife, Harriet Sisson Drake, died in September 1825, whereupon she
was buried in the city’s Presbyterian Cemetery, and thus “[Dr. Drake] saw
firsthand the deplorable conditions of this and the other 22 cemeteries
within the city. The cholera epidemics that plagued Cincinnati at the time
were responsible for much of the problem. The cemeteries were terribly
overcrowded with bodies being buried without coffins and often stacked
together. There was also a serious problem of grave robbers stealing bod-
ies to sell for medical dissection.”22
In April 1844, a small group met at the home of Robert Buchanan, a
successful businessman and the mayor of Cincinnati. Among other inter-
ests, he was an avid horticulturalist and promoter of natural sciences who
carefully tended to his own herbarium of local plants. After discussing a
general plan for the cemetery, a decision was made to purchase land
known as the Garrard Farm, amounting to 166 acres, well suited for the
purpose of a cemetery.
Determined to hire a leading and experienced architect of rural ceme-
teries, the directors initially turned to the well-known designer of the
Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphian John Notman, to lay out the 166-acre
cemetery. Unfortunately, the directors found that the design Notman sub-
mitted “apparently looked satisfactory on paper but did not correspond to
the topography of the Garrard farm.” Worse yet, “Notman’s design did not
reflect the romantic landscape design principles evident in General Henry
A. S. Dearborn’s layout of Mount Auburn Cemetery or in Major David B.
Douglas’ design of Green-Wood.”23
As an alternative, the directors turned to a local architect and land-
scape gardener, Howard Daniels, to provide a more fitting design for the
new cemetery. Although conventional in his approach to the cemetery’s
design, Daniels oversaw the initial layout of the first sections of the cem-
etery, but within a decade his design would undergo a radical alteration.
This began when the landscape gardener, Adolph Strauch, was appointed
as the cemetery’s official landscape gardener in 1855.
Strauch, a native Austrian, learned the arts of horticulture and land-
scape design in Vienna, where he apprenticed with gardeners at Schönb-
runn Palace and Schloss Laxenburg. After studying landscape gardening
in Paris and three years working at the Royal Botanic Society Gardens in
Regents Park, London, Strauch made a trip to the United States in 1851.
History and Background 17

Not long thereafter, he found work landscaping the grounds of wealthy

estate holders in Cincinnati: the “barons of Clifton,” whose properties
overlooked the Spring Grove Cemetery, and who would soon hire Strauch
to assume command.
The Spring Grove Cemetery did not impress Strauch upon first encoun-
ter. He described it, unflatteringly, as akin to “a marble yard where monu-
ments are for sale,” and suggested that “all that glitter and parade exhibited
about the graves of the dead in modern cemeteries is much to be regret-
ted.” Strauch preferred “cheerfulness . . . luxuriance of growth, shade,
solitude, and repose in such a manner as to imitate rural nature.” True to
his German roots that prized order and Wissenschaft rather than disor-
der and chaos, Strauch insisted that with respect to Spring Grove it was “a
pity the beautiful reposing place of the dead was not . . . developed on a
scientific plan.”24
The directors of Spring Grove took note. Impressed by the success of
his landscape designs for their estates in Clifton, they decided to hire
Strauch as the cemetery’s landscape gardener, a position he assumed on
October 9, 1854. It was fully expected that Strauch would put into place
his “landscape lawn plan” to elicit a “pictorial union of architecture,
sculpture, and landscape gardening.” This Strauch promised would unite
the “well-regulated precision of human design with apparently wild irreg-
ularities of divine creation.”25 In fact, Strauch’s inspiration for his
landscape-lawn plan at Spring Grove was prompted in part by Chinese
grave gardens—as described in serene, bucolic terms by Alexander von
Humboldt in his epic work, Kosmos. In his own account of Chinese cem-
eteries, Strauch stressed how their “most ardent admiration is expressed
for free nature when but little embellished by art,” surrounded as he noted
by “gardens, and adorned with exotic trees.”26
Accordingly, Strauch sought to develop his own concept of the land-
scaped cemetery at Spring Grove, incorporating many of the principles he
especially valued from what he had learned in Europe and what he had
read of cemeteries in the Far East. His own vision of the lawn-landscape
plan sought to discourage gaudy monuments and ornate railings that tra-
ditionally served to delineate a single plot or family grave site. Strauch
preferred expansive areas of lawn with open clusters of trees and shrubs.
Above all, he wanted to avoid the clutter of the typical cemetery, and he
restricted individual plots to a single monument that was expected to
meet certain very narrow specifications.
Beginning in 1854, Strauch completely redesigned the layout of Spring
Grove Cemetery, which had become run-down and neglected in the few
years since it had first opened for business in 1845. Under Strauch’s
18 The Future of the Corpse

direction, it was soon transformed into a vision of scenic lakes, stately

trees, and well-positioned monuments.
By the end of the century, Strauch’s vision had made Spring Grove a
model for the modern cemetery. The lawn-landscape plan was acclaimed
internationally, when Spring Grove was recognized at the Paris Exposi-
tion Universelle in 1900 as the “best designed landscape in the United
States,” for which it was awarded a gold medal.27
From the founding of the Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831 to the mid-
1850s, when Strauch was busy launching his career at Spring Grove, the
American cemetery had undergone a remarkable evolution from
the bucolic groves and classical monuments featured at Mount Auburn to
the open lawn-landscape design popularized by Strauch. The lessons
of this evolution would not be lost on the directors of the Woodlawn
Cemetery when they contemplated the establishment of a new rural cem-
etery for New York City in the early 1860s.
The initial inspiration for the creation of what would become the Wood-
lawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, was not a businessman but a
clergyman, Absalom Peters, whose own vision was for a “City of the
Silent”—“its greatness yet to be; its population vast.”28 At first, he was not
immediately successful in finding others to join his venture, but due to his
dogged persistence, he eventually succeeded in convincing a small group
of investors that there was indeed considerable promise in what he pro-
posed. By the end of December 1863, he had enough backers to carry out
his plan, with a board of trustees made up of some of the city’s most prom-
inent businessmen, bankers, lawyers, and railroad executives. Over the
course of several months in 1864, more than a total of 300 acres of Bronx
farmland was purchased at a cost of about $100,000. Within months of its
founding, the cemetery appointed its first comptroller to oversee initial
design and development of the cemetery, William Avery Clift. Clift was a
Congregationalist minister, amateur horticulturalist, and married to Har-
riet Peters, daughter of Woodlawn’s founder, Absalom Peters.
As comptroller of Woodlawn, Clift was only responsible for overseeing
the cemetery’s physical development. The management of the cemetery
itself was in the hands of its trustees, and the early years were fraught
with difficulties. As Clift worked with surveyors and engineers to ensure
that the land was ready when it was first offered for sale in 1864, the
financial concerns about paying for the day-to-day operation of the cem-
etery itself were complex. Verging at one point on the edge of bankruptcy,
the trustees from time to time had to cover costs themselves. But within a
decade of its founding, Woodlawn was making a profit for its investors,
and the appointment of a new superintendent, German-born Henry J.
History and Background 19

Diering, would transform the fortunes of Woodlawn just as the German-

born landscape gardener Adolph Strauch had done for Spring Grove in
Cincinnati.
In fact, Woodlawn made the decision to abandon its original plan of a
rural cemetery in favor of the landscape-lawn plan pioneered by Strauch
in Cincinnati after Peters and Robert E. K. Whiting, the cemetery’s comp-
troller in the late 1860s, paid a visit to Spring Grove in 1867. Whiting was
an engineer who developed a 300-foot-square grid system for laying out
Woodlawn’s burial plots, and he approached everything at Woodlawn
with the accuracy of a mathematician. In 1870, when Admiral Farragut
became the first of many celebrated figures to be interred at Woodlawn,
the cemetery donated the plot with a distinctive circular design that
would later become a distinguishing feature of Woodlawn’s overall plan-
ning. As the architect Charles Warren has observed, “Woodlawn’s ‘circles
of sepulcher’ evolved into a style of cemetery landscape quite different
from the picturesque and naturalistic ideals of the ‘rural’ cemetery or the
continuous, communal sweep of the ‘lawn plan.’ The circles integrate
building (or monument) and landscape into a single monumental form.
Each one is isolated by a paved perimeter that contains and defuses the
radiating axes implied by its architecture.”29

Death in the United States in the 20th Century

The changing character of cemeteries in the United States from the
19th-century founding of Woodlawn in the east to the 20th-century cre-
ation of Forest Lawn in the west reflects changes in American society and
evolving attitudes toward death. By the end of the 19th century, as the
example of Woodlawn makes clear, cemeteries had become commercial
enterprises; engineers and superintendents oversaw the layout of vast
rural expanses that removed burials from city centers and local church-
yards, and they provided a romanticized view of death and dying. A sig-
nificant challenge to the survival of traditional cemeteries was another
model of preserving the remains of departed loved ones that did not
require the ongoing expense of maintaining churchyard graves, memori-
als, and mausoleums in perpetuity. Early in the 20th century, the com-
munity mausoleum movement seemed to many an attractive alternative.
Community mausoleums first appeared in the United States at the
beginning of the 20th century as affordable alternatives to traditional
cemetery interments. The earliest of these was built in Ganges, Ohio, in
1907. Although their opponents in the cemetery and monument indus-
tries called them “mud houses,” “menaces,” and even “tenement vaults,”
20 The Future of the Corpse

proponents of the community mausoleum praised them as sanitary, offer-

ing a better and more civilized means of entombment.
The community mausoleum movement began when William Ira Hood,
backed by a group of investors, established the National Mausoleum
Company in Shelby, Ohio, in 1907. Having obtained a patent for their
“Sanitary Crypt,” the company’s first venture was the Ganges Mausoleum
built that same year. Such mausoleums were extolled for their sanitary
properties, offering hermetically sealed crypts rather than leaving the
body to decay in the earth. W. C. Jenkins emphasized all this in an arti-
cle, “Post Cineres Gloriam Venit,” published in National Magazine in 1914:
“From a sentimental and sanitary point of view, the modern Mausoleum
excels anything the world has ever known. So perfect is this system in its
convenience for funeral service and as a place of secure and peaceful rest,
that grief-stricken love receives a soothing balm in the reflection that the
remains of dear ones who have passed away are cared for in a manner
that the cold and clammy grave can never afford.”30
Among the most ardent promoters of community mausoleums was a
midwestern architect, Cecil E. Bryan. Having worked at one point for
Frank Lloyd Wright and the engineer Ralph Modjeski, he was adept at
exploiting the properties of reinforced concrete. He brought his mastery
of technical design to the construction of more than eighty community
mausoleums across the United States (see figure 1.6). It was Bryan’s hope
that the community mausoleum would succeed in transforming the
American cemetery landscape: “We hope to see the day when it will be a
national movement when the beautiful landscape will no longer be disfig-
ured by the present unkempt and unwholesome graveyard, but have in its
place beautiful and everlasting temples surrounded by well kept lawns
and parks, these temples to be the resting place of our loved ones who
have passed away, alongside of ourselves, when the final chapter is writ-
ten in our lives.”31
Not everyone was caught up in the community mausoleum movement;
in particular, monument companies across the country criticized the com-
petition as a blight on the communities that promoted them. Many mauso-
leum companies were financially unable to complete the mausoleums they
were contracted to build, and the industry was condemned by critics as a
“carpet bagger evil.”32 Especially vocal in opposing the community mauso-
leum movement in its earliest phase, because the mausoleums were regarded
as competing for business with local cemeteries, was the Association of
American Cemetery Superintendents, as noted in an issue of Park and Cem-
etery in 1913: “[There are] grave dangers in a contract between a cemetery
association and an outside corporation by which the latter concern agrees to
History and Background 21

Figure 1.6 The Beecher Mausoleum in Beecher, Illinois, designed by Cecil E.

Bryan, completed in 1914 [1917]. (Design by Cecil B. Bryan, Inc., Engineers,
from a brochure, “Community Mausoleums” [1917])

erect and exploit such a structure, reimbursing itself from the first proceeds
of the sale of crypts, agreeing to turn over to the cemetery association what
is left after it has satisfied its own demands, and is ready to pass on and
exploit some other community in the same manner.”33
Meanwhile, landscaped rural cemeteries gave way to the memorial
park, epitomized by Forest Lawn, established in 1906 in Burbank, Cali-
fornia, and serving the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. There the
entrepreneur Hubert Easton, with a group of businessmen, transformed a
failed cemetery into a financial success that provided a new model for
other cemeteries of the 20th century that many would follow, such as
Austin Memorial Park in Austin, Texas (1927), George Washington
Memorial Park in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania (1928), and Glen Eden
in Livonia, Michigan (1929).
As David Charles Sloane observed in The Last Great Necessity. Cemeter-
ies in American History, “The memorial-park movement swept through
America in the 1920s and 1930s because it allowed the cemetery to
reemerge as a home for art and a repository of American culture and reli-
gion. Lot-holders were invited to bury their dead and leave the care and
beautification of the burial place to management.”34
The sanitized view of death epitomized by Forest Lawn was satirized
in such novels as Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One and Aldous Huxley’s
22 The Future of the Corpse

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. In Waugh’s biting satire of the memo-
rial park, in his imagined “Whispering Glades,” not only music but the
piped-in sounds of bees were meant to set the tone, while cosmeticians
such as Mr. Joyboy and Aimée Thanatogenos were responsible for making
the corpses that came their way rejuvenated visions of serenity as they
prepared bodies for viewing and burial. “The ‘loved one’ took leave and
was handled at Whispering Glades by the ‘mortuary hostess’ and the ‘cos-
metician.’ Death was mentioned by no one and seen nowhere.”35
A large part of the appeal of the memorial park was the liberation it
offered its patrons from having to worry about any aspects of the funeral—
everything was taken care of by the park, including perpetual mainte-
nance. There was no need to pay for costly monuments or mausoleums,
and no one had to worry about flowers or maintaining a grave site; the
memorial park took care of everything. Summarizing the attitude of many
Americans in the 20th century, David Sloane put it this way:

Twentieth-century Americans did not want the close relationship with the
cemetery that their nineteenth-century counterparts had craved. Memo-
rial parks represented a distancing of the grave site from the mourner. . . .
By strongly emphasizing the sales program, by competitively advertis-
ing and presenting that advertising in people’s homes, and by becoming
for-profit organizations, memorial parks threatened the long tradition of
nonprofit, non-commercial burial places. Consumers and communities
looked to government to respond to the threat of commercialism. In one
nationally significant instance, the attorney general of New York State
responded by investigating specific cemeteries and, in 1949, proposing
sweeping state legislation to regulate the industry and to restrict cemeter-
ies from “profiteering in sorrow.”36

In chapter 6, David Sloane continues his exploration of the evolution of

American burial traditions into the 21st century.

Government Regulation of Cemeteries

As early as the first half of the 19th century, municipalities began to
prohibit urban burials, and lawmakers across the country sought to
encourage the creation of rural cemeteries. However, when those includ-
ing Green-Wood in Brooklyn, New York, found it difficult to succeed in
its early years, when most residents still preferred churchyard burials and
easy access to the grave sites of their loved ones, more aggressive legisla-
tion was enacted in New York State permitting cemeteries such as
History and Background 23

Woodlawn in the Bronx to offer greater incentives to cemetery investors

by allowing them to share up to 50 percent of the profits from future sales
of cemetery plots.
Also during the 19th century, as railroads and shipping companies
united the country and spanned the globe, corporate America underwent
unprecedented expansion. At the same time, unregulated growth of Amer-
ican businesses, including banks, led to frequent financial panics. As the
government found ways to increasingly regulate the private sector, regula-
tion of cemeteries eventually came under government scrutiny as well.
Among the most prominent of state government efforts to regulate the
cemetery industry was the campaign undertaken by the attorney general
of New York State, Nathaniel Goldstein, to put an end to the aforemen-
tioned “profiteering in sorrow.” What was “guiding legislation of 1847 was
replaced with binding regulation in 1949.”37 Particularly upsetting to
Goldstein was the example of Maple Grove Cemetery and Memorial Park
in Brooklyn, New York. Founded as a landscape-lawn cemetery in 1875
on the model of Woodlawn, where initial investors received a share of all
future lot sales, by 1949 only a small amount had been set aside for per-
petual maintenance of the cemetery—about $100,000 for a sixty-two-acre
site, which was regarded as hopelessly inadequate. In 1942, the cemetery
decided to transform the unsold portion of Maple Grove into a memorial
park with the expectation of future profits on the order of those achieved
by the Forest Lawn model. Goldstein later estimated that by 1949 some
4,000 lots had been sold for nearly $3 million in just seven years. But only
a fraction of that had been set aside for future care of the cemetery. This
led Goldstein to propose legislation to the governor, Thomas Dewey, that
would ensure future regulation of cemeteries in New York State. Given the
essential nature of the services cemeteries rendered to the public, Gold-
stein believed they should be regulated as public utilities are.
As a result of his efforts, a new Cemetery Act of 1949 created a Ceme-
tery Board for the State of New York, one overseen by the secretary of
state, the attorney general, and the commissioner of health. The act not
only gave the Cemetery Board power to oversee and regulate lot prices
but also required specified amounts to be set aside for perpetual cemetery
maintenance.38
Meanwhile, by the middle of the 20th century, costs to cemeteries of
preparing funerals and grave maintenance were becoming prohibitively
expensive, especially as lot sales were often insufficient to cover day-to-
day operations. The cost of perpetual care and long-term maintenance of
cemeteries across the United States was being questioned.
24 The Future of the Corpse

Labor problems were rising, financial concerns seemed endless, com-

petition with memorial parks was a constant threat, and maintenance
was a drain on energy and resources. A superintendent of a 19th-century
cemetery had been a practical professional with a knowledge of civil engi-
neering, landscape architecture, and ministering to those in despair,
attributes that did not necessarily fit a sales manager of a 20th-century
memorial park.39
At state conventions of cemetery professionals in the 1940s, new topics
were of constant concern: increasing government regulation, pre-need
sales, installment sales, and labor relations. As unions began organizing
cemetery workers, many cemeteries were unprepared to deal with such
changes. In the 1940s, as cemetery workers successfully unionized across
the country, the face of cemetery management underwent correspond-
ingly dramatic changes.
By midcentury, cemeteries in the United States developed new strate-
gies: “Cemeterians began exploiting new advertising and sales techniques.
The modern, multiservice cemetery had arrived, operating a crematory,
offering monuments, planting flowers, selling concrete vaults, building
mausoleums—and continuing to bury the dead.”40
Especially egregious to many were the aggressive, not to say obnox-
ious, marketing strategies that many undertakers and cemeteries took in
their attempts to escalate profits by foisting unneeded services and prod-
ucts on the public, just at the moment when those grieving the loss of a
loved one made them particularly vulnerable to underhanded tactics.
This was precisely the issue that consumed Jessica Mitford as she wrote
her best-selling exposé of the funeral industry, The American Way of Death.
She opens her book with an interrogative flourish: “O Death, where is thy
sting? O grave, where is thy victor? Where, indeed. Many a badly stung
survivor, faced with the aftermath of some relative’s funeral, has ruefully
concluded that the victory has been won hands down by a funeral
establishment—in a disastrously unequal battle.”41
Mitford went on to describe the excesses and pretensions of what
funeral directors had on offer in excruciating detail. She turned to the
arbiter of good taste, Emily Post, whose own evaluation of the funeral
industry was especially quotable. In the first edition of her book on Eti-
quette in 1923, Post wrote this of the mortician: “He will, if not checked,
bring the most ornate and expensive casket in his establishment; he will
perform every rite that his professional ingenuity for expenditure can
devise; he will employ every attendant he has, he will order vehicles
numerous enough for the cortège of a President; he will even, if thrown in
contact with a bewildered chief-mourner, secure a pledge for the erection
of an elaborate mausoleum.”42
History and Background 25

As an alternative to the high-priced and underhanded examples Mit-

ford’s book highlighted of funeral directors in the United States in the
1950s, she was an ardent advocate of funeral societies and drew her
account of The American Way of Death to a conclusion in a chapter titled
“New Hope for the Dead.” There she featured the growing interest in
funeral societies generally. Having noted earlier that “their membership
has been limited for the most part to the more sophisticated elements in
the population—university people, liberal intellectuals—and those who,
like doctors and lawyers, come up against the problems in arranging
funerals for their clients” (1963, p. 20), she quoted in her last chapter the
sociologist LeRoy Bowman, author of The American Funeral: A Study in
Guilt, Extravagance and Sublimity, who was also a strong advocate of funeral
societies: “We are concerned not only about the cost of dying, but about
the subversion of values practiced by many funeral directors. Most societ-
ies believe in simple funerals and lend support for the spiritual rather
than the physical.”43
Mitford not only included a directory of memorial societies in the
United States and Canada but also included an outline of “How to Orga-
nize a Memorial Society.” She provided a copy of the registration form
used by the Chicago Memorial Association, along with a sample constitu-
tion for such a society, information about donating bodies for medical
science, and a model form for bequeathing one’s body to a medical school.
In bringing her book to a close, she again got straight to the point:
“Whether the narrow passageway to the unknown, which everybody
must cross, will continue to be as cluttered and as expensive to traverse as
it is today, depends in the last analysis entirely on those travelers who
have not yet reached it.”44
One major change in the funeral industry that Mitford did not antici-
pate when she was writing in 1963 was the consolidation of mortuaries
and cemeteries in the second half of the 20th century:

Of all the changes in the funeral scene over the last decades, easily the
most significant is the emergence of monopolies in what the trade is
pleased to call the “death care” industry. Leaders in the drive to upgrade
and up-price funerals, the principal beneficiaries of the Federal Trade
Commission’s ignoble retreat, are the multinational corporations that have
put their imprint on every facet of the business. Of the three publicly
traded major players—Service Corporation International (SCI), the
Loewen Group, and Stewart Enterprises—SCI, incorporated in 1984, is
the undisputed giant.45

In updating her earlier book, revised as The American Way of Death

Revisited in 1998, Mitford devoted an entire chapter to the Federal Trade
26 The Future of the Corpse

Commission’s failure to successfully regulate the funeral industry. As she

put it, “Was the FTC’s tepid burst of activity intended to assure Congress
and the consumer watchdogs generally that the commission was in the
arena protecting the public interest? Or was it nothing more than a
maneuver to distract attention from the agency’s shameful failure to take
even a single step to curb the fraud and criminal misconduct that have
become endemic in an industry engaged in fixing prices at ever higher
levels and profiteering at the expense of bereaved families, and that has
misappropriated hundreds of millions of dollars in funds entrusted for
prepayment of funerals and cemetery property?”46
Her “revisited” book also included another new chapter, “A Global Vil-
lage of the Dead.” This was in fact a scathing appraisal of the new giants
of the funeral industry, the publicly traded corporations that bought up
funeral homes and cemeteries across the country in an effort to corner
markets, monopolize the industry, control prices, and prescribe a pano-
ply of items for sale and services available to the bereaved when the time
came to arrange for a family funeral.
As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, cemeteries in the
United States have sought new ways not only to preserve and memorial-
ize the dead but also to expand their interest to the local communities
they serve, thereby playing a variety of new roles. This first chapter has
served as merely an introduction to a very broad subject of increasing
importance as populations increase and the need to dispose of human
remains in acceptable and civilized ways remains ever-present.

Notes
1. Etymological note: The word cemetery (Greek: κοιμητήριον/koimeterion;
Latin: coemeterium) literally translated from the Greek means “sleeping place”
or “dormitory” and originally had no connotations linked to death. Early Chris-
tian writers were the first to use the term to reference a “burial ground” or
“graveyard.” The word “cemetery” has medieval roots; the French cimetière goes
back to the 12th century in Old French. The Old English for cemetery was lic-
burg, or the dwelling place of corpses.
2. Appendix K: “A Letter to a Friend from Sir Christopher Wren in 1708
Concerning the Act of Parliament Passed to Erect Fifty New Additional Parish
Churches in the City of London and Westminster,” in Lena Milman, Sir Christo-
pher Wren (London: Duckworth and Co., 1908), 339–46; 340.
3. Isidora Stanković, “The Père-Lachaise Cemetery, Its Origin, Appearance
and Heritage,” Second International Congress of Art History Students Proceedings
(April 23–27, 2013) (Zagreb, Croatia: University of Zagreb, 2014), 78–84; see
esp. p. 80.
History and Background 27

4. Allan Appel, “At Rapture Runway, Pair Passed Over,” New Haven
Independent, May 21, 2011, accessed February 19, 2016, http://www.newhaven
independent.org/index.php/archives/entry/city_misses_out_in_race_for.
5. Henry T. Blake, Chronicles of the New Haven Green from 1638 to 1862 (New
Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press, 1898), 255, accessed May 1, 2020,
https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofnewh00blakiala/page/n11/mode/2up.
6. Carmen Nigro, “Beware of Zombies: The Grim Origins of Washington
Square Park,” New York Public Library Blog: NYC Neighborhoods, March 10, 2011,
accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/03/10/grim-origins​
-washington-square-park.
7. Gale Silver, A Historical Resume of Potter’s Field (New York, NY: New York
City Department of Correction, Public Relations Unit, Rikers Island Print Shop
Inmate Vocational Training Program, 1967), accessed March 30, 2021, http://
www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/hart/html/hartbook2.html.
8. Jeffrey I. Richman, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery: New York’s Buried
Treasure (Brooklyn, NY: Green Wood Cemetery, 1998), 4.
9. Jacob Bigelow, A History of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn (Boston and
Cambridge, MA: James Munroe & Co., 1860), 1.
10. Janet L. Heywood, “Mt. Auburn Cemetery,” National Historic Landmark
Nomination Form (Washington, DC: United States Department of the Interior,
National Park Service, March 16, 2001), 22, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/464e91c5-3b6a-48ff-9c5f-4a6b80d5d554.
11. John Jay Smith, Recollections of John Jay Smith (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lip-
pincott, 1892), 268.
12. Nehemiah Cleaveland, Green-Wood Cemetery. A History of the Institution
from 1838 to 1864 (New York, NY: Anderson & Archer, 1866), 26.
13. Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the
Civil War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 442.
14. Cleaveland, Green-Wood, 18–19.
15. Richman, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, 11.
16. Richman, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, 33.
17. Richman, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, 10.
18. Richman, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, 16.
19. New York Times, quoted from Richman, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, 20.
20. Daniel Drake, Notices Concerning Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH: John W.
Browne & Co., 1810), 35–36.
21. Drake, Notices, 35.
22. Donald Prout, “Spring Grove Cemetery,” Cincinnati Views, a website
devoted to vintage postcards (with commentary) of Cincinnati, accessed May 4,
2020, http://www.cincinnativiews.net/cemeteries.htm.
23. Blanche Linden-Ward and David C. Sloane, “Spring Grove: The Founding
of Cincinnati’s Rural Cemetery, 1845–1855,” Queen City Heritage (Cincinnati
Historical Society) 43, no. 1 (Spring 1985), 23–25.
24. Strauch, quoted from Blanche M. G. Linden, Spring Grove. Celebrating 150
Years (Cincinnati, OH: Cincinnati Historical Society, 1995), 31.
28 The Future of the Corpse

25. Strauch, quoted from Linden, Spring Grove, 32.

26. Adolphus Strauch, Spring Grove Cemetery: Its History and Improvements,
with Observations on Ancient and Modern Places of Sepulture (Cincinnati, OH: R.
Clarke & Co., 1869), 119.
27. Blanche M. G. Linden, “Nineteenth-Century German-American Land-
scape Designers,” SiteLINES: A Journal of Place 1, no. 2 (Spring 2006), 10.
28. This was a line from the opening stanza of a poem Peters wrote about
Woodlawn in 1866, just a year after it opened for business in 1865. See Absalom
Peters, The City of the Silent. A Tribute to the Wood-Lawn Cemetery, Established for
the City of New-York and Westchester County: Opened for Burials, January, 1865
(New York, NY: John A. Gray & Green, 1866), New York Historical Society Pam-
phlet RA 627 W8 P48 1866.
29. Charles D. Warren et al., eds., Sylvan Cemetery: Architecture, Art and Land-
scape at Woodlawn (New York, NY: Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library and
the Woodlawn Conservancy, 2014), 41.
30. W. C. Jenkins, “Post Cineres Gloriam Venit,” National Magazine 40 (July
1914): 645, accessed March 30, 2021, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.3
1858033536321&view=1up&seq=661.
31. Frank Crane, Community Mausoleums (Chicago, IL: Cecil E. Bryan, Inc.,
1917), foreword.
32. Emily Ford, “Community Mausoleums, Part One: Early 20th Century. Or,
How to Get Rich in Cemetery Sales without Really Trying,” Blog, March 10, 2019,
accessed February 11, 2020, https://www.oakandlaurel.com/blog/community​
-mausoleums-part-one-early-20th-century#_ftn1 (accessed 2/11/2020).
33. “Cemetery Men Oppose Community Mausoleums,” Park and Cemetery 23,
no. 2 (April 1913), 159.
34. David Charles Sloane, The Last Great Necessity. Cemeteries in American His-
tory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 157–58.
35. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 179.
36. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 190.
37. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 193.
38. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 195.
39. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 208.
40. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 212.
41. Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death (New York, NY: Simon and
Schuster, 1963), 15.
42. Emily Post, quoted in Mitford, American Way of Death, 293–94.
43. LeRoy Bowman, quoted in Mitford, American Way of Death, 286.
44. Mitford, American Way of Death, 287.
45. Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death Revisited (New York, NY: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1998), 188.
46. Mitford, American Way of Death Revisited, 186.
 CHAPTER TWO

Corpse Preservation and Final

Disposition Methods: Impact
on Urban Centers and the
Environment1
Caitlin Campbell and Karla Rothstein

The dominant forms of disposition in the United States—embalmed, cas-

keted burial and industrial cremation—threaten the health of funeral
workers, pollute the air and possibly groundwater, contribute to global
climate change, and consume tremendous amounts of natural resources.
As consumers grow increasingly aware of these harms to human health
and the environment—and of alternatives to cremation and to chemical
embalming, mass-produced caskets, and concrete grave liners and
vaults—the “green burial” movement is gaining traction. However, in
dense cities in the United States and around the world, whole-body
earthen burial of any kind is growing untenable as available cemetery
plots are depleted. In response, some cities have adopted or revived prac-
tices such as limited-tenure burial, grave sharing, and vertical cemeteries.
As this postmortem urban-management quandary intensifies, we must
look beyond the entrenched and expected methods of disposition to
innovate sustainable, respectful, and spiritually resonant alternatives.
30 The Future of the Corpse

Human Health and the Environment

In the embalming process, bodily fluids are drained from the corpse
while disinfecting and preserving chemicals are injected into the arterial
system and anatomical cavities. Generally, at least three gallons of
embalming fluid are needed for each adult corpse. The chemical makeup
of the solution varies but almost always includes formaldehyde, which
many practitioners view as essential to effective preservation.2 Embalm-
ing can expose technicians to toxic formaldehyde levels surpassing—in
the case of autopsied bodies, sometimes dramatically—threshold limits
established by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial
Hygienists.3 Exposure to formaldehyde can trigger eye and respiratory
irritation. Laboratory experiments in the 1980s demonstrated that it
could cause cancer in animals. Various surveys and studies have indi-
cated that embalmers and other workers routinely exposed to formalde-
hyde via inhalation as a gas or vapor or absorption through the skin as a
liquid are at higher risk of leukemia and cancer of the nasopharynx and
brain. Formaldehyde is classified as a probable human carcinogen by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as a known human carcino-
gen by the U.S. National Toxicology Program and the World Health Orga-
nization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer.4
Close to three million U.S. residents died in each of 2018 and 2019;
provisional data places this figure at 3.36 million in 2020, when the coro-
navirus pandemic struck.5 Though the funeral industry does not make
these statistics available, it is estimated that half of those who die in the
United States are embalmed (not all embalmed bodies are buried; some
are embalmed for transport or viewings prior to cremation).6 While
embalming is far more common in the United States than in most other
countries, a 2018 European Union vote to establish workplace formalde-
hyde exposure limits still prompted an outcry from funeral directors in
the United Kingdom that effective embalming would no longer be possi-
ble.7 The threat embalming chemicals pose to the health of funeral work-
ers is clear. Less obvious, but still ominous, are potential harms from the
burial of these chemicals by the millions of gallons annually in U.S. cem-
eteries. Though the leaching into soil and groundwater of formaldehyde,
other embalming chemicals, sealants and varnish from wooden caskets,
and minerals from metal caskets has not been subject to comprehensive
monitoring, localized studies give cause for alarm.8
Due to a lack of monitoring and the reticence of the funeral industry,
the full impact of chemically embalmed, casketed burial on the environ-
ment is difficult to quantify precisely. The most commonly cited figures
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 31

come from Mary Woodsen, science writer at Cornell University and

founding president of the Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve.
According to her estimates, annual U.S. burials consume 20 million board
feet of hardwood, 1.6 million tons of concrete, 17,000 tons of copper and
bronze, and 64,500 tons of steel, in addition to burying 4.3 million gal-
lons of embalming fluid (of which 827,060 gallons consist of formalde-
hyde, methanol, and benzene—each of which the EPA regulates as
hazardous waste).9
In 2015, earthen burial lost its status as the dominant form of disposi-
tion in the United States to cremation.10 In the United States, the crema-
tion rate, under 4 percent when the Catholic Church relaxed its ban in the
1960s, will likely hit 60 percent around 2023; it already exceeds 70 per-
cent in Canada.11 In Japan, almost everyone is cremated, up from around
half in the 1930s.12 While a more economical option—in the United States
in 2019, the median cremation with a funeral and viewing cost $5,150,
versus $7,640 for a burial with a funeral and viewing (not counting $1,495
for a vault, which most U.S. cemeteries require)—cremation is not with-
out its own deleterious environmental impact.13 Cremation is a “substan-
tial source of mercury pollution” due to dental amalgams and
bioaccumulation in the body; mercury emissions pose a health risk to
crematory workers as well as nearby communities.14 Other harmful pol-
lutants emitted by human cremation include “particulate matter, sulfur
dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and heavy met-
als.”15 Each industrial cremation is estimated to match the energy require-
ments of fully fueling an average car twice over and to emit approximately
550 pounds of carbon dioxide, for a total of around 360,000 metric tons
of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States each year.16
These harms cannot be sidestepped simply by turning to open-air
pyres. In India, where cremation is a key part of Hindu death practices, a
single pyre requires close to 900 pounds of wood.17 Between India and
Nepal, these pyres burn through between 50 million and 60 million trees
each year and are a significant contributor to aerosolized carbon in the
region as well as devastating river pollution.18 One study estimated that
cremation in India results in approximately 1.4 tons of mercury emissions
each year.19
While the benefits of reducing a corpse to 4 percent of its mass are sub-
stantial from a land-use perspective—indeed, the Cremation Society of
Great Britain helped popularize the practice with the motto “Save the
Land for the Living”—the environmental impact remains troubling.20
Companies seeking to position themselves at the convergence of three
growing trends—the preference in the United States for cremation, a
32 The Future of the Corpse

willingness to rethink received traditions around death, and a concern for

the impact of personal choices on climate change—have popularized the
idea that, as one recent New York Times article erroneously suggested, cre-
mated remains can be “composted into tree food.”21 Combusted human
remains are mechanically processed bone fragments, ash, and pollutants,
not fertilizer. The process of cremation largely subverts the nutritive poten-
tial of the corpse. While businesses now market soil additives to counter-
balance the alkalinity and salinity of cremated remains so that they do not
actively harm plant life, there is little reason to believe they truly nurture
it or usher the human corpse back into natural cycles (see chapter 10).
Those who wish to mitigate the environmental harms of their final act
and forgo unnecessary costs, such as the 2019 U.S. median of $750 for
embalming, $2,500 for a metal casket, and $1,495 for a vault, are increas-
ingly turning to another alternative: “green” burial in a biodegradable con-
tainer or wrapping, eschewing chemical embalming and concrete grave
liners and vaults.22 Though green burial is sometimes considered a depar-
ture from tradition, interment through much of human history before the
development of chemical embalming during the Civil War and through-
out much of the world now (especially within religions such as Judaism
and Islam that avoid embalming) meets these criteria. Often referred to as
“natural” burial in England, where the movement began in the early
1990s, green burial has slowly taken root in the United States. The first
U.S. conservation cemetery was established in South Carolina in 1998,
and the Green Burial Council was founded in 2015. There are now thought
to be around 300 cemeteries allowing green burial in the United States
and Canada and more that permit burial without vaults. The Green Burial
Council sets the baseline for green burial as occurring “without a concrete
vault [or] chemical embalming, and with a biodegradable container.” It
divides the sites that meet these criteria into hybrid, within a conven-
tional cemetery; natural, in a cemetery dedicated to green burial; or con-
servation, on land preserved by a trust entity. Green burial can involve a
casket made of a biodegradable material such as cedar or a simple shroud.
If some degree of preservation is desired, fluids consisting of essential oils
are now available in lieu of embalming chemicals.23 The logical extension
of personalized end-of-life rituals tailored to the wishes and values of the
individual, green burial is gaining ground not just with the eco-conscious
millennials of the “death positivity” movement; 64 percent of U.S. adults
age forty and up surveyed in 2015 expressed interest.24 U.S. Catholic fea-
tured an opinion piece in which the founder of the Green Burial Council
called green burial “a more authentically Catholic” option.25
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 33

Those dedicated to combating climate change and to actively financing

the protection of nature may opt for conservation burial. The most strin-
gent subset of green burial, conservation burial departs from not just
what goes into the ground at traditional cemeteries but also what goes on
above the ground—the pesticides, fertilizers, and gasoline use required
to create the appearance of a well-maintained lawn. According to the
guidelines of the Conservation Burial Alliance, conservation burial
involves “minimal burial density within the cemetery,” with not greater
(and generally much fewer) than 300 burials per acre, versus the 1,000–
1,200 burials per acre typical of many cemeteries. The Alliance further
requires “management of the land with defined conservation goals, and
operation on protected land affiliated in some way with a land trust or
other conservation entity.”26 The controlling land trust may ban heavy
machinery, grave markers beyond natural stone or GPS coordinates, and
non-native plants or trees as memorials.27 As of early 2021, eight conser-
vation cemeteries have certified with the Green Burial Council and eight
with the Conservation Burial Alliance.28 The easements designating land
for conservation burial can preclude future development, allowing indi-
viduals to help preserve natural places and the plant and animal life that
thrives there rather than making ownership claims over burial plots in
perpetuity. Those who choose this option may feel that in protected land,
unimpeded by chemical embalming and a concrete grave liner or vault,
the body is restored gracefully to natural cycles.

Urban Centers
While the growth of the green burial movement is a welcome develop-
ment to address the environmental harms of the dominant disposition
methods, uncasketed, unembalmed earthen interment is possible only
where adequate open space is available, and major urban areas around
the world are quickly running out of potential ground for burials. Put
together, New York City’s thirty-nine largest cemeteries would equal the
acreage of more than five Central Parks, yet with no new cemeteries
established since 1980, accessible plots are growing difficult to come by.
It is nearly impossible to be interred in Manhattan, where earthen burial
has been outlawed south of Canal Street since 1823 and south of Eighty-
Sixth Street since 1852. The borough’s last fully operational cemetery,
Trinity, in northern Manhattan, has ceased sales for in-ground burial. It
is still possible to procure a niche for cremated remains or, for around
$60,000, space for a coffin in an aboveground crypt. In the East Village,
34 The Future of the Corpse

crypts in the New York Marble Cemetery and St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral
recently went on sale for $350,000 and $1 million, respectively.29
New York State’s 1847 Rural Cemetery Act incentivized the establish-
ment of vast nonprofit garden cemeteries in what were then undeveloped
areas. The resultant “cemetery belt,” a cluster of over a dozen cemeteries,
straddles the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The
estimated five million corpses interred in Queens make it home to twice as
many dead people as living. In recent years, major New York City cemeter-
ies, including Calvary, in Queens, and Washington and the nearly 500-
acre Green-Wood, both in Brooklyn, have indicated that they are near or at
capacity.30 Scarcity has driven up prices; in Green-Wood, for instance, costs
for a single grave rose from $11,000 in 2010 to $19,000 in 2020.31 Creative
expansions—converting paths or roads into burial space and adding mau-
solea and columbaria—have extended the operational lives of these ceme-
teries. To address the burial plot shortage, in 2003, New York State adopted
a statute allowing cemeteries to reclaim unused graves that were purchased
more than seventy-five years ago if the owner cannot be identified, though
the mechanisms and approvals required to establish that the owners’ rights
have been abandoned are complex enough to limit practical application.32
These measures can stave off the inevitable for only so long: with
around 55,000 deaths each year, New York City will eventually run out of
space to bury its dead.33 It’s feared that even Hart Island, which at over
100 acres is the largest tax-funded cemetery in the world and thought to
already have approximately a million burials, will soon reach the end of its
operational life. Even before annual burials on Hart Island increased by a
factor of 2.5 from 2019 to 2020, the New York City Human Resources
Administration had predicted that the public cemetery would reach capac-
ity by 2030 and begun seeking new sites in which to bury or cremate the
unidentified, unclaimed, and indigent.34 After years of advocacy by indi-
viduals such as Melinda Hunt, president of the nonprofit Hart Island Proj-
ect, legislation was passed in December 2019 to turn Hart Island into a
public park and open it to visitors without reservations or armed escorts.
Authority over the site transitioned from the Department of Correction
(for years, inmates of Rikers Island have dug and filled the common graves)
to the Department of Parks and Recreation in July 2021, and a memorial
for victims of the COVID-19 pandemic is under consideration.35 This shift
echoes the transformation of former indigent burial grounds into Wash-
ington Square Park, Madison Square Park, and Bryant Park. However, by
contrast with these earlier sites, Hart Island’s designation as a park may
not put an immediate end to burials. If this city cemetery were ultimately
to adopt grave reuse practices, a relatively isolated and serene swath of
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 35

land at the western edge of the Long Island Sound could provide a renew-
able, affordable burial option for New Yorkers.
Once home to several large cemeteries, the city of San Francisco pro-
hibited new burials (except in a national cemetery for veterans in the Pre-
sidio) out of health and land-use concerns in 1901. Eventually over
150,000 bodies were exhumed from city cemeteries and reinterred in the
nearby former farmlands of Colma, effectively creating a modern necrop-
olis. Now home to around 1.5 million dead in seventeen cemeteries and
fewer than 2,000 living residents, Colma is projected to run out of burial
space by 2030.36
The dearth of cemetery space has been clear in Boston since at least the
early 1990s, when the city began to restrict who could buy municipal
cemetery plots (only city residents) and when (only after someone had
died, not “pre-need”) to stem the coming scarcity. Though burials con-
tinue for those with family plots not yet at capacity, and in Mount Hope,
space remains in a designated veterans’ section and for cremated remains,
earthen plots are no longer available for sale in two of the city’s three
remaining active cemeteries. Boston’s superintendent of cemeteries pre-
dicts that the last, Fairview, will sell out of traditional plots by 2035.
Cemeteries in nearby Cambridge, Newton, and Waltham are nearly full
as well.37 As of summer 2020, conventional graves in Cambridge’s cele-
brated Mount Auburn Cemetery started at $25,000 (natural graves, some-
what hearteningly, started at $9,000).38
While some U.S. cities are closer to exhausting their cemetery capacity
than others are, the threat looms on some timescale for many, since
“[c]emeteries are rarely part of comprehensive plans, revitalization plans,
or community conversations.”39 With amendments to state laws where
necessary, plot sharing or reuse could extend the operational life of extant
cemeteries. Given the widespread expectation in the United States that a
burial plot belongs to a single occupant or couple in perpetuity, the idea
of limited-tenure burial may be regarded as an unsettling departure from
convention. It is, however, already practiced in the United States, in the
aboveground, stacked tombs of New Orleans, where due to aerobic condi-
tions in subtropical heat, decomposition is accelerated and skeletal
remains can be collected or pushed farther back in the tomb after a mini-
mum of one year, allowing the space to be reutilized.40 While this tradi-
tion grew out of necessity, modern ecological values can also inspire a
move toward grave reuse. The Meadow, a natural burial ground outside
Lexington, Virginia, was established in 2014. With a capacity of around
3,000 plots, it offers perpetual burial as well as, for $500 less, a “succes-
sive” option allowing plot reuse after fifty years.41
36 The Future of the Corpse

Canada has similar disposition practices to, and faces similar shortages
as, the United States but has advanced further toward accepting the
necessity of change. Toronto’s cemeteries are anticipated to run out of
plots around 2025. With only 400 plots remaining in its sole active cem-
etery, Vancouver passed a bylaw in 2019 allowing three to four willing
strangers to share a plot for shrouded burial. Under Quebec law, many
graves are leased for a period of twenty-five to ninety-nine years rather
than owned in perpetuity, though reuse if renewal fees go unpaid is
apparently sufficiently rare as to be newsworthy when it does occur.42
In Paris, home to perhaps the most famous and romanticized cemetery
in the world, Père Lachaise, auditors have announced that all fourteen
cemeteries are saturated. For those unable or unwilling to pay, French
communes are legally required to provide burial for a minimum of five
years—which Paris now does mostly in cemeteries outside the city—after
which the remains may be exhumed for either storage in an ossuary or
cremation. Each year, there are approximately 5,000 requests for the 150
plots within Paris limits that become available as limited-tenure leases go
unrenewed or in-perpetuity plots are deemed abandoned and reclaimed.
This demand makes plots expensive, creating what many perceive as a
divide between the wealthy, laid to rest forever within the city, and every-
one else, cast out beyond its bounds into temporary graves.43
Throughout the rest of Europe, many other countries have long
accepted (or now allow) some form of limited-tenure or shared burial,
with remains reburied deeper, moved to a mass grave or ossuary, or cre-
mated and sent back to the family after some period to allow for decom-
position. In Portugal and Greece, lease periods range from three to five
years, with permanent burial available to only those of sufficient means.
In the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark,
Germany, and Italy, grave occupancies span between ten and fifty years.
In places with a long tradition of limited-tenure or shared burial, such
practices are generally accepted and uncontroversial. Countries that are
still normalizing these practices or are facing extreme cemetery crowding
and demand for graves must negotiate complex questions such as ade-
quate burial duration and the socioeconomic justice implications of tying
permanent burial to wealth.44
The United Kingdom, though slower to embrace limits on cemetery
tenure, has been compelled to follow suit. A 2013 BBC survey found that
close to 50 percent of England’s cemeteries would reach capacity by 2033,
and 25 percent by 2023.45 According to analysis published in 2020, plot
prices had increased by 40 percent over six years and, even with the cre-
mation rate close to 80 percent, plots in one-fifth of operational UK
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 37

cemeteries would be exhausted by 2030.46 “Lift and deepen” grave shar-

ing, when older remains are disinterred and then reburied farther down
in the same grave to create space for a new body, became legal in the city
of London in 2007 and throughout Scotland in 2016. The City of London
Cemetery and Crematorium has adopted a policy of reusing graves if the
last burial was more than seventy-five years ago and the family either
agrees or is unreachable. From 2009 to 2019, it reused over 1,500 graves,
restoring and reversing the original headstones to add a new inscription
on the back.47 Cemeteries in Wales have begun to reuse graves over sev-
enty years old.48
Australia, too, has been compelled to contemplate grave reuse. A 2017
governmental report found that cemeteries in metropolitan Sydney would
be full by 2051. A new cemetery established in 2019 is anticipated to
serve the city’s dead for an additional thirty years.49 Grave reuse was for-
mally recognized as an option in South Australia in 2013 and New South
Wales (where Sydney is located) in 2018.50 The mayor of the Gold Coast,
the sixth-largest city in Australia, has suggested addressing the shortage
of plots by disinterring bodies and reinterring several in each grave.51
In many Asian cities, the land-use needs of burgeoning populations
have clashed with the traditional role of the grave as a site for ritual that
honors ancestors. This tension has driven up prices—in Beijing, for
instance, cemetery plots cost over $14,000 on average in 2019—and
spurred new policies.52 Governments have taken steps to catalyze and
expedite a shift toward cremation in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan,
South Korea, and China. But even cremation runs up against spatial limi-
tations, as multistory pagodas and high-rise columbaria fill and mourners
turn to either scattering ashes at sea or in parks or burying them in wood-
lands.53 In China, where cemeteries have been razed for development and
government ministries have issued directives encouraging the downsiz-
ing or sharing of graves and incentivizing cremation, several senior citi-
zens reportedly died by suicide to ensure burial before a ban could come
into effect. In the Jiangxi province, a “zero burial” policy generated dis-
turbing footage of elderly people weeping as government officials
destroyed the coffins they had procured in advance, often after years of
saving, and stored in their homes for luck.54 Burial, when it is permitted,
is often impermanent: remains are disinterred from the public cemetery
of Hong Kong after six years to be cremated or reinterred in an urn grave
or ossuary. In the last active cemetery in Singapore, disinterment occurs
after fifteen years.55
In Central and South America, as in Portugal, France, and Greece,
burial in perpetuity is often a function of wealth. In Guatemala City,
38 The Future of the Corpse

remains are disinterred from the public cemetery and piled in mass graves
after six years if families cannot pay renewal fees. When death rates rush
exhumations, this process can grow disorderly, with bodies left haphaz-
ardly around the cemetery.56 In Mexico City, where approximately 30,000
people die each year, only 71,000 plots were left in 2014, and no land
remains for new cemeteries. Policy makers have proposed shortening
grave tenure from twenty-one years to fifteen years and taking steps to
encourage a populace accustomed to celebrating its ancestral dead at their
tombs to instead embrace cremation.57 In Colombia, graves are commonly
reused after four years; remains are placed in an ossuary if sufficiently
decomposed and cremated if not. Impoverished adults in parts of Brazil
are buried for one year, and their children are exhumed after just six
months. These conditions have driven increasing acceptance of cremation
among largely Catholic populations.58
The strain on burial space has led to architectural innovation. High-
rise cemeteries with burial niches or columbaria have been designed to
accommodate demand in many Asian cities as well as in Medellín, Colum-
bia, and Quito, Ecuador, and, most notably, Santos, Brazil, home to the
Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, the world’s tallest cemetery.59 To cope
with the dearth of space left in cemeteries for in-ground burial, a mile of
newly excavated catacombs with room planned for 23,000 opened in
Jerusalem in fall 2019.60
The coronavirus pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the crises of
urban mortuary logistics. From March 11 to May 11, 2020, there were
around 33,500 deaths in New York City, quadrupling the death rate for
the same period in each of the three previous years.61 New Yorkers were
confronted by the sight of refrigerator trucks parked outside nursing
homes and hospitals to handle morgue overflow and the possibility,
floated by the chairman of the City Council health committee, that the
dead would be temporarily interred in city parks.62 Many learned of the
existence of Hart Island when drones captured footage of mass burials
there. There were at least 2,334 adult interments on Hart Island in 2020,
more than in 1988 at the height of the AIDS epidemic or, indeed, in any
year since 1918.63
These desperate conditions were not limited to the United States.
Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador, established emergency burial
grounds to cope with elevated death rates, as did Jakarta, Indonesia.64 In
the largest cemetery in Sao Paulo, exhumations, permitted after three
years if families do not keep up on plot lease payments, increased from
forty to eighty each day, with remains temporarily bagged for eventual
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 39

placement in an ossuary.65 Mexico City, too, saw a significant uptick in

exhumations of limited-tenure burials.66
The situation was particularly grim for French Muslims, who typically
repatriate around 80 percent of their dead to their countries of origin.
With those countries limiting or altogether barring repatriation, the
shortage of burial plots aligned toward Mecca became salient, as did the
lack of French cemeteries working to accommodate Muslims, who make
up nearly a tenth of the population.67 Muslims in Italy faced a similar
plight, sometimes having to leave the dead unburied for a week or longer,
rather than for just the twenty-four hours preferred under Islam, as they
searched around the country for appropriate burial plots.68 Although
India’s Hindu majority cremates its dead, the oldest operational cemetery
in New Delhi had to clear ground for Muslim burial plots.69

Conclusion
The global population is estimated to swell from around 7.8 billion in
2020 to 8.5 billion in 2030.70 Over 60 percent of that population will live
in cities, where space for burial grows increasingly depleted.71 Together,
these trends can only exacerbate a crisis that is already taking shape and
of which few are aware. The dominant methods of corpse disposition tax
the health of human beings, the environment, and urban centers. Swift,
intensive, and creative thinking is required to foster a shift away from
received practices and toward alternatives that support the physical, emo-
tional, and spiritual well-being of individuals while also helping to sus-
tain global cities, shared resources, and the environment.

Notes
1. Elements of this chapter were adapted from Karla Rothstein, “The New
Civic-Sacred: Designing for Life and Death in the Modern Metropolis,” MIT
Design Issues 34, no. 1 (Winter 2018): 29–41, https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI​
_a_00474; Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt, Post-Mortem: Sustainable Dispo-
sition and Innovative Spaces of Remembrance (Columbia University Press, forth-
coming); and Rothstein, “Reconfiguring Urban Spaces of Disposal, Sanctuary
and Remembrance,” in Our Changing Journey to the End: Reshaping Death, Dying
and Grief in America, eds. Christina Staudt and J. Harold Ellens, vol. 1, New Paths
of Engagement (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014), 253–76.
2. Andrew Martin, “Despite Risk, Embalmers Still Embrace Preservative,”
New York Times, July 20, 2011, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes​
40 The Future of the Corpse

.com/2011/07/21/business/despite-cancer-risk-embalmers-stay-with-formal​
dehyde.html.
3. Eva M. Glosson and Kat Gregersen, “Mortal Exposures: Industrial Hygiene
in the Death Care Industry,” Synergist, March 2019, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://synergist.aiha.org/201903-mortal-exposures.
4. “Formaldehyde and Cancer Risk,” National Cancer Institute, last modified
June 10, 2011, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer​
/causes-prevention/risk/substances/formaldehyde/formaldehyde-fact-sheet.
5. Kenneth D. Kochanek, Jiaquan Xu, and Elizabeth Arias, “Mortality in the
United States, 2019,” NCHS Data Brief No. 395, December 2020, accessed April
25, 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm; Farida B.
Ahmad, Jodi A. Cisewski, Arialdi Miniño, and Robert N. Anderson, “Provisional
Mortality Data–United States, 2020,” CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report 70 (14), April 9, 2021, accessed April 25, 2021, https://www.cdc.gov​
/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm.
6. Maggie Jones, “The Movement to Bring Death Closer,” New York Times
Magazine, December 19, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes​
.com/2019/12/19/magazine/home-funeral.html?smid=tw-share.
7. Brian Wheeler, “EU Embalming Fluid Ban ‘to Change Funerals,’” BBC
News, November 23, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.bbc.com​
/news/uk-politics-46294432.
8. See, e.g., Alison L. Spongberg and Paul M. Becks, “Inorganic Soil Con-
tamination from Cemetery Leachate,” Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 117 (January
2000): 313–27, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005186919370; Mark Harris, Grave
Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial
(New York, NY: Scribner, 2007), 37–41; John Cook, “Dead in the Water,” Mother
Jones, January/February 1999, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.mother​
jones.com/politics/1999/01/dead-water.
9. “Disposition Statistics,” Green Burial Council, accessed April 25, 2021,
https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/media_packet.html; “EPA Hazardous Waste
Codes,” University of Maryland Department of Environmental Safety, Sustainabil-
ity and Risk, accessed September 7, 2020, https://essr.umd.edu/epa-hazardous​
-waste-codes.
10. “Trends in Funeral Service,” National Funeral Directors Association,
accessed June 14, 2020, https://nfda.org/news/trends-in-funeral-service.
11. “Industry Statistical Information,” Cremation Association of North Amer-
ica, accessed June 14, 2020, https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/Industry​
Statistics.
12. Andrew Bernstein, “Fire and Earth: The Forging of Modern Cremation in
Meiji Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 3–4 (November 2000):
297, https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.27.3-4.2000.297-178.
13. “Statistics,” National Funeral Directors Association, accessed June 14,
2020, https://nfda.org/news/statistics.
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 41

14. Anita Vazquez Tibau and Blanche D. Grube, “Mercury Contamination

from Dental Amalgam,” Journal of Health and Pollution 9, no. 22 (June 2019),
https://doi.org/10.5696/2156-9614-9.22.190612.
15. Yifeng Xue et al., “Emission Characteristics of Harmful Air Pollutants
from Cremators in Beijing, China,” PLOS one 13, no. 5 (May 2018), https://doi​
.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194226.
16. See Becky Little, “The Environmental Toll of Cremating the Dead,”
National Geographic, November 5, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.nationalgeographic.com /science/2019/11/is-cremation-environmentally​
-friendly-heres-the-science/#; Bill Briggs, “When You’re Dying for a Lower Car-
bon Footprint,” NBC News, January 18, 2011, accessed March 30, 2021, http://
www.nbcnews.com/id/41003238/ns/business-going_green/t/when ​ -youre-
dying-lower-carbon-footprint/#.X2g493lKhPY.
17. Ari Shapiro, “In India, Eco-Friendly Cremation is Easy—But It’s a Tough
Sell,” NPR, May 10, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections​
/parallels/2016/05/10/477350818/in-india-eco-friendly-cremation-is-easy-but​
-its-a-tough-sell.
18. “A New Look at Air Pollution Sources and Atmosphere-Warming Particles
in South Asia,” Science Daily, October 18, 2013, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131018132306.htm.
19. Tibau and Grube, “Mercury Contamination.”
20. Douglas J. Davies and Lewis H. Mates, eds., Encyclopedia of Cremation
(New York, NY: Routledge: 2005), 174.
21. Jennifer Miller, “Boom Time for Death Planning,” New York Times, July 16,
2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/business​
/boom-time-for-death-planning.html.
22. National Funeral Directors Association, “Statistics.”
23. Green Burial Council, “History,” https://www.greenburialcouncil.org
/history.html, “Disposition Statistics,” “GBC Quick Facts,” https://www.green​
burialcouncil.org/gbc-quick-facts.html, and “Natural Burial FAQ,” https://www​
.greenburialcouncil.org/green_burial_defined.html, accessed April 25, 2021.
24. “FAMIC Study,” Funeral and Memorial Information Council, accessed
June 13, 2020, https://www.famic.org/famic-study.
25. Joe Sehee, “Think Outside the Box: Being Green at the End of Life,” U.S.
Catholic, October 2011, accessed March 30, 2021, http://www.uscatholic.org​
/culture/environment/2011/10/think-outside-box-being-green-end-life.
26. “Frequently Asked Questions,” Conservation Burial Alliance, accessed
June 13, 2020, https://www.conservationburialalliance.org/frequently_asked​
_questions.html.
27. See “Conservation and Green Burial,” Carolina Memorial Sanctuary,
accessed June 13, 2020, https://carolinamemorialsanctuary.org/green-burial.
28. Green Burial Council, “Interactive Provider Maps,” accessed April 25,
2021, https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/interactive-maps.html; Conservation
42 The Future of the Corpse

Burial Alliance, “Meet Our Founders,” accessed April 25, 2021, https://www​
.conservationburialalliance.org/meet_our_founders.html.
29. Jane Margolies, “Real Estate for the Afterlife,” New York Times, March 15,
2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/realestate​
/real-estate-for-the-afterlife.html.
30. Keith Williams, “Why the Brooklyn-Queens Border is Full of Dead Peo-
ple,” New York Times, April 27, 2017, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/nyregion/why-the-brooklyn-queens-border-is-full-of​
-dead-people.html.
31. James Barron, “A Hemmed-In Cemetery Finds a Bit More Space,” New York
Times, June 22, 2017, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com​
/2017/06/22/nyregion/a-hemmed-in-cemetery-finds-a-bit-more-space.html;
“Full Price List,” Green-Wood, accessed June 19, 2020, https://www.green-wood​
.com/full-price-list.
32. “Reacquisition of a Lot, Plot or Part Thereof by a Cemetery Corporation,”
New York L. 2003, c. 478, § 1 (eff. November 8, 2003), amended L.2017, c. 442,
§ 2 (eff. November 29, 2017).
33. Summary of Vital Statistics 2018, The City of New York, Bureau of Vital Sta-
tistics, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, December
2020, 48, accessed April 25, 2021, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads​
/pdf/vs/2018sum.pdf.
34. “One in 10 Local COVID Victims Destined for Hart Island, NYC’s Potter’s
Field,” The City, March 24, 2021, accessed April 25, 2021, https://www.thecity​
.nyc/missing-them/2021/3/24/22349311/nyc-covid-victims-destined-for-hart​
-island-potters-field; Katie Honan, “New York City Is Looking for More Public
Cemetery Space,” Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2019, accessed March
30, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-is-looking-for-more-public​
-cemetery-space-11569364492.
35. “As Trenches Fill, Plans for Hart Island COVID-19 Memorial Look to Past
and Future,” The City, December 11, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.thecity.nyc/2020/12/11/22170479/hart-island-covid-memorial-new-york​
-city-potters-field; see the Hart Island Project, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.hartisland.net.
36. Jon Brooks, “Why Are There So Many Dead People in Colma? And So Few
in San Francisco?” KQED, October 26, 2017, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.kqed.org/news/10779164/why-are-so-many-dead-people-in-colma-and​
-so-few-in-san-francisco; “Colma Facing Housing Problem—Not for the Living,
but the Dead,” CBS SF Bay Area, May 6, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/05/06/colma-facing-housing-problem-not​
-for-the-living-but-the-dead.
37. Nora Caplan-Bricker, “Boston’s Other Housing Crisis: The Cemeteries,”
Boston, April 11, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.bostonmagazine​
.com/news/2019/04/11/boston-cemetery-crisis.
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 43

38. “Burial Space,” Mount Auburn Cemetery, accessed June 15, 2020, https://
mountauburn.org/cemetery/burial-space.
39. Carlton Basmajian and Christopher Coutts, Planning for the Disposal of the
Dead (Tallahassee: Florida State University Libraries Faculty Publications, 2010),
29, accessed March 30, 2021, http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:207​
217/datastream/PDF/view.
40. “Burial Styles and Traditions,” Lafayette Cemetery Research Project, New
Orleans, accessed September 7, 2020, https://sites.google.com/site/lcrpnola/burial​
-styles-traditions.
41. “FAQ” and “Services and Fees,” The Meadow, accessed November 19,
2020, http://themeadowlexingtonva.com; Hunter Mohring, Administrative
Steward, The Meadow, phone conversation with Caitlin Campbell, November
18, 2020.
42. “What Happens When Cemetery Space Runs Out?” CBC Radio, Decem-
ber 12, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent​
/the-current-for-december-12-2016-1.3889638/what-happens-when-cemetery​
-space-runs-out-1.3889836; Karen Pauls, “Would You Share a Grave? Vancouver
Cemetery Has Ground-Breaking Solution to Graveyard Real Estate Crunch,”
CBC News, November 2, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca​
/news/canada/british-columbia/grave-sharing-1.5341491; “Quebec Cemetery
Firm Warns It Can Dig Up Bodies if Fee Not Paid,” CBC News, January 19, 2007,
accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/quebec​
-cemetery-firm-warns-it-can-dig-up-bodies-if-fee-not-paid-1.686303.
43. Kim Willsher, “In the Dilapidated Cemeteries of Paris, a Grave Is Only for
the Rich,” The Guardian, October 7, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/07/paris-cemetery-dilapidated-grave​
-only-for-rich; see also Lucas Guffanti, “Volunteers and the French Public Pauper
Burial: Do It Yourself?” Mortality 20, no. 1 (February 2015), https://doi.org/10.10
80/13576275.2014.973020.
44. See, e.g., Rafaela Ferraz, “Cemetery Overcrowding Is Leading Europe to
Recycle Burial Plots,” Talk Death, July 18, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.talkdeath.com/cemetery-overcrowding-leading-europe-recycle​
-burial-plots; Chloe Hadjimatheou, “Why Greeks Are Exhuming their Parents,”
BBC News, November 26, 2015, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.bbc​
.com/news/magazine-34920068; Ellen Emmerentze Jervell, “Grave Problem:
Nothing Is Rotting in the State of Norway,” Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2013,
accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303
342104579097100412815862.
45. Alex Strangwayes-Booth, “Burial Space in England ‘Could Run Out in 20
Years,’” BBC, September 27, 2013, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.bbc​
.com/news/uk-24283426.
46. Dominic Gilbert, “The Cost of Dying—One in Five Cemeteries Could
Close within a Decade amid a Crisis that ‘Can’t be Ignored,’” The Telegraph,
44 The Future of the Corpse

February 1, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news​

/2020/02/01/cost-dying-one-five-cemeteries-could-close-within-decade​-amid.
47. Gary Burks, “We’re Running Out of Space to Bury Our Dead—It’s Time to
Re-Use Graves,” Metro, July 3, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://metro
.co.uk/2019/07/03/were-running-out-of-space-to-bury-our-dead-its-time-to​
-re-use-graves-10032054.
48. Sonia Mathur, “Graves Reclaimed in Merthyr Tydfil as Welsh Burial Space
Reaches ‘Crisis,’” BBC News, February 3, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-51342578.
49. Liz Main, “New Cemetery to Ease the Squeeze on Plots,” Financial Review,
October 8, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.afr.com/property​
/commercial/new-necropolis-to-ease-the-squeeze-on-cemetery-plots-2019​
1001-p52wjm.
50. “Burial and Cremation Act 2013,” Parliament of South Australia, passed
June 14, 2013, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au​
/ L Z / C / A / B U R I A L% 2 0 A N D % 2 0 C R E M A T I O N % 2 0 A C T % 2 0 2 01 3​
/CURRENT/2013.20.AUTH.PDF; “Guide to the Interment Rights System in New
South Wales,” Cemeteries and Crematoria New South Wales, Sydney, January
2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.industry.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets​
/pdf_file/0016/210409/Guide-to-the-interment-rights-system-in-NSW.pdf.
51. Tom Forbes, “Burial Plot Shortage Prompts Gold Coast to Consider Stacking
Bodies in Multistory Graves,” ABC News, June 4, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-04/burial-plot-shortage-prompts​-gold​
-coast-multistorey-graves/11178152.
52. Lily Kuo, “‘Can’t Afford to Die’: China Embraces Eco Burials as Plot Prices
Outstrip Housing,” The Guardian, April 5, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/05/cant-afford-to-die-china​
-embraces​-eco-burials-as-plot-prices-outstrip-housing.
53. Lily Kong, “No Place, New Places: Death and its Rituals in Urban Asia,”
Urban Studies 49, no. 2 (February 2012): 415–17, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26150849.
54. Lily Kuo, “Outcry as Coffins Crushed in Chinese ‘Zero-Burial’ Campaign,”
The Guardian, August 1, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.theguardian​
.com/world/2018/aug/01/outcry-as-coffins-crushed-in-chinese-zero-burial​
-campaign; see also Vanessa Piao, “China, Facing Land Shortages, Encourages
Saving Space Six Feet Under,” New York Times, February 25, 2016, accessed March
30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/world/asia/china-graves-gated​
-communities.html.
55. A Guide to After-Death Arrangements, Hong Kong Food and Environmental
Hygiene Department, June 2019: 8, 29–30, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.fehd.gov.hk/english/cc/die_todo_e.pdf; “After Death,” Singapore National
Environment Agency, accessed June 20, 2020, https://www.nea.gov.sg/our​
-​services/after-death/facilities-and-services.
Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition Methods 45

56. Kevin Lewis O’Neill, “There Is No More Room: Cemeteries, Personhood,

and Bare Death,” Ethnography 13, no. 4 (2012): 522–24, accessed March 30,
2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43497511.
57. “Running Out of Cemeteries, Mexico City Digging Up the Dead,” CBS
News, October 28, 2014, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com​
/news/running-out-of-cemeteries-mexico-city-digging-up-the-dead.
58. Christien Klaufus, “Deathscape Politics in Colombian Metropolises: Con-
servation, Grave Recycling and the Position of the Bereaved,” Urban Studies 53,
no. 12 (September 2016): 2457, https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098015593012.
59. Klaufus, “Deathscape Politics,” 2461–62.
60. Oliver Holmes and Quique Kierszenbaum, “The Future of Burial: Inside
Jerusalem’s Hi-Tech Underground Necropolis,” The Guardian, October 18, 2019,
accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/18/the​
-future-of-burial-inside-jerusalems-hi-tech-underground-necropolis.
61. Apoorva Mandavilli, “In N.Y.C.’s Spring Virus Surge, a Frightening Echo
of 1918 Flu,” New York Times, August 13, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021,
https: // w w w.ny t ime s.com / 2020/0 8 /13/ he a lt h /coron av ir us -f lu-new-
york.html.
62. Alan Feuer and Liam Stack, “New York City Considers Temporary Graves
for Virus Victims,” New York Times, April 6, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.nytimes​.com/2020/04/06/nyregion/mass-graves-nyc-parks-coro-
navirus.html.
63. The City, “One in 10 Local COVID Victims Destined for Hart Island”; The
City, “Plans for Hart Island COVID-19 Memorial.”
64. “Ecuador Builds Emergency Cemeteries Amid Rising Deaths, Coronavi-
rus Cases,” NBC News, April 8, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ecuador-builds-emergency-cemeteries-amid-rising​
-deaths-coronavirus-cases-n1179091; Joe Cochrane, “Covid-19 Deaths Are
Soaring, and Jakarta’s Graveyards Are Running Out of Space,” Washington Post,
November 1, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com​
/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-deaths-indonesia-cemeteries/2020/10/30/83b4
663e-0d29-11eb-b404-8d1e675ec701_story.html.
65. Tatiana Pollastri and Mauricio Savarese, “Sao Paulo Cemeteries to Dig Up
Graves for Coronavirus Space,” Associated Press, June 13, 2020, accessed March
30, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/cd1106ed962c0de70332f4561046003f.
66. Katherine Niemczyk, “Bodies Are Being Exhumed in Mexico to Make
Room for Coronavirus Deaths,” CBS News, July 11, 2020, accessed March 30,
2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bodies-exhumed-mexico-to-make-room​
-coronavirus-deaths.
67. Constant Méheut, “French Muslims Face a Cruel Coronavirus Shortage:
Burial Grounds,” New York Times, May 2, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/world/europe/france-muslims-burials​-coronavi-
rus.html.
46 The Future of the Corpse

68. “Italy’s Muslims Cope with Burial Space Shortage in Pandemic,” Al

Jazeera, June 9, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/
news/2020/6/9/italys-muslims-cope-with-burial-space-shortage-in-pandemic.
69. Danish Siddiqui, “Delhi’s Oldest Graveyard Clears Space to Bury Corona-
virus Dead,” Reuters, October 6, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-graveyard/delhis-oldest​
-graveyard-clears-space-to-bury-coronavirus-dead-idUSKBN26R13R.
70. “World Population Prospects 2019: Total Population by Sex,” Department
of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Dynamics, accessed June 20, 2020,
https://population.un.org/wpp/DataQuery.
71. “The World’s Cities in 2018,” United Nations, Department of Economic
and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018), 3, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.un.org/en/events/citiesday/assets/pdf/the_worlds_cities_in_2018​_
data_booklet.pdf.
 CHAPTER THREE

From Deathbed to Morgue:

“Rebooting” the System
Christina Staudt

Death is one of the attributes you were created with; death is part
of you.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

Tending to Death in Life

Strategies for how to cope with existential veracities have altered and
adapted to cultures and times, but death was inescapably present in quo-
tidian life until the early 20th century.1 At that point, hospitals began to
assume care of the dying, and doctors gained power as the authority on
matters of living and dying. After World War II, the gradually increasing
practice of placing the elderly and dying in separate care facilities, even
if they did not need medical care, removed the end-of-life experience
from family and domestic life. Toward the end of the last century, only
one-fifth of the U.S. population died in their own homes, although
four-fifths wished they could.2 (Assisted living facilities are statistically
defined as home residences in spite of their often institutional charac-
ter.)3 By then, corpse care and disposition had to a large extent become
the domain of professional funeral directors. Commensurately, public
and private discourse filtered out topics of dying and death. In the
United States the depersonalizing of death care was—and is—further
48 The Future of the Corpse

aggravated by a multidimensional, arcane insurance and reimbursement

bureaucracy that directs attention away from individual needs and
wishes.
In the final decades of the last century, the tide began to turn. Con-
tinuing into the new millennium, segments of the population protested a
“conspiracy of silence”4 and lack of regard for individual choice. The calls
for reintegrating death with life have turned into movements demanding
more holistic and humane, person-centered end-of-life and postmortem
experiences for those on the deathbed as well as their families. Among
grassroots groups, innovative ideas sprout to help make conversations
about our mortality more common and comfortable. Methods and media
differ, but the basic message is similar and simple: dying is not a failure.
We die because we are born, and once we reach the stage where our bod-
ies have worn out, we need to feel safe and supported. We need palliative
and embracing care: love and attention from kin and friends and ongoing
relational (not intermittent transactional) connections with our profes-
sional caregivers. When the person and the material body have separated,
the corpse deserves respect, and close survivors are entitled to handle the
remains and final disposition as they deem appropriate. Conversations
about these matters among family and professionals, and in the public
arena, are essential components to build advocacy and remediate current
deficiencies.
With accelerating force in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic (when
these words are penned), recognition is heightening that the place of
death in life, and practices from deathbed to morgue and beyond, need
reimagining from the perspective of 21st-century values and realities.
Montaigne urged us to be “ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.”
In contemporary parlance, we now need to “reboot” the systems where
death is encountered: medical institutions and health care industries but
also our own minds and the social structures we inhabit and embody.
This chapter highlights some of the issues and concerns that need
attention as, individually and together, we proceed from future to actual
corpses.

Death Is Not the Great Equalizer

“All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good
and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and
those who do not” (Ecclesiastes 9:2). The passage is commonly interpreted
to mean that death makes us all equal. This distortion has been useful for
earthly powers. Repeated in text and image over the centuries, it has been
From Deathbed to Morgue 49

employed to appease the masses, mollify the suffering, and justify unjust
social systems. But our shared destiny does not make death the great
equalizer—not while we are dying and not when we have transformed
into corpses, memory, and legacy. Each transition is unique: the length
and quality of our dying, how our death is received and perceived, and
the handling of our remains.
The factors that shape our lives also impact our death: imposed and
chosen identities, family constellation and group belonging, economic
and social assets—, wealth and income, education and occupation, status
in society—and cultural and religious affiliations all scaffold and color
each individual death. Psychological makeup and personality traits affect
how we experience and prepare for the last period of our lives and how
we are remembered. Where we live regulates our access to care and sup-
port systems as well as our risk of deprivation and disaster. Our home-
lands’ histories, their legal systems and sociopolitical regimes, the media,
and other power centers influence the relative importance of these ele-
ments and help construct advantaged and disadvantaged individuals and
groups. The less fortunate, with limited access to care, support, power,
and knowledge, have shorter natural life spans and are burdened by a
disproportionately high risk of being legally and socially sentenced to
death and of dying from violent and traumatic causes in their own neigh-
borhoods, in wars, and in natural disasters.5
Today, in the United States, most people are—or at least feign to be—
concerned when they realize that stratification of people has mortal force.6
The odds of survival into old age vary immensely among population
groups and regions. Poverty, low education, and other social disadvantages
accounted for an estimated 4.5 percent of all deaths in the United States in
the year 2000.7 This has not substantially changed in the new millennium
and may be a gross underestimation of socially attributable mortality: In a
2008 study, “which analyzed the fall and rise of US socioeconomic inequi-
ties in premature mortality between 1960 and 2002, the percent of adult
US premature deaths (before age 65) that would not have occurred had
everyone had the same age-specific rates of mortality as adults living in the
top quintile income counties in 2000 equaled 25%.”8 During the 2020
pandemic, the vulnerability to infection and death of the marginalized and
minoritized population living in poverty has come into stark relief.
Crowded households, financial imperative to continue working, and high
rates of employment in essential services requiring contact with the public
contribute to the excess of COVID-19 deaths in these cohorts, further
exacerbated by already existing, pervasive risk factors, such as underlying
morbidities and poor access to high-quality health care.9
50 The Future of the Corpse

When we approach the threshold that separates the living from the
dead, we will have been uniquely shaped by biology and circumstance.
With a singular DNA, which may or may not have contributed to the tim-
ing and cause of our demise, we die as a product of our social, political,
cultural, and economic environment. If we genuinely believe that all indi-
viduals deserve to be equal in death, and if we are willing to work toward
this end, then we need to agree to restructure—“to reboot”—our society
so it starts up without (or, at least, with fewer) systemic inequities. We
could begin by paying attention to language: Analyses of health differ-
ences among groups, whether conducted by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services or private research organizations, are com-
monly referred to as “health disparities,” suggesting difference without
cause, an ideological bias built into the data tables; “health inequalities”
would better signal underlying injustices.
Mindful of inequalities and the need to contextualize each singular
death, the following narratives are foregrounded only as examples. They
do not purport to represent the multifarious demographic landscape of
the United States, nor do they suggest universality among the country’s
multitudinous health-care settings.10 They feature particular individuals
dying in the most common settings—a private home, a care facility, and a
hospital. Showing what may be in store for “future corpses and those who
love them,”11 the good and the bad, they highlight where our care systems
need “rebooting.”

Death in the Home

“Did she just die? I don’t believe in an afterlife, but this feels sacred. She
just died, right? Can something be sacred if you don’t believe in God? I feel
we should do something, say something. Should I say something? I don’t
pray.” Urgent words poured out of Maggie’s mouth. She was sitting next to
Annie, a hospice volunteer, in her mother’s bedroom. Her right hand held
fast to the hand of a lifeless body, which until a few moments earlier she
had thought of as her mother, but she looked around frantically. “We can
just sit here for a while,” Annie said. “Nothing is expected of us.” When
Annie saw that Maggie was not comfortable doing nothing, she asked if
Maggie would like her to try a farewell. Maggie nodded. Annie improvised
a version of a poem she often heard at memorial services. She concluded
with “and peace always, wherever you are,” assured by Maggie that “wher-
ever you are” was not offensive in its veering into notions of the afterlife.
Three days earlier, Mrs. O’Hare had been discharged from the hospital,
after it became clear that medical treatments would no longer benefit her.
From Deathbed to Morgue 51

Strict Medicare reimbursement rules dictated she could not remain an in-
patient. At first, Maggie had been hesitant about bringing her mother
home to die, but she agreed when she saw how eager her mother was and
she learned about the support she would receive after her mother enrolled
in hospice. A trained aid came four hours a day and a nurse visited daily,
showing Maggie how to adjust her mother’s morphine doses to keep her
comfortable. The hospice chaplain arranged for Mrs. O’Hare’s parish
priest to come and offer last rites with Holy Communion, but mostly
Maggie was alone with her mother, and, having never before seen some-
one die, she was anxious. The hospice social worker requested that Annie
stay with Maggie to offer support.
When Annie arrived, Maggie greeted her with relief. She did not want
to leave her mother alone even for a few minutes. She had held vigil all
night and was exhausted, but she was fixated on her mother not dying
alone. The mother of a friend of hers had died in the brief time the family
stepped out for a break after having been at the bedside continually for
two days. She did not want to “abandon” her mother in that way. Annie
explained that a person dying alone, after family has just visited, is as
common as someone holding on until a special relative or friend arrives.
We cannot control this. Was it perhaps that her friend’s mother had had
difficulty breaking the bonds with the family when they were all so close
at hand?
During the day that followed, Maggie and Annie mostly sat quietly
together listening to her mother’s uneven and eventually “gurgling”
breathing. Maggie and Annie were in a space, physically and metaphori-
cally, where nothing extraneous mattered or was needed except their
presence as her mother metamorphosed from physical person into corpse
and memory.
After she spoke her farewell, Annie asked Maggie if she was ready for
them to call the hospice nurse. While waiting, they lit a candle, read a
poem her mother had loved, straightened her bedclothes, closed her eyes
and held her mouth shut by tying a scarf around her head. Maggie laughed
through her tears because it looked like her mother had a toothache. Then
they just sat with the body. Occasionally, Maggie would whisper. “It’s so
weird. She is gone, but she is also right here,” “I can feel her. Where is
she?” And similar phrases.
When the hospice nurse arrived, she checked the inert body for vital
signs, signed a document that “pronounced” Mrs. O’Hare dead, and con-
tacted the medical examiner so a death certificate could be issued. She
offered to call the funeral home Mrs. O’Hare had indicated when she
enrolled in hospice but told Maggie there was no need to rush if she wanted
52 The Future of the Corpse

to spend more time with the body before it was taken away. Annie volun-
teered to help with phone calls and emails to anyone Maggie wanted to
notify. Maggie’s two adult daughters who lived in nearby suburbs were the
first on the call list. Annie asked Maggie if they would want to come and see
their grandmother while she was in her own apartment, but Maggie felt
uncomfortable suggesting such a visit, and the daughters did not ask for it.

The “Good Death”

When talking about her mother’s death in the following year, Maggie
would relate how happy she was that she had brought her mother home
to die. She felt it had been a “good death.” She was grateful to the hospice,
to Annie for suggesting the improvised rituals, and for having had time
with her mother’s body before the funeral director arrived. Treaties on the
“good death” and its guidebooks (ars moriende) are abundant, dating as
far back as the Pyramid Texts (2700–2170 BCE), which includes direc-
tives for entering into Akh, where the pharaoh could be with the gods.12
In recent years, caring professionals and scientists have tried to define
and synthesize what is meant by a “good death” in contemporary times. A
British report on aging came up with a list of twelve principles: To know
when death is coming, and to understand what can be expected; to be
able to retain control of what happens; to be afforded dignity and privacy;
to have control over pain relief and other symptom control; to have choice
and control over where death occurs (at home or elsewhere); to have
access to information and expertise of whatever kind is necessary; to have
access to any spiritual or emotional support required; to have access to
hospice care in any location; to have control over who is present and who
shares the end; to be able to issue advance directives that ensure wishes
are respected; to have time to say goodbye and have control over other
aspects of timing; to be able to leave when it is time to go and not to have
life prolonged pointlessly.13
The list is a good starting point for conversation among family members
and between patients and their medical team, but with caveats: the report
advocates that control, autonomy, and independence center discussions
about aging. For American purposes we need to add, “especially among
baby boomers of Euro-American ancestry.” Many individuals outside this
demographic (and some within it) prefer to defer to family or cede to tradi-
tion; they may look to medical and spiritual authorities for direction rather
than wish to take control; and they often prioritize loving support of a
large collective over autonomy. Following the twelve-point list does not
necessarily contradict meeting the wishes of those who place their
From Deathbed to Morgue 53

emphasis elsewhere. But a holistic view of the person as a member of a

culture and a family (however defined) is part of good care, as is listening
to the whole person in the person’s circumstance, without presuming a
set of values. With the best of intentions, the report states, “We clearly
need to monitor how people die.” “Monitoring” we have done for the last
twenty years. It is not that data is not valuable but a lot of good research
has been performed to demonstrate what wise people have always known:
in short, those who are dying need love and support.
The investigations have also led to obvious conclusions that are worthy
of promoting: “Dialogues among the stakeholders for each individual
must occur to ensure a good death from the most critical viewpoint—the
patient’s.”14 What we have to do now, if we are to reboot the system—
including common thought patterns—is to pivot the emphasis from
“monitoring how people die,” to being with, listening to, walking along-
side of fellow human beings with whom we all have a shared destiny.
And, importantly, we need to cease thinking about, and referring to,
those who are dying as “patients”; even in the hospital, they should be
first and foremost viewed as individual human beings with a culture, per-
sonality, and history. Mrs. O’Hare wanted to go home, to get into her
familiar surroundings but also—whether she was able to articulate it or
not—to fulfill her desire to be a whole person again, not just a patient
with a medical problem.

Ritual Deficiencies
In moments of stress, we take flight, we fight, or we freeze. In my per-
sonal experience as a hospice volunteer, family members who are present
at a death follow similar modalities. Some sit motionless, as if the death
caused them and the world to stop, or they appear stunned, hold the
corpse tight, or embrace other loved ones as if they, too, will evaporate
along with the deceased. Other survivors will find reason to absent them-
selves as soon as possible, as if the body of the person they held dear were
suddenly infectious. Many people have an urge to take action: making
phone calls, gathering belongings, offering to make coffee; occasionally,
the reaction is reminiscent of bygone days, and the survivor begins to
straighten the bedclothes and comb the hair of the deceased. Protective
gestures toward those present—to “approach and soothe”—may surface
spontaneously.15
The impulse to react, to act, to move, “to do something,” as Maggie put
it, channels energy and emotion and helps calm the nervous system.16
This physiology likely originated rituals around death. Newfound ritual
54 The Future of the Corpse

gestures and words also provide “something to do,” direct attention, and
bring a sense of order. In a secularized world, rituals are often abandoned
because of their perceived religious connotation. It is unfortunate, because
ritual has the power to soothe the mind and heart, even when the embod-
ied meaning is obtuse to the participants.
Along with practical care assistance and emotional support, the need
to reinstate rituals becomes apparent when deathbed scenes return to the
home. Maggie had no experience of being with a dying person; neither
she nor her mother had thought about how such a situation would enfold.
They could both have benefited from more preparation and guidance
than hospice was able to offer in Mrs. O’Hare’s last few days. Aware of the
inclination among nonbelievers to discard deathbed traditions, such as
praying and reading sacred texts, “death movement” advocates encourage
the creation of individualized rituals. “Death doulas,” who are trained to
provide emotional and spiritual support at the deathbed, can help design
vigils for the last hours and lead rituals in the aftermath of a death, as well
as create legacy projects and offer guidance before death and in the early
stages of grief. Doulas have picked up the mantle of experienced family
members and clergy, who in other centuries attended to the dying and
their families in the home, and they have a role to play in reimagined
death care.17

Breaking Up the Silos

Mrs. O’Hare was swept up in a trend that began about fifteen years into
the new millennium: regulatory changes and altered government reim-
bursement policies forced hospitals, for financial reasons, to discharge
patients who no longer required acute medical care. Even on the brink of
death, they now return home or into a nonhospital facility (assisted living,
nursing home, or residential hospice) to die.18 For the most part, the new
trend dovetails with the wishes of dying individuals. To accommodate
their needs of emotional and spiritual comfort along with physical pain
and symptom management, they typically enroll in hospice services.
Today more than half of the Medicare population receive hospice ser-
vices when they die,19 an apparent success story. Yet, the system is far
from ideal. Strict government regulations exclude many feeble individuals
who could benefit from the service in their last year were it not for the
requirement of a terminal illness diagnosis to enroll. Persons with severe
dementia (unless Alzheimer’s has been diagnosed) are not eligible, even if
they are also frail and losing weight, unable to care for themselves, and
visibly declining. Regulations instituted in 2013 to reduce Medicare
From Deathbed to Morgue 55

expenses precluded “failure to thrive” as the sole diagnosis under the hos-
pice benefit.
A system that compels hospitals to discharge people in their last days of
life strains the finances of hospice organizations that assume the care.
Well over a quarter of hospice patients are enrolled for only eleven days or
less before they die.20 The fixed per diem reimbursement hospices receive
from Medicare or private insurance for each patient is often not sufficient
to cover the equipment, medication, pain and symptom relief they pro-
vide as well as the intensive nursing care and many social work hours
frequently needed in the last days of life. The reimbursement system was
tailored for a longer enrollment period. Other limitations of the hospice
benefit as it is designed now places undue burdens on families attempting
to care for a dying person at home. Especially problematic is the lack of
resources for in-home support and aid services. Paradoxically, costly che-
motherapy and radiation are available until the end of someone’s life but,
if individuals forgo such interventions and go home to live out their days,
the much-lower expense of a team of caregivers who can cook, manage
bed baths, and do housework is not covered by Medicare or private health
insurance. If we are to change the system for the better, funding for ser-
vices and support that dying (as well as seriously and chronically ill) per-
sons require—and should be entitled to receiving—cannot remain in
insurance silos but need to be integrated in a comprehensive care system.
End-of-life care includes so much more than medical care and pain
and symptom management: appropriate living quarters; help with daily
activities of living and personal hygiene; bill paying, spiritual sustenance;
family care and services; occupational, music, and pet therapy; shared
time with loved ones; and satisfaction of individual needs and wishes,
from special food and flowers by the bedside to access to poetry or a
favorite television show. All the same things we need to live well, we need
to die well. If we are serious about wanting to help people have “a good
death,” public and private entities need to restructure the entire elder and
disability care complex to provide this, when individuals and families
cannot manage on their own.
The reorganizing requirements and financial implications are substan-
tial, but we cannot pretend we do not know how to help people die
well. The crux currently lies in lack of political will to break up the
present entangled, inefficient, and inequitable system and risk the “haves”
losing their privileged position. Policies on long-term and end-of-life
care require radical redirection away from present-day, siloed disease-
management perspectives. The costs, indignities, and possibilities must
be addressed within a national agenda, across agencies, and must begin
56 The Future of the Corpse

and end with a holistic consideration of the individual and the individu-
al’s environment.

Death in the Nursing Home

Shortly after six o’clock in the morning, Grant received the call. “This
is Leena Barnes from Morningside. We are so sorry, Mr. Perry. Your
mother passed away during the night.” Grant recognized the voice of the
family coordinator at the place, where his mother had resided for the last
two years. She told him that his mother had died peacefully in her sleep.
Grant’s mother was ninety-two years old when she moved to Morning-
side. She had never been diagnosed with any of the major illnesses that
affect most people her age: no cancer, no lung or heart disease, but her joints
were arthritic and swollen, making dressing herself and cooking meals dif-
ficult. Her eyesight was deteriorating, and she was occasionally forgetful.
She was fiercely independent and was reluctant to move to a care facility.
She might have accepted live-in help, but that was not financially feasible.
After a fall, which fortunately only resulted in a few bruises, she agreed to
leave the apartment, where she had lived since her husband died twenty
years earlier, and to move into assisted living. With advice from a geriatric
care consultant, Grant established a pooled trust to make his mother eligi-
ble for Medicaid so she could afford living at Morningside.
Morningside was rated one of the best facilities of its kind in Chicago.
The staff took care to make the common rooms homelike, and residents
furnished their own bedrooms and sitting areas. Nevertheless, when Mrs.
Perry referred to Morningside, she never called it “my home” but “this
joint where I live now.” The perky name of the facility annoyed her. She
knew that this would be the place where she would end her days. She
joked acidly that, given the declining health and capacity of the residents,
Eveningslope would be a more appropriate name.
Mrs. Perry’s first six months at Morningside required a lot of adjust-
ments. She felt lonely and isolated even though staff and fellow residents
were present. Her friends from her active social days were themselves too
frail to visit. When she tried to connect with other residents, she found
that many had lost the ability to communicate beyond smiles and brief
utterances and that the alert ones were doing such things as playing cards
or watching movies, which her eyesight denied her. Even listening to her
favorite radio programs gave her little pleasure. Eventually she resigned
herself to a joyless existence and tried not to look too downtrodden when
Grant visited. She knew he felt guilty about having placed her in a facility,
and she did not want to feed his self-reproach.
From Deathbed to Morgue 57

Mrs. Perry’s last year was plagued with recurring urinary tract infec-
tions (UTIs). She lost weight and spent much of her day napping—
whether from weakness or boredom, Grant was not sure. In the last
couple of weeks of her life, she was confused and anxious. A doctor diag-
nosed yet another UTI and prescribed antibiotics. When she developed a
low-grade fever and showed signs of back pain and dehydration, she was
moved to the nursing home section of Morningside for more intensive
monitoring than could be managed in the assisted living wing. The move,
although only across the compound’s campus, depleted Mrs. Perry. Dis-
tressed and disoriented, she kept asking if she could finally just go home.
When Grant saw her briefly the night before she died, she had just
been administered an antianxiety medication. She appeared distant and
lethargic. A nurse explained to Grant that with advanced age comes a
compromised immune system and that it was difficult for his mother to
fight off the infection even with the help of medication. She was implying
that the end was likely near, but Grant chose not to ask further questions.
Instead, he patted his mother’s arm and said, “You will be better in no
time. You are a fighter. You’ll see.”
Over the phone, Leena confirmed with Grant the name of the funeral
home, selected at the time of Mrs. Perry’s admittance, and informed him
that a transport from there would be on its way shortly. He was to make
contact directly with the funeral home regarding final arrangements. She
conveyed her condolences again, adding that Mrs. Perry had been a
delightful presence at Morningside. And then, her duty done, she hung up.

Dying Is a Human Event, Not a Medical Problem

The Perrys’ story is common in the United States today among the frail
elderly. “To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular . . .
a privilege rarely seen,” Montaigne observed in 1575.21 During the 20th
century, this formerly rare privilege became the norm. The century
brought two world wars, pandemics, HIV/AIDS, and genocides but also
unprecedented advances in hygiene, medical care, and pharmaceuticals.
In the United States, mortality rates for children under the age of five fell
from above 30 percent in 1900 to below 1.5 percent in 1997, and to 0.7
percent in 2019.22 A baby born in 1900 had a life expectancy of fifty
years (slightly higher for females and slightly lower for males, with
important variations, notably, Black males, for whom it was thirty-three
years). A century later those numbers had increased to almost eighty
years for girls (eighty-one by 2018) and seventy-five for boys (seventy-six
by 2018).23
58 The Future of the Corpse

Dying in old age is now expected. (Less than 10 percent of the U.S.
population dies before age sixty-five, exclusive of homicides, suicides,
accidents, and deaths in the military, which collectively represent two-
thirds of all deaths before age sixty-five.) However, dying of old age is not
statistically acceptable. Since the mid-1980s the Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention (CDC), which coordinates mortality data in the
United States, discourages certifying physicians from listing senescence,
old age, and infirmity as causes of death. A medical illness code is
expected. Montaigne’s declaration about the singularity of dying of old
age is true again but for different reasons.
Mrs. Perry did not contract any of the serious conditions that befall
most people her age. She succumbed to a urinary tract infection, but any
of her nonagenarian organs might have failed and triggered a breakdown
of the whole organism. She died because her entire system had been
functional for many decades and was finally worn out. However, in our
medico-centric world an identifiable medical cause needs recording for
everyone who dies of “natural causes,” that is, not homicide, suicide, acci-
dent, or in military service. So, according to the official record, at ninety-
four, she did not die of old age but of urosepsis.24 Although disallowing
“the aging process” as a cause of death, the CDC concedes that aging plays
a role in dying, defining “natural deaths” as “due solely or nearly totally to
disease and/or the aging process.”25 Even so, death in our statistical uni-
verse is placed within a medical, disease framework, and the narrow
focus risks reducing care at the end of life to medical treatment.
With a more expansive view, beyond the official, primary, triggering
event and the underlying, secondary morbidities, “old age” often emerges
as the “experiential” cause of the death. When asked how his mother
died, Grant usually answered, “She had a urinary tract infection at the
end, but she was ninety-four years old,” implying, and believing, that
advanced age was the main reason she died. Chronological age cannot be
altered, but the environment we create for the elderly can be more holisti-
cally beneficial. The isolation when activities and encounters with friends
and family wane has been described as “death with a small ‘d’”26 or a
stage in “social death.”27 Decades-long research has shown that lack of
social connections is predictive of increases in illnesses and higher mor-
tality, especially among the elderly.28 “Transfer trauma,” such as Mrs.
Perry experienced in her disorienting move in her last week, is a recog-
nized debilitating condition.29 Broader external factors, such as a polluted
environment and poverty, which have been proven to correlate with
shorter life spans,30 are also marginalized in disease-centered reporting,
only tangentially alluded to in the “Z code,” which may be added for
From Deathbed to Morgue 59

“circumstances of death” and may include homelessness, lack of access to

health-care facilities, and similar. Such deprivations do not currently rise
to the level of “cause of death,” but they are risk factors of a magnitude
that should accord them more attention in the data.
Many stakeholders have a vested interest in how we keep mortality
statistics. Historically, “[c]oncerns about recurrent epidemics and their
prevention, scientific advancement, and political reorganization stimu-
lated the organization of public health, including the registration of deaths
and classification of their causes.”31 Statistics nourish arguments for
research grants and fuel stories in the media. What we choose to measure
and report matter.
Physician-assisted dying (PAD), also known as medical-assisted dying,
presents a paradoxical statistical case.32 Introduced to give individuals
suffering unbearable physical and spiritual pain control over the manner
of their own demise, PAD proponents argue for handing the full decision-
making power over to the individuals and for allowing them to compose
their own death as a personal event. Yet the regulations governing the
certification of a physician-assisted death include instructions to the cer-
tifying physicians to list the underlying terminal illnesses as the cause of
death, thus medicalizing rather than humanizing the death. The manner
of death is to be marked as “natural death.” This formulation is favored by
advocates of PAD under present CDC coding to avoid stigmatizing. On
PAD advocates’ urging, state regulations direct that physician-assisted
deaths must not be identified as suicides or homicides. This means that
the suffering that lies at the core of PAD is denied room on the death cer-
tificate by the very people who advocate for ending the suffering. Confi-
dential records of medications prescribed and whether they are ultimately
used are kept for separate statistical purposes. The result is that the debate
around PAD is polarized by seemingly intractable ideological beliefs
rather than by addressing the shortcomings that bring about the call for
PAD among patients and that can make carrying out the choice cumber-
some. Because of a remaining odium around PAD, insufficient attention is
being paid to the circumstances of such patients. Would more be done for
them to ease their suffering and death, if their choice could be more com-
fortably recognized by society?
When official scorekeepers of mortality focus on disease data, we must
ask whose aim is served and whose perspective is being left out or margin-
alized. Current practices promote viewing death as a medical, preventable
occurrence, rather than as a human-centered, natural event. A disease-
centered explanation of death encourages a medicalized, data-driven
approach to dying and ignores, obscures, and minimizes socioeconomic
60 The Future of the Corpse

inequalities and environmental factors that impact why life may be cut
short. Surely we would have different policy discussions, social goals, and
resource allocations if we also recorded whether people died according to
their wishes, if they died peacefully or in distress, and if they were in a
supportive or stressed environment. With the odds of most of us living
decades longer than Montaigne, it behooves us—as family and community
members, and as a society—to rethink where and how we care for the
older generation so the extra years feel like a bonus rather than a burden,
for the elderly as well as next of kin. Quantifying the cause of, and circum-
stances around, death with appropriate attention to individual wishes and
goals could advance this goal.

Lack of Conversations
Whenever Mrs. Perry broached the subject of dying, even in a round-
about way as with her joke about the name of her care facility, Grant
brushed off her comments and changed the subject. They never talked
about how she would like to be treated when she arrived at the end of her
life, what she wanted done with her body after she died, or anything
related to final arrangements. The adult Perry children’s lack of conversa-
tions with their mother about her wishes for end-of-life care and final
arrangements is a syndrome of the lingering “pornography of death.”33 To
counter this long-held reluctance to speak about death in the public
square, several grassroots groups have germinated and are flourishing,
exemplified in death cafés, Death with Dinner, the Conversation Project,
and Reimagine End of Life. With the help of organizations promoting
conversation at public events and in the media, speaking about dying and
advance care planning is becoming easier for many individuals and fami-
lies. While the pandemic has opened the minds of many to the need for
discourse about mortal matters, death remains a sensitive topic. Outright
denial or articulated fear is not necessarily the response when a loved one
is approaching the end of life. Instead, as in the Perry family, the looming
event is mentally relegated to an undefined future time. In contrast, the
interest in the topic among millennials and their younger siblings have
gained them the label of the “death positive” generation.34
Planning and sharing wishes gives the principal a sense of maintaining
control and having personal affairs in order. For the family, having clear
directions eases the burden of decision-making and lessens confusion
and disagreements among family members about appropriate actions.
Importantly, following a loved one’s directives gives the family a feeling of
doing things “right,” the family’s final gifts to the deceased. The main
From Deathbed to Morgue 61

obstacle to these conversations is the difficulty people have in initiating

them. Guidance and tools are often needed to get on the right path so that
“living well and dying well are one,” as Epicurus proclaimed, and can be
realized.35 Relatedly, conversations between patients and their medical
providers often lack the necessary quality for dying individuals to receive
optimum end-of-life care.

Death in the Hospital

One reason conversations are a critical component of end-of-life care is
that since the 1950s, and ongoing, physicians have at their service ever
more extraordinary tools to hold death at bay, and judgments about their
benefit to individual patients must be made. The following story is illus-
trative: Joseph had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and had
returned several times for treatments to the famous teaching hospital
where he had his first surgery. The malignancy had metastasized rapidly.
He and his wife, Margaret, had been informed that the cancer was not
curable but that Joseph would receive every available treatment to control
the spread of the tumor. Joseph endured chemotherapy, brachytherapy
(radioactive pebbles placed inside the body), exterior radiation, and so
many different IV infusions that he lost track. A formerly robust and vital
forty-two-year-old firefighter, Joseph became an emaciated and exhausted
man who looked decades beyond his age.
Joseph was in great pain and discomfort but stoically suffered with few
complaints. His friend Carl, who visited him often in the hospital and at
home, saw Joseph’s agony but did not think it appropriate to question
treatments. Shortly after one of Joseph’s surgeries, Carl and Margaret
crossed paths in the hospital hallway. Margaret was crying. Tears made
Carl uncomfortable, but he tried to be encouraging, so he said, “I am sure
the doctors in this great hospital will find something that can help
Joseph.” She looked at him and said, “We have told them we want every-
thing done to fight this cancer. Everything. They say they are using a
multimodal protocol and will look into joining experimental trials. We
want to exhaust every possibility.”
Joseph’s last six months were a whirlwind of medical attempts and
failures with an occasional brief beam of light. On the physicians’ orders,
nurses, technicians, and aides drew blood, hooked up IVs, and wheeled
Joseph to X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans. Treatments were adjusted and new
protocols attempted. Margaret felt she was spending half her life at the
computer trying to understand the options that she and Joseph were pre-
sented and the other half managing Joseph’s nausea, diarrhea, sweats,
62 The Future of the Corpse

and chills and helping him feel clean and positioned for the least discom-
fort. Joseph was in excruciating pain almost constantly and utterly worn
down but determined to eke out every drop of life. Desperately, they kept
asking the doctors what else could be done.
Joseph died in the hospital fourteen months after his initial diagnosis.
That day, Margaret was called and told she should come in as soon as pos-
sible. When she arrived in Joseph’s room, she immediately sensed that
things had changed. Before she could reach the bed, the nurse in the
room said, “I am so sorry. He just passed.” Numb, Margaret instinctively
picked up the phone and speed-dialed her mother and Joseph’s parents,
who were all at the house with their children. She whispered two words,
“He’s gone,” and hung up.
Death in the hospital is rarely ideal. Overworked doctors stride by beds
on lightning quick visits and discuss patients on rounds that often reduce
a dying person to “a case.” Kind and well-meaning nurses and aides do
their job on a busy schedule but have scant time to talk, let alone just sit
and hold the hand of someone who is scared and lonely. Hospital rules
leave little room for impromptu compassionate gestures or attention to
nonmedical personal wishes. In this context it is worth mentioning the
heroic efforts by doctors and nurses during COVID-19 when family visits
to dying loved ones were precluded. Facilitating final goodbyes on Face-
Time and other media, medical staff did all they could to meet the need to
connect at the end, and when the vital signs went flat on the monitor and
the morphine drip or pulsating ventilator stopped, the lifeless body was
treated with dignity as it was wrapped and moved to the morgue.
Even without the risk of spreading a deadly virus, hospital routines can-
not allow for the gentle aftercare feasible in a private home. The protocol
requires that an attending medical professional, usually a nurse, pro-
nounces the death after checking for signs of life by looking for a pulse and
shining a light in the eyes of the patient. The nurse will then call for a phy-
sician to certify the manner and cause of death. If family members are pres-
ent, they are usually expected to leave the hospital room soon after the
death, sometimes even before the certifying physician has arrived. Staff
tries to be accommodating, but often the bed is needed for another patient.
After the room is emptied of family members, an aide comes to clean
and wrap the body and place it in a body bag. Rarely is family encouraged
to remain for this task. Yet if an infectious virus is not present, this now
clinical procedure could become a loving personal aftercare act. Covered
by a sheet, the labeled and bagged corpse is discreetly conveyed to the
hospital morgue, where the designated funeral home picks it up, usually
from a back door early in the morning or late at night, when the hearse is
From Deathbed to Morgue 63

not visible to most hospital staff and visitors. Typically, the funeral direc-
tor takes on the responsibility of filing the death certificate, after which a
burial permit (or burial transit permit, if the body will be shipped to a
different state) is issued. (Chapter 7 details the role of funeral directors.)

Pitfalls of Self-Determination
With the advancement of medical technology, ethicists began already
in the 1970s to probe the personal and social problem of overtreating
elderly patients who had already lived full lives.36 But it was the highly
publicized stories about young women, Karen Quinlan and Nancy Cur-
zan in the 1970s and 1980s, and Terri Schiavo in the early 21st century,
and their contested existence on life support, that brought the moral and
legal issue of capacity, futility, and end-of-life care and wishes to the pub-
lic’s attention. The concerns center on incapacitated persons’ legal right to
be “unplugged” from a liminal existence, and if that would be their known
wish, should certain circumstances occur.
To counter the notion that physicians have inalienable authority to
decide in sensitive medical cases, the Patient Self-Determination Act
(PSDA) was enacted, effective December 1991. The PSDA gave adult indi-
viduals the right to be informed about their medical care and choices of
treatments, so they could participate in decisions, refusing or accepting
what their doctor proposed. Also included was the right to appoint a per-
son to speak for them and/or to document wishes for the medical staff to
follow, in case they were unable to make health-care decisions for them-
selves. All states enacted versions of this law, which covered most health-
care settings. It was a groundbreaking step forward for patient autonomy,
but it was also a great leap into the unknown with consequences that
lawmakers did not foresee.
After decades of being the de facto primary authority and decision-
maker in medical case management, the legal right and power to make
health-care decisions for their patients were swept away from the physi-
cians into the hands of individual patients. The PSDA asked those who
knew the ins and outs of medicine to defer to those who knew the ins and
outs of their personal goals and values. For best outcomes, the two sets of
knowledge need to combine, but the law provided no guidance on how to
communicate across the information chasm. Doctors were caught off
guard as much as patients and families.
If the issue at stake had solely concerned elderly patients on life sup-
port who could be allowed to die peacefully in a quiet space, the problem
may have been manageable. But the law handed over all decision-making
64 The Future of the Corpse

powers to individual patients in all situations, and the burden was—and

is—often overwhelming. At first, the changes were barely discernible, but
as people increasingly claimed their rights, doctors yielded and routinely
came to ask patients to make choices. When treatment decisions are as
complex and sophisticated as Joseph’s, some families yearn for the days
when doctors asserted their authority. Regardless, the problem remains if
the focus is on the illness and not on the whole person.
As Joseph and Margaret discovered, oncologists in an urban teaching
hospital have plenty of treatment options at their disposal. When one
protocol does not yield desired results and the patient (or a family mem-
ber) pleadingly asks, “Is there something else, we can try? What else can
you do, doctor?,” then the doctor, trying to be responsive to the family’s
entreaties, can almost always offer a new procedure or drug. To suggest
that medical pursuits may be futile is difficult for most physicians trained
in a specialty. Yet if they knew the whole person they were treating, not
just the medical case, that course might be easier.
Based on palliative-care physician Susan Blocks’s insights, Atul Ga­wande
has summarized the four things all physicians should ask their patients
before discussing specific treatments: (1) What is your understanding of
your diagnosis? (2) What are your goals if your health gets worse? (3) What
are your fears? (4) What are the trade-offs you are willing, and not willing,
to make, such as being alert versus being pain-free?37 Since physicians
generally have little or no practice in conducting such probing conversa-
tions, the questions are rarely asked, even though, since January 1, 2016,
physicians have been granted reimbursement for discussions about end-
of-life options with their Medicare patients. When doctors do not ask, it
behooves the patient to volunteer the information. But patients do not have
training in sharing their goals and wishes and often are disinclined to
interrupt their doctor to offer information that has not been requested.
Would Joseph have traded his months of incapacitating pain and nau-
sea for weeks of partial well-being and more strength to play with his
children? If he had declined some of the protocols, would such a trade-off
have been an option? In retrospect, Margaret wishes she had been coached
to ask about the potential side effects of each treatment, especially how
they would impact Joseph’s daily life and how outcomes of treatments
would compare with doing nothing. She worries that in the last several
weeks, they prolonged Joseph’s dying rather than extended his life,
that they traded quantity for quality of days and never clarified to the
medical team that memorable family time was their highest priority. And
she wishes she had known to ask for palliative care, the “extra layer
of care” that complements other treatments and emphasizes in-depth
From Deathbed to Morgue 65

communication with a knowledgeable team of medical professionals,

social workers, chaplains, and other resources.

Language Matters—Listening Matters

The language we employ in speaking about dying and death is indica-
tive of the treacherous ground we travel. Too much straightforwardness
can appear brusque and disrespectful to some ears, but euphemisms may
sound disingenuous. It was made clear to Joseph and his family that his
cancer was not curable but could be controlled for a period. They under-
stood the information to mean that he had years, not months.
The nurse who was with Joseph when he died told Margaret that he
had “passed,” a word commonly preferred among a broad swath of the
population and in general use by hospital staff speaking to families. Medi-
cal professionals avoid saying “expired,” the intra-staff term, when report-
ing a death to a loved one. It may sound insensitive, as if a person is no
different than a carton of milk that has passed its usable date. (The anal-
ogy is morbidly accurate: both the dead body and the sour milk are mate-
rially present but no longer serve their original purpose; they have become
something requiring proper disposal.)
Joseph was not “gone,” notwithstanding how Margaret informed her
family. His body was very much in the room, and his person would
remain a presence for the rest of their lives, albeit not in its familiar form.
But it was the right word for her at the time, which needs respecting. “He
died” would be the simplest and most direct way to say what transpired
and is increasingly preferred by groups and organizations that favor
addressing issues of death and dying in direct manner.
Hospitals and other care facilities, as well as individuals who are man-
aging a serious illness at home, need access to palliative care teams and
other trained communicators who can act as cultural brokers. These facil-
itators are familiar with—and understand how to listen for—appropriate
euphemisms and nuances in the patient’s and family’s language and cus-
toms. More of these cultural translators have to be built into the system so
consumers do not feel they are on foreign turf. Good intermediaries can
sensitively probe someone’s level of education and ability to absorb infor-
mation. It is an ongoing, difficult, and critical task. An unbridged com-
munication divide between the medical team and the family can result in
unintended insults, missed cues, and misdirected care, even when the
two sides have the best intentions and speak the same language. Think-
ing sensitively across cultural barriers is important but must not mean
being so fearful of saying the wrong words that no conversation occurs.
66 The Future of the Corpse

Anatomical Donation
As his disease progressed, Joseph became intensely aware of the com-
plexities of the human body and decided he wanted to explore offering
his body for medical research. He knew that Carl had a red heart on his
Texas driver’s license, indicating he was a registered organ donor, and
asked him for help to investigate the possibilities. Connected with a local
organ procurement organization, Joseph and Margaret discussed options
and procedures. Margaret found the conversations difficult, but she par-
ticipated, knowing their importance to Joseph. They learned that Joseph
would likely not be eligible for whole-body donation but that his corneas
would be a wonderful gift to an eye bank and his eyes could serve future
ophthalmology surgeons. On the day of Joseph’s death, his eyes were
removed, the cavities filled, and the eyelids closed before the body was
collected by the funeral home.
The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 requires that the person
completing the Pronouncement of Death form notify the hospital’s organ
procurement staff, which, when appropriate, approaches the family about
donating organs or tissue to save and improve the lives of patients waiting
for hearts, lungs, kidneys, eyes, and more.38 The family receives comfort
that they are providing benefit, even life, to another human being. The
trend in organ donation is upward in most of the world, but the shortage
is still acute, with seventeen people in the United States alone dying every
day while waiting for a transplant.39 Hospitals are mindful to treat corpses
with respect, but because transplants are often time sensitive, members of
a donor family can feel rushed if they have not expressed their intentions
and made arrangements in advance.
To allow for thoughtful, advance conversations with family, and to
avoid possible disappointing rejections, it would serve persons waiting to
receive organs, as well as willing donors, if information about donor pro-
grams were circulated widely in residential communities and offices as
well as in hospitals. Whole-body donations for anatomy classes at medical
schools can be arranged directly with the school, or in some states
through a coordinating agency, and are possible regardless of place of
death. Fortunately, we are beyond the time when medical students, art-
ists, and others who explore the human body must rely on a supply of
executed criminals, paupers with no means to pay for burial, and grave
robbers for their cadaver needs. With such gruesome traffic a matter of
the past and the current respectful treatment of donated bodies, the
stigma of the sullied corpse is gone: Organ and whole-body donations are
widely understood as a final, generous gift.
From Deathbed to Morgue 67

A prospective donor can prepare a “personal preference” document

regarding organ and body donation, which in most states also can include
the right to designate an agent other than the next of kin to make deci-
sions about disposition and other final arrangements.40 As in the case of
end-of-life care directives, personal preference documents should be
shared with anyone who may have a stake in decisions to avoid objections
at the time of death.

The Tentative Status of the Body

The exact moment of death is not always as clear as the death certifi-
cate implies in its to-the-minute declaration. Dying is a process from a
social, psychological, and emotional perspective and also in the physio-
logical “sequence of events by which tissues and organs gradually yield
up their vital forces in the hours before and after the officially pronounced
death.”41 Some religious groups believe that it takes several days for the
soul to leave the body. However, throughout the millennia, the cessation
of breath and pulse has been an accepted boundary between life and
death. When a person stops breathing and the heart stops beating, the
person is dead.
This straightforward determination became awkward and incompati-
ble with the invention of CPR and mechanical (tracheal) ventilation in the
mid-20th century. Medical professionals were able to restart the heart and
with mechanical devices could pump oxygen through the body, keeping
it warm and seemingly alive. The brain could be destroyed by a stroke or
massive head injury, but heart and lung functions could continue. Was
the individual dead or alive? As physicians became skilled in organ trans-
plants, it became important to decide at what point the boundary between
life and death was crossed. When would it be ethically legitimate to
retrieve organs for donation? The traditional definition based on pulse
and breaths was no longer a sufficient guideline.
In August 1968, a committee at Harvard Medical School published a
landmark document titled “A Definition of Irreversible Coma.”42 In addi-
tion to the traditional way of defining death as loss of cardiorespiratory
function, the committee considered the loss of neurological function,
what is often referred to as “brain death.” The Harvard report provided
the foundation for the eventual and quite rapid adoption of the Uniform
Determination of Death Act (UDDA) of 1981, which established the con-
cept of brain death as “the irreversible cessation of function of the entire
brain.” While some individuals within certain religious groups have not
accepted the definition,43 the UDDA (updated with new guidelines in
68 The Future of the Corpse

1995 and 2010) is now the legal standard of death in all fifty states and
has been widely adopted internationally.44
The acceptance of brain death as the legal determinant of death was
swifter than might have been expected for such an important decision. A
likely reason is that lawmakers were not comfortable addressing such a
sensitive issue in public and reluctant to bring it to their constituents for
open discussion. So, in a busy legislative session, they readily took the
recommendation from a small, elite group of Harvard physicians without
much debate. The lack of discussion, in and of itself, indicates the ease—
and apparent normalcy—with which society grants authority to the med-
ical establishment and especially to an institution of such high repute as
Harvard.45
The physicians’ urgency in promoting the legislation was motivated by
a benevolent desire to facilitate organ harvesting. In the last several
decades, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved or improved
because individuals and nations have accepted brain death as the legiti-
mate boundary to initiate the removal of biological material from a body
for donation. Few contested the definition until the complicated court
and medical case of Jahi McMath. The case brought to public attention
the potential ethical issues and medical consequences that the gap
between different determinations of death can generate.
Jahi McMath, a thirteen-year-old girl, was declared brain dead after
nose and throat surgery in Oakland, California, in 2013. The family con-
tested the hospital’s pronouncement and insisted on keeping her on life
support. Her physicians argued that they could not provide her any ongo-
ing medical treatment since, by law, she was dead, and they did not treat
cadavers. The parents moved Jahi to New Jersey, one of two states (New
York being the other) that allows exceptions to the definition of brain
death based on religious beliefs. Jahi remained on life-support in an
inconclusive state for nearly five years. During this time her body grew
and developed, and she entered puberty. On June 22, 2018, following
liver failure and the cessation of traditional vital signs, the family acknowl-
edged her death. Had she been dead or alive? She was dead in California
and alive in New Jersey. The determinants for what constitute “the irre-
versible cessation of function of the entire brain” are obscure.46 Jahi
McMath’s growth and menarche show that not all of the organism is con-
trolled by the part of the brain that is declared dead.
McMath’s case is exceedingly rare but demonstrates the risk of widen-
ing fissures in the consensus on death determination. Obstacles to organ
harvesting and transplants may potentially increase, since the required
legal precision is not commensurate with biological categories that do not
From Deathbed to Morgue 69

have sharp distinctions.47 Advancing technology contributes to the conun-

drum: neurological scans to measure brain activity are becoming increas-
ingly precise and repositioning the point of “irreversible cessation of
function of the entire brain.”48 Unlike when the UDDA was enacted and
biological death would predictably follow brain death within a few days, a
body can now be maintained in a state of mortal limbo for years with
mechanical ventilation and tube feedings.
The distinction between live body and corpse, between life and death,
relinquishes, rather than gains, clarity with scientific advances. Ontologi-
cal redefinitions of, and holistic approaches to, what it means to be human
are required to fathom new realities. A lifeless body, preserved at cryo-
genic temperatures in hopes that future medical technology may revive
and restore it to health,49 has been halted in the natural cycle toward
decomposition. But is this a dormant or dead state? And who has the right
to decide its status? Ever more sophisticated artificial intelligence is allow-
ing bodies to remain functional in spite of having depleted their own abil-
ity to survive. This interplay between humans and devices processing big
data, which Mark Taylor calls “intervolution,” not only aims toward
human-life extension in the form of “bionic beings” or cyborgs but prob-
lematizes the whole concept of death and mortality. If “intelligence could
be separated from matter and biological bodies, the ancient dream of
immortality might become technologically feasible, . . . if mind can be
uploaded, software engineers will become latter-day Gnostics, who crack
the code that enables them to drop their bodies, leave Earth, and rise
through the celestial spheres.”50 In the future we may need new vocabu-
lary: “corpse” inadequately covers such abandoned bodies.
In the meantime, our immediate concerns must be to ensure that ben-
eficial care and technology at hand are provided, affordably, with equal
access and treatment. To date, the control of infectious disease through
better sanitation, antibiotics, and vaccinations account for most of the
increase in longevity. Refinements of cardiopulmonary resuscitation
(CPR), organ transplants, open-heart surgery, and “miracle drugs” con-
tinue to raise the prospect of ever-more progress. Breakthroughs in bio-
technology on the immediate horizon include genetic engineering
(including gene editing, regenerative biology, etc.), immunotherapy, preci-
sion medicine, and stem-cell research. Further, advances in robotics, 3D
printing, brain imaging, artificial intelligence, and, to connect them all,
“the internet of all things,” have potential to “radically transform society,
increase interconnectivity and break the structures of healthcare sys-
tems.”51 In the United States, Medicare and Medicaid allocate public funds
for health care and support the longevity trend. Going forward, as the
70 The Future of the Corpse

structures of health care and death care are broken, rebooting and reorga-
nizing urgently require expansion of services and commensurate atten-
tion to ethics and equity, as well as variances in social and cultural norms.
Parallel to the medico-technical debate around death care, we hear
calls for examining the whole human experience, when and how mean-
ingful life is ending.52 Hovering over the demarcation between the living
and the dead is the question of who should have the authority to decide
this important boundary—literally a matter of life or death. To reimagine
and re-create a democratized death-care system that accommodates cul-
tural differences and values, we need conversations that expand beyond
institutions and think tanks and enter into the public square, engaging
diverse, ordinary citizens along with policy makers, thought leaders, and
grassroots organizations.

Notes
1. Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981; orig. L’homme devant la mort [Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1977]).
2. Stanford School of Medicine, “Where Do Americans Die,” Palliative Care,
accessed November 28, 2020, https://palliative.stanford.edu/home-hospice​
-home-care-of-the-dying-patient/where-do-americans-die.
3. “Place of Death 2006, 2011, 2016,” Centers for Disease Control, accessed
November 28, 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2017/fig30.pdf.
4. As it relates to speaking about death and terminal prognoses, an expres-
sion coined by Austin K. Kutscher, founder of Columbia University Seminar on
Death.
5. See Christina Staudt and Marcelline Block, eds., Unequal Before Death
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholar Press, 2012).
6. On the construction of social stratification according to different scholars,
see Tom Bottomore, Classes in Modern Society, 2nd ed. (London: HarperCollins
Academic, 1991).
7. Sandro Galeo et al., “Estimated Deaths Attributable to Social Factors in
the United States,” American Journal of Public Health 101, no. 8 (August 2011):
1456–65.
8. Nancy Krieger et al., “Underestimation of Deaths Attributable to Social
Factors in the US” (electronic letter published 16 July 2011), accessed March 30,
2021, http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/eletters/AJPH.2010.300086v1.
9. Tanya Albert Henry, “Data from 10 Cities Show COVID-19 Impact Based
on Poverty, Race,” Health Equity, American Medical Association, August 20,
2020, accessed November 28, 2020, https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care​
/health-equity/data-10-cities-show-covid-19-impact-based-poverty-race.
From Deathbed to Morgue 71

10. The stories are composites, based on actual people and situations. Names,
locations, and minor details have been changed.
11. Sallie Tisdale, Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Prac-
tical Perspective on Death and Dying (New York, NY: Touchstone, 2018).
12. Nigel C. Strudwick, Texts from the Pyramid Age (London: Society of Bibli-
cal Literature, 2005).
13. Reviewed in Richard Smith, “A Good Death. An Important Aim for Health
Services and for Us All,” BMJ 320, no. 7228 (2000): 129–30, https://doi.org​
/10.1136/bmj.320.7228.129.
14. Emily A. Meier et al., “Defining a Good Death (Successful Dying): Litera-
ture Review and a Call for Research and Public Dialogue,” American Journal of
Geriatric Psychiatry 24, no. 4 (2016): 261–67, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2016​
.01.135.
15. Regarding reactions to stress beyond fight, flight, and freeze, see Dacher
Keltner, Jeremy Adam Smith, and Jason Marsh, eds., The Compassionate Instinct:
The Science of Human Goodness (New York, NY: W. W. Norton).
16. Nascent research is charting brain waves during rituals adding scientific
data to empirical observations of the effects, see, for example, Junling Gao et al.,
“The Neurophysiological Correlates of Religious Chanting,” Nature, Science
Report 9, no. 4262 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40.
17. For more about doulas, see, among other groups, the International End of Life
Doula Association (INELDA), accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.inelda.org.
18. Hospital and hospice reimbursement regulations change often and rap-
idly and are subject to both federal and local (state and city) regulations. Maggie’s
story took place in New York City in 2018.
19. John G. Cagle, Joonyup Lee, Katherine Ornstein, and Jack M. Guralnik,
“Hospice Utilization in the United States: A Prospective Cohort Study Compar-
ing Cancer and Noncancer Deaths,” Journal of American Geriatric Society 68, no.
4 (April 2020): 783–93, https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.16294.
20. Cagle et al., “Hospice Utilization in the United States.”
21. Michel de Montaigne, “Of Age,” in The Complete Essays (Wirral, UK:
Newhall Press, 2020), 150.
22. The Global Health Authority, World Health Organization (WHO), 2020,
accessed November 10, 2020, https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/countries​
/country-details/GHO/united-states-of-america.
23. “A Profile of Death and Dying in America,” accessed January 16 2020,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233601/ and https://www.statista.com​
/statistics/274513/life-expectancy-in-north-america.
24. The death certificate, issued by the medical examiner or coroner in the
jurisdiction where the person died, includes personal data, date and time of
death, the immediate cause of death with additional morbidities listed, as well as
the manner in which the death occurred.
25. Medical Examiners’ and Coroners’ Handbook, 13th ed. (Hyattsville, MD:
DHHS, CDC, NCHS, 2003), 21.
72 The Future of the Corpse

26. Thomas A. Caffrey, “When the Time Is Ripe for Acceptance: Dying with a
Small ‘d,’” in Speaking of Death—America’s New Sense of Mortality, ed. Michael K.
Bartalos (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009), 227–36.
27. Jana Králová, “What Is Social Death?,” Contemporary Social Science 10, no.
3 (2015): 235–48, https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2015.1114407.
28. Julianne Holt-Lunstad et al., “Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Fac-
tors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review,” Perspectives on Psychological Sci-
ence 10, no. 2 (March 2015): 227–37, https://doi.org./10.1177/1745691614568352.
29. Kate Jackson, “Prevent Elder Transfer Trauma: Tips to Ease Relocation
Stress,” Social Work Today 15, no. 1 (January/February 2015): 10.
30. “Clean Air for Health: Geneva Action Agenda,” Summary Report, World
Health Organization, November 1, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.who.int/phe/news/clean-air-for-health/en; Shayna Fae Bernstein et al., “Poverty
Dynamics, Poverty Thresholds and Mortality: An Age-Stage Markovian Model,”
PLOS One 13, no. 5 (May 16, 2018): e0195734, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal​
.pone.0195734.
31. I. M. Moriyama, R. M. Loy, and A. H. T. Robb-Smith, “History of the Sta-
tistical Classification of Diseases and Causes of Death,” eds. H. M. Rosenberg
and D. L. Hoyert (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, 2011),
1, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/classification​
_diseases2011.pdf.
32. The District of Columbia (2017) and the following states have legislative
statutes allowing physician-assisted dying (first year in effect): Oregon (1997),
Washington (2009), Vermont (2013), California (2016), Colorado (2016), Hawaii
(2019), Maine (2019) and New Mexico (2021); in Montana a 2009 State Supreme
Court ruling upheld physician-assisted dying.
33. Geoffrey Gorer, “The Pornography of Death,” in Death, Grief, and Mourning
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday-Anchor, 1967), 192–99.
34. Eleanor Cummins, “Why Millennials Are the “Death Positive” Genera-
tion,” Vox, January 22, 2020, accessed September 5, 2020, https://www.vox.com​
/the-highlight /2020/1/15/21059189/death-millennials-funeral-planning​
-cremation​-green-positive.
35. Prepare for your Care, accessed March 30, 2021, https://prepareforyour-
care.org/welcome, and The Conversation Project, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
theconversationproject.org, are two helpful resources.
36. Most notably, Daniel Callahan, The Tyranny of Survival—And Other Pathol-
ogies of Civilized Life (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1973).
37. Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (New
York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2016), 182–83.
38. Laws governing organ and whole-body donation vary state to state, but
most are based on the framework of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (1968,
revised 1987 and 2006).
39. “Organ Donation Statistics,” U.S. Government Information on Organ
Donation and Transplantation, accessed December 22, 2020, https://www​
.organdonor.gov/statistics-stories/statistics.html.
From Deathbed to Morgue 73

40. Each state has its own legal requirements for disposition. A summary is
available on the website of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, accessed December
22, 2020, https://funerals.org/?consumers=legal-right-make-decisions-funeral.
41. Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter (New
York, NY: Random House, 1993), 42.
42. “A Definition of Irreversible Coma: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of
the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death,”
JAMA 205, no. 6 (1968): 337–40, https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1968.0314032​
0031009.
43. Some Native Americans, Muslims, evangelical Protestants, and Orthodox
Jews have rejected it.
44. Variations exist in understanding of the concept and in how it is used in
practice for declaring a death, among countries and institutions. See Sarah
Wahlster et al., “Brain Death Declaration,” Neurology 84 (May 2015): 1870–79,
https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000001540.
45. A contextual narrative of how “brain death” became the established crite-
rion for declaring and certifying a death is told by Peter Singer, “How Death Was
Redefined,” in Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics
(New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 20–37.
46. Alvin Powell, “Death Is Universal, but Sometimes Murky,” Harvard
Gazette, July 24, 2018, accessed December 22, 2020, https://news.harvard.edu​
/gazette/story/2018/07/harvard-ethicist-robert-truog-on-why-brain-death​
-remains-controversial.
47. Robert D. Troug, “Lessons from the Case of Jahi McMath, “Hastings Center
Report 48, no. 4 (November 2018): S70–S73, https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.961.
48. Joseph Fins, Rights Come to Mind: Brain Injury, Ethics, and the Struggle for
Consciousness (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
49. Cryonics Institute, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.cryonics.org.
50. Mark C. Taylor, Intervolution (No Limits) (New York, NY: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 2020), 171.
51. Andre Gay et al., “Health and Healthcare in the Fourth Industrial Revolu-
tion,” World Economic Forum, Global Future Council on the Future of Health
and Healthcare 2016–2018, accessed March 30, 2021, http://www3.weforum​
.org/docs/WEF__Shaping_the_Future_of_Health_Council_Report.pdf.
52. Donald Joralemon, Mortal Dilemmas: The Troubled Landscape of Death in
America (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2016), 80.
 CHAPTER FOUR

Redirecting Funeral Rituals and

Mourning Practices1

Christina Staudt

Humans are ritualized beings. Globalization, migration, and proliferation

of technology in the 21st century have combined to speed up fluctuations
that define and rule the more or less formalized patterns we follow as we
go about our days, encounter death, and grieve. Daily and ceremonially,
rituals serve a multitude of purposes. They bring order where there is
uncertainty. They organize, control, and direct our thoughts and emotions,
and they channel energy into action. They have the power to connect outer
and inner worlds, heritage and personal identities. Rituals are meaning-
laden forms that embody contextualized beliefs and value systems in cul-
ture and society. Appealing to emotion and intuition, they allow for
spiritual vitality and expression with little or no regard for rational and
utilitarian behavior. Rituals, and the cultural traditions they inhabit, are
tools for composing our life and guiding meaningful endeavors.2
When rituals work, they disassociate us from the extraneous to engage
in a connoted reality. Rituals reference—and call on—an ontological
realm beyond our five senses and quotidian actions. Religions tap into—
and spring from—a desire to reach beyond the comprehensible, into an
ungraspable realm that, because of its unfathomable nature, can be vested
with the capacity to provide what is not accessible in the knowable world.
Suitable secular rituals have analogous effects on our being and equal
power to animate us.3
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 75

On a societal level, ritual practices create and solidify community, with

synergizing potency. Communal rituals engage the sensory system and
emotions in more or less formulaic gestures and movements: Words
and music, objects and symbols, and, often, fragrances and prescribed food
and libation unite the many into one congregation. A functionary, a clergy
person or assigned leader, is commonly required to transform an informal
gathering into a communal rite. The concerted energy of an assembly, act-
ing in unison—if only for the duration of the ritual—has potential to ele-
vate the collective spirit of the flock and enrich individual hearts.

Funeral Rituals
Any occasion can call for ritual, but life’s passages spawn the most last-
ing and elaborate versions. Gaining their prominence from marking life’s
ultimate transition, funerary rituals are the most ubiquitous and multi-
farious of traditions across place and time. They are so culturally contin-
gent that diametrically opposite gestures, text inferences, and ambiances
may be appropriate, depending on localized praxis, even within one
country at one point in time. In the United States in the year 2020, Catho-
lic religious rituals help usher the deceased into an afterlife, Reformed
Jewish services often focus on legacy. Eternal life can mean biological
return into the earth’s cycle for a Humanist or a spiritual existence in a
nonmaterial realm for a devout Evangelic Protestant. For most Euro-
Americans, black is the color of mourning; among some Asian groups,
white symbolizes death. Laments may be contained in a Lutheran con-
gregation of Scandinavian heritage but outwardly expressed grief, “keen-
ing” (death wailing), may be heard when a Native South Islander visits a
house of mourning in Hawaii. Opulence and effervescence may properly
memorialize a person in a Chinese American funeral parade, and rhyth-
mical dancing and a brass band celebrate the deceased being “cut loose”
in a New Orleans jazz funeral, whereas plainspoken speeches may be
heard at a “Meeting for Worship in Thanksgiving for the Grace of God, as
shown in the life of our Friend” in an unadorned Quaker meetinghouse.
The metaphoric language to describe the transition includes both “pass-
ing away” and “homegoing.” With endless variety, American families
build on ancient and new traditions to arrange suitable farewell rituals for
a loved one. The following stories (with names changed) illustrate how a
few mourners grappled with the task of balancing community expecta-
tions and their wishes to personalize the event and honor the deceased.
Will’s embalmed corpse was laid out for viewing in a chapel-like room
in a funeral home in the Bronx. Will’s life had been arduous, and he died
76 The Future of the Corpse

alone in his apartment under difficult circumstances. He had been more

or less estranged from his four children, now all young adults. Despite
strained budgets and minimal contact with him, they wanted to give their
father a respectful send-off.
The oldest daughter, Alicia, took charge of the funeral arrangements
(as the postmortem service and disposition are jointly summarized). She
felt strongly about having an open casket. To reduce expenses, she decided
on a combined viewing and service in the parlor of the funeral home. She
asked the funeral director to dress her father in his trademark black tur-
tleneck sweater and the gold blazer he had worn when he played the
trumpet with the band at a parochial school he briefly attended as a teen-
ager. To complete the image Alicia requested a cross be placed in his
clasped hands and selected a spray of artificial white carnations from the
funeral home’s stock to place next to the casket.
The small crowd who arrived to take farewell of Will paused at the
casket. Will’s forty-eight-year-old body appeared almost childlike,
smooth-faced and peaceful with no signs of the duress of his life or dying
moments. He looked as perfect as a store mannequin. Some of the attend-
ees appeared to pray, others bowed quickly or looked uncertain about
what to do. A few cried. At an appointed time, the funeral director called
for the group to be seated. A granddaughter played a tune on a clarinet,
and the funeral director recited Psalm 23 from the Old Testament (“The
Lord is my shepherd”). Alicia read an obituary of her father, a brief history
describing him as an elegant dresser and well-meaning father. A man in
one of the pews stood up and added a few words about his friendship
with Will. A recorded hymn played. On the way out, visitors received
funeral cards with Will’s image and the text, “He will wipe every tear from
their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these
things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4).
Alicia had chosen the Bible verse following suggestions by the funeral
director and was responsible for the religious touches. Neither she nor
any of her siblings had connections to a faith-based group and, as far as
they knew, neither did Will. Alicia, nevertheless, felt strongly that a view-
ing and religious tokens were essential attributes at a proper funeral. Reli-
gious symbols are shorthand for dogma and beliefs but also identifiers of
tribal belonging. To Alicia, the cross signaled a correct funeral, as did the
biblical texts for the reading and funeral cards, demonstration that she
was carrying out the duties of an eldest daughter. At a meal after the ser-
vice, the talk around the table sought to focus on Will and his gifts to his
children, but he had been largely absent in their lives and the tributes
were halting. Evident in the conversation was Alicia’s pride of having
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 77

executed everything she personally and financially could muster to give

her father a fitting farewell. She beamed when her friends and siblings
mentioned how beautiful everything had been.
The performative elements of a funeral, the apparent conation of orga-
nizers and officiant, and the antiphon by the assembly envelop the ritual
in an ambiance that carries weight and signals comprehensively beyond
the sum of the elements. Established totems and rites possess a cultural
richness and power that can communicate beyond their original or doc-
trinal meaning. Their familiarity per se can reassure constancy in turmoil
and offer direction in uncertainty.
Several of the elements incorporated in the service for Will commonly
appear not just in American and Christian funerals but throughout the
world, and historically, as far back as can be determined by archaeologi-
cal evidence: the body, objects that identify and point to the deceased’s
identity and heritage, oft-repeated words and gestures, and a gathered
community.4 These funerary mainstays operate in different semiotic forms
to give embodied meaning to the mystifying transition from being in the
world of the living to becoming a deceased person.
Among iconic elements (objects that resemble what they represent), the
body of the deceased is the most obvious and potent. Remarkably, this
staple of the ceremony is now often absent in Western funerals. Since the
mid-20th century, in the United States especially among Protestants, a
“celebration of a life” or memorial service has become common. The cas-
ket is not present and no eucharist is served, two features of Catholic and
many traditional Episcopal funerals, but they often retain other religious
elements, such as hymns and scripture readings. One or more photo-
graphs of the deceased commonly supplants the casketed corpse as the
iconic representation of the person. The service may be held after the
burial or, increasingly, after cremation. The focus of the service is the per-
son in life, even when conducted in a house of worship. This funerary
format suited the era of the “hidden death,” the French historian Philippe
Ariès’s label for the middle half of the 20th century.5
Memorial services without the body adapt well to Humanist and other
secular postmortem ceremonies that are held in event spaces such as res-
taurants and social clubs. In contrast to proponents of the importance of
having the body present at the service,6 some Humanists and atheists,
who see the corpse as a molecular mass that has come full circle in the
cycle of life, question the benefit of the presence of the body, seeing it as
detracting from remembrances of the person.7
Uplifting readings and music can point to spiritual environs beyond
our own material world but can also be chosen to recall the cultural and
78 The Future of the Corpse

personal identity of the deceased. The traditional Christian view that the
grieving survivors should focus on God and God’s grace, not on them-
selves as mourners or on the earthly life of the deceased, has been waning
for the last several decades among both religious and cultural Christians.
Historically, insignia and symbols affiliated with the deceased, such as
a casket-draped flag for a military veteran or the seals of a high office at a
state funeral, belong at funerals. In recent years intimately personal
objects, such as Will’s jacket, recalling a time and place of pride and sig-
nificance in the decedent’s life or a table with treasured memorabilia at a
post-service reception have gained in popularity to indicate status, heri-
tage, and values but also hobbies and interests.
Objects and gestures in a ritual are multivalent. For example, flowers of
different types speak metaphorically and are often inserted in ceremonies
for the message they carry. In the West, white carnations have been asso-
ciated with love, especially motherly love, but also with purity and luck.
As these connotations were not ideally matched with Will’s life and death,
it is possible that Alicia was unaware of their hidden meaning and selected
them for their appearance or even for the rental price of the standing
spray. Regardless, they served the purpose of dressing up the drab funeral
home room and bolstered her confidence in the appropriateness of the
presentation.
Adhering to tradition for tradition’s sake is prevalent, and entrenched
practices evolve slowly and incrementally over decades and centuries.
Occasionally, change occurs with paradigm-shifting force, as when, dur-
ing the pandemic of 2020, in-person gatherings were not possible. Funer-
als connect the living to the dead and signal an altered reality for both
survivors and departed and, importantly, they offer mourners the support
of their community. One of the cruelest deprivations during the 2020
pandemic was the inability to hold customary funerary services. While
restrictions on crowd size remain (as they do in many places at the time
of this writing), virtual memorializing has had to substitute for in-person
events, often leaving families feeling doubly bereft: of the comfort of
friends and family as well as of their deceased loved one. Some of the
forced changes, such as livestreaming of a service for those who cannot
attend, may well be adopted after the lifting of restrictions. (In chapter 8,
Candi K. Cann describes other virtual memorializing tools.)
Much as families take pride in giving the deceased the final arrange-
ments they would have wanted, most funerals today are designed for the
survivors, even though commendation of the soul may be part of the lit-
urgy and clergy performs the committal at the burial site or crematory. As
seen with Alicia, how a ritualized funeral service can soothe and heal may
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 79

lie not in the actual meaning of its components and structure but in the
ceremony being recognized as effective and appropriate by those present.
That said, funeral rituals can both serve and perturb. Survivors may feel
unsettled if the think they have not satisfied the wishes of the deceased.
This is one reason that instructions for surviving family members about
funeral arrangements usually are best expressed as guidelines rather than
precise directives. It can avoid situations such as the one experienced by
Mariana, another devoted daughter: When her father died, Mariana
wanted his funeral to reflect his important roles in the congregation as
head usher and lay director of the music program. Everyone present at the
service felt that the service was deeply meaningful, with hymns and read-
ings that the congregation associated with the deceased, but Mariana,
could not help feeling dissatisfied. The congregation’s handbell choir,
which her father had repeatedly made clear he wanted at his funeral, was
on tour in Europe when he died and, at the reception after the service, she
unceasingly mentioned her chagrin about its absence from the ceremony.
When the connection to ritual and tradition is fraught, a funeral can be
unnerving. If the beliefs cannot be embraced, the values expressed do not
align with the mourners’, and the symbolism does not resonate, then the
service will not “offer continuity and hope for the living,”8 as is the intended
purpose. The content and gestures feel hollow, inauthentic, and inade-
quate, more disturbing than soothing: Maggie, whom we met in chapter 3
at her mother’s deathbed, had rejected the Roman Catholic tradition she
grew up in, but her mother was devout and attended Mass several times a
week. As is customary for Catholics, the funeral service would be held
only a couple of days after the death. When Maggie met with the funeral
director and the parish priest, they encouraged her to plan what they
called a “traditional funeral.” By this they intended a funeral practice that
evolved as a standard Catholic service during the 20th century. It com-
prised the viewing by friends and family of the embalmed body in an
open casket in a funeral home (called a wake or vigil); a Catholic funeral
Mass in a church; and a whole-body burial in a cemetery.
Yielding to change creeping into the tradition, the priest agreed that
Maggie might give a brief eulogy at the funeral Mass rather than at the
vigil in the funeral home, but he held fast that only Roman Catholics
would be allowed to receive communion at the Mass. Maggie put forth
that a service without the Eucharist would be her preference, but the
priest insisted that a full funeral Mass was what her mother deserved as a
devout Christian. Maggie doubted that her sweet and considerate mother
would have wanted her daughter to be uncomfortable at her funeral, but
the priest was firm, so Maggie relented, too intimidated to protest.
80 The Future of the Corpse

Maggie chose to stand at the far end of the room in the funeral home to
greet people who came to pay their respects. She felt awkward not being
near the coffin when the priest prayed for her mother during the vigil
service, but the cosmeticized likeness of her mother in the embalmed
body stirred feelings Maggie could not identify. The sight was so different
from the body she had tidied in the deathbed. Her mother never wore
makeup, and in the casket was an effigy that impersonated her with pink
lips and powder.
She was surprised and gratified that so many people came to honor
and remember her mother, both at the viewing and the church service.
Nevertheless, Maggie was exceedingly uncomfortable when the moment
came to receive Holy Communion. As the closest relative, she was in the
front pew and first in line to walk up to receive the wafer. She had not
gone to Communion since college. The sacrament had lost its spiritual
power for her, but the ritual’s profound importance to Catholics was
deeply ingrained in her since childhood. She felt both exposed and decep-
tive accepting it but did not want to make a statement and draw attention
to herself by not participating.
For the burial after the service, Maggie and the immediate family trav-
eled thirty miles north of the city to a cemetery where she had purchased
a plot. A priest blessed the ground and said a few prayers. The void Mag-
gie had felt in the moment when her mother died, and every day since,
intensified when the casket was lowered into the ground and she depos-
ited dirt on it during the priest’s committal.
In the weeks after the burial, Maggie said that it felt strange to know
that her mother’s body was in that beautiful park so far away. She had not
returned and would wait for one of her daughters to go with her. Maybe
they would go on her mother’s birthday. She felt an obligation to visit but
wondered if it mattered. She carried fond memories of her mother,
including of the last days when she tended to her at home and their roles
felt reversed—child, caring for parent—and of the intimate moments
before the body was taken away. Her private ritual of every day looking
at a photograph of her mother and wearing one of her mother’s pen-
dants felt deeply important, as a way to feel physically and emotionally
connected.
Maggie’s experience of planning a service for her mother and her sense
of alienation from the traditions of her youth are not unusual in an
increasingly secular United States, where now a third or more of the pop-
ulation identifies as unaffiliated.9 While faith remains a factor in the life of
many, the power of organized religion is waning. In 2019 only 36 percent
of Americans placed a great deal of trust in churches or organized
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 81

religion, as compared to more than 60 percent throughout the 1970s and

most of the 1980s.10
Nevertheless, compared to other Western countries, the social role of
religious institutions in the United States remains impactful through an
odd combination of factors: the nation’s constitutionally mandated sepa-
ration of church and state; a celebrated ethos of individual self-reliance
that keeps congregations (mostly) financially solvent; and a limited,
government-sponsored safety net.11 While it is true that just over 70 per-
cent of Americans say they are affiliated with Christianity, only half of
them are members of a church (2018), as compared with 70 percent two
decades ago. Among millennials 42 percent are church members, histori-
cally the lowest number for this young age group. Older Americans are
more likely to belong to a church, but congregational membership has
dropped among all age groups. (The exceptions are Mormons and Jews,
whose membership has remained stable over the last decades, at near
90 percent and around 50 percent, respectively.) In cities, the population
skews less religious than the national norm.
Christian and Judaic dogma and rituals are—albeit receding—deeply
embedded in American society—in its laws, values, institutions, language
and literature, cultural and social monuments and artifacts—blurring
lines of distinction between the sacred and the secular. The sacred nests
deeply in even the most secular celebration of Christmas or Passover.
Some young people in search of renewal but dissatisfied with their par-
ents’ and grandparents’ religion have turned to pre-Christian and non-
Western belief systems. Pagan and Asian religions provide pantheons,
creeds, rituals, and texts that can be adopted and adapted to suit contem-
porary lifestyles and convictions. Wiccan, Druidism, and Asatru/o (belief
in the Old Norse mythology) have gained in popularity, although the total
number of adherents is still only around one million, less than half a
percentage of the U.S. population.12
Buddhism and other philosophical and religious systems originating in
Asia have a growing number of Western-born converts. About 0.7 percent of
Americans define themselves as Buddhists, more than half of whom are
European Americans and part of the growing “American Buddhist” move-
ment.13 Buddhism’s emphasis on meditation, a practice commonly recom-
mended in grief therapy, resonates with individuals who are looking for a
spiritual practice that—in the United States—is not identified with a specific
ethnic group but cuts across creed, race, ethnicity, gender, and other identity
definers. In the fractured and fluid 21st-century city, meditation connects
practitioners with transcendent values—however they construe these—and
makes them feel whole, now, as they have for thousands of years.
82 The Future of the Corpse

Corpse disposition and memorializing occur in a dynamic network of

stakeholders. It may appear that the wishes of the closest mourners should
prevail, but tradition and legislation, as well as the presumed wishes of
the deceased and the social pressure of the community exert themselves
in direct and subtle ways. When families plan final arrangements together
in advance, the “principal” can communicate wishes. All survivors may
still not be personally comfortable with the plan, but they know they will
be following the preferences of their loved one and have had a chance to
have their voice heard.
Conservative clergy of major religions have dogma and centuries of
precedent to back up their views. Funeral directors gain their dominion
by having unique knowledge and experience about matters others may
find gruesome and, over time through lobbying efforts, have acquired
legislatively sanctioned rights to fortify their position. As Maggie experi-
enced, these authorities handily thwart distressed individual survivors
who are cowed by concerns about what looks right and acceptable. Indi-
viduals intent on reforming burial and memorializing practices have
formed associations and advocacy groups that attempt to change laws and
encroach on established power structures. Details about these can be
found in chapter 7.
Transformational change is occurring as we head into the third decade
of the 21st century, much of it due to pivoting values of millennials and
their younger siblings, Generation Z. These cohorts have proven to be
much more willing to speak about death than previous generations have
been, and they are open to looking for alternatives to established prac-
tices. Labeled the “death positive” generations, many among them
embrace finitude as a reality that requires planning.14 They seek out and
design new rituals with attention to values they espouse: creating com-
munity and committing to causes across ethnicities and religions, includ-
ing social justice and the health of the environment.15 For the growing
segment of the population who describe their religious affiliation as
“none” (atheists, agnostics, and “nothing in particular”), the appropriate
marking of the end of a loved one’s life is open to the imagination.
Two brothers solved the problem of socially acknowledging their
father’s death in their own way, instinctually including some personal
symbols and seeing the need for a gathering but at peace with omitting
the corpse or formal rituals: John and Sandy, both in their early thirties,
single, and living in Brooklyn, found themselves in a quandary when
their father died. In the months before he succumbed to pancreatic can-
cer, J-K (as he was called by family and friends) had given his sons explicit
instructions about the disposal of his body: It was going to medical
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 83

research. But when they asked about a funeral or memorial service, J-K
had dismissed their questions with: “Nothing needed. Atheists don’t need
help to get into an afterlife, and don’t you dare spend a lot of my hard-
earned money celebrating my life at a party I cannot even attend!”
J-K was brought up in a Lutheran family in the Midwest and was con-
firmed in the parish church at age fourteen to please his parents and
grandparents. He went east to go to college and law school, and his broth-
ers used to joke that any interest he may have had in Christian worship
was replaced by devotion to sailing and adoration of European silk ties.
When he married Edith, a self-described lukewarm Episcopalian, he
agreed to allow her to bring up their children in the Christian faith as
long as nothing was required of him. John and Sandy were baptized and
confirmed, and Edith and the boys attended a local Presbyterian church
at Easter and Christmas—and, occasionally, in between. Although the
family never formally joined its congregation, this was where Edith’s
memorial service had been held when she died a few years earlier.
To John and Sandy, a religious service for J-K was inappropriate given
his explicit wishes and the fact that they were both as religiously unaffili-
ated in adulthood as their father had been. They declined their midwest-
ern relatives’ offer to arrange a service in a Lutheran church “back home”
or in the New York area. Yet they had loved their eccentric and feisty
father and wanted to do something. They settled on sending an email to
everybody on his contact list, inviting them to come to their father’s home
one last time to reminisce about J-K and old times. They added, “If you
want to eat something, please bring it. We will drink from Dad’s store of
liquor and wine until we run out. All welcome.”
A lot of people came to honor J-K, bearing more food than anyone could
eat. Stories and jokes about J-K were recounted in small and big groups.
John and Sandy connected with their parents’ friends, their dad’s old col-
leagues, and some of their own childhood friends. They had not seen
many of the people who came in years, and some they met for the first
time. Almost everyone had something nice to tell John and Sandy about
their father. At the last minute, before the party started, Sandy decided
they should give away mementos of J-K. He brought down J-K’s enormous
collection of beautiful ties and left them in a box by the door. People either
picked one up when they entered and wore it as a tribute or helped them-
selves as they were leaving.16
The demand for personalized funeral services has increased rapidly in
recent years, especially outside formal religious structures. Responsive
funeral directors have found themselves acting in new roles combining
social work sensitivity and event manager efficiency.17 Instead of setting
84 The Future of the Corpse

rules, as Maggie’s funeral director and her mother’s priest did, these
funeral directors adjust their services and engage outside vendors to
accommodate the family’s wishes. As of 2019, all states have relaxed their
restrictions on serving food and drink in funeral homes, enabling more
flexible formats for services within these premises.
The trend toward individualistic funeral arrangements has been fueled
by a combination of consumer demand for personally meaningful rituals
and an industry motivated to meet that demand with services and goods
that enhance the experience for survivors while also augmenting reve-
nue.18 The first decade of this century saw a surge in product innovations
that received media attention: jewelry, sculptures, coral reefs incorporat-
ing cremated remains; rockets and balloons sending cremains into higher
spheres; coffins and hearses constructed and decorated to imitate favorite
objects or scenes from the life of the deceased.19 The ideas fired the imagi-
nation of journalists and were widely reported but have not gained trac-
tion among the general population because of cost, eccentricity, and
cumbersome execution. In contrast, the proportion of the population
who shuns embalmed whole-body burial in favor of green burial or cre-
mation has increased. (Chapters 6 and 7 address green burial as it relates
to cemeteries and funeral directors, respectively.)
Decisions about final arrangements are not solely based on religion and
cultural praxis: knowledge about options matters, as does access to
desired choices. The key to access is often financial. Alicia did as well as
she could with her available resources, but with a larger budget, she likely
would have arranged a more traditional, elaborate African American
homegoing. These often joyous, large services that include American
Christian and African elements originate in the belief that death liberates
the soul from earthly hardships and allows it to go “home.” At the time of
slavery, this meant home to Africa; now it is usually interpreted in a
Christian vein as going home to God or heaven. Financial considerations
shaped many of Alicia’s choices. The family opted for cremation, when
they discovered that the purchase of a burial plot in the New York metro-
politan area would be far beyond their means. Three years later, Will’s
ashes were still in an urn in Alicia’s home. Initially they had held an hon-
ored place on her mantelpiece while she and her siblings discussed what
to do with them and where they could spread them. With no decisions
made, the urn was moved to a closet in December following Will’s death
to make room for holiday ornaments. And there it remained, mostly for-
gotten, a not uncommon fate of cremains in the United States.
Beyond religion, heritage, and financial ability, rituals are chosen,
based on personal identity and group belonging. In urban America during
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 85

the new millennium, daily contact with “the other” has become increas-
ingly common in many neighborhoods, creating new collective identities
based on shared lifestyles, interests, and values—for example, groups of
urban professionals, artists, parents of school-age children, or advocates
for stopping climate change. Migration and immigration produce not
only a physically mobile population but also unmoor original identities.
A trained lawyer from Chile arrives undocumented and can only find
work as a handyman. An English woman with a Namibian father moves
to New York and decides to embrace her African identity, although she
has always “passed” as white in her homeland. A young, homosexual,
Black man moves from Alabama to San Francisco and lives his chosen
life in a way he could not around his kinfolk.
To accommodate these common American stories of change in iden-
tity, and in values that shift with new lifestyle and influences, rituals must
be revised and reimagined. It is not always easy, as Jim, the Black man
from Alabama discovered. The fatal heart attack of his husband, Josh,
took him by total surprise. Josh’s junior by ten years, Jim had arrived in
San Francisco in the 1980s, feeling unable to live authentically in the con-
servative Black Baptist community where he grew up. Josh came from a
well-to-do, Jewish secular background in Los Angeles and landed in San
Francisco to pursue a career as an English professor. He took Jim under
his wing during the early years of Jim’s diagnosis of HIV, before it became
clear that the virus could be kept in check with an antiretroviral regime.
They had shared more than thirty years of a comfortable and pleasant life
together in a circle of friends with interests in theater and the arts. In spite
of having lived for a long time under the shadow of the HIV/AIDS crisis
and seen several friends die young, Jim and Josh never discussed their
own funerary wishes with each other. As they grew older and their health
did not seem threatened, they felt no urgency.
At Josh’s death, Jim was devastated. He felt unprepared, confused, and
fearful to misstep or not live up to the occasion. Josh’s Jewish traditions
offered no guidance. Jim had never seen Josh set foot in a synagogue or
seek out a rabbi. After consulting with a few friends, Jim decided that it
would be appropriate to give Josh a green burial, given their mutual com-
mitment to environmental causes. He made arrangements for the burial
with the help of Ann, a funeral director who was also a good friend and
event planner. A simple service with their closest friends took place at the
cemetery three days after Josh died, but Jim wanted to honor his husband
in a more elaborate and unique manner. He wanted an event that recog-
nized Josh’s contributions to their community and his gregarious and
generous personality.
86 The Future of the Corpse

Together with Ann, Jim planned a celebratory party at a local gallery.

The carefully staged evening featured Josh’s favorite poetry and music,
video clips, and heartfelt speeches. An actor friend performed flawlessly
as the master of ceremony. The room was elegantly decorated; the food
arrived on time and was delicious. It was a joyous occasion interspersed
with some tears. The ebb and flow of the evening was choreographed
meticulously and included a climatic lightshow. When it was over, Jim
thanked Ann for orchestrating everything to perfection.
Jim’s younger sister, who arrived from Alabama to attend the event,
was dazzled but could not shake a feeling that she was at a show rather
than a funeral. In spite of everything going exactly as planned, Jim, too,
felt that the ceremony had not quite lived up to what he had hoped. Some-
thing was missing. On reflection, he realized that it had been a wonderful
celebration but not so different from how he would have planned Josh’s
upcoming seventieth-birthday party.
Barriers holding back cultural change have largely been broken, and in
no place more so than in progressive cities such as San Francisco. Mourn-
ers in a community such as Josh and Jim’s feel free to mark the end of a
life in any manner they deem appropriate. Ethnicity, gender, social class,
and even religious affiliation rarely preclude a particular choice of cere-
mony or place of disposition (some cemeteries are exclusively designated
for a particular religious group). However, as Jim discovered, it is not easy
to create an authentic, original service that reaches the potency of century-
old, sacred traditions. He came to feel that an intentionally designed
venue could have conveyed transcendence and transition better than the
art gallery. He would have liked a physical space that felt comforting and
safe yet vibrant, with room to memorialize and sanctify, a place to recog-
nize the sacredness of life and solemnity of death but without specific
religious association. (Projects described in chapter 10 address this lack.)
Jim’s event might also have benefited from a professional “celebrant,”
someone trained in finding the right words to indicate passage and transi-
tion without referencing religious dogma.
In socially static societies, the behavior of mourners is prescribed by
traditions based on belief systems and, to an even greater degree, local,
cultural practices. Even within groups of the same faith practices can vary
substantially, depending on ethnicity and locale, social milieu and class,
resources, and a multitude of other factors that shape a community. Direc-
tives for male and female corpses and mourners, for different age groups
and classes are laid down in, often, unwritten rules that are passed on
from generation to generation. Precedents on decorum guide expected
behavior for all categories of mourners; their comportment and accepted
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 87

demeanor; dress before, during, and after the funeral; and the length of
period to exhibit signs of mourning. Tacit regimens control the conduct
of those who surround the immediate mourners, down to how to manage
food and drink and what to eat and serve to honor the deceased and sup-
port the bereft.20
Such stability is no longer the norm in the United States. Migration,
upwardly mobile and socially descending groups, concurrent gentrifica-
tion and changes in household formation reorient once reliable social net-
works. Unraveling or loosening of tight family units, established religious
congregations, and homogeneous ethnic neighborhoods destabilize pat-
terns of outward expressions of mourning as well as funeral rituals.
Ethno-religious traditions and gender roles that dictated mourning prac-
tices for parents and grandparents become a distant reflection of a bygone
world. Traditions have a tendency to fade if no one who cares about a
particular behavior keeps watch.
Outward expressions of mourning are the performative, public dem-
onstration of grief. They communicate loss of a loved one.
Grief is internal and personal, but its external manifestations have
important work to do. They serve to signal the vulnerability of mourners,
as well as their desire to honor and memorialize the person publicly. Tat-
toos, jewelry made from cremains, T-shirts with the name or image of a
deceased loved one, and decals pasted on vehicles and in windows are
observable signs of connection between the deceased and the survivor.
Across religions and race, they function similarly to past generations’
black mourning clothing and accoutrements. Public shrines of flowers,
toys, and other mementos along roadways and at street crossings express
individual and collective sorrow after a traffic accident, a fatal shooting,
or other death in a public space. They heighten awareness of the tragedy
and provide solace by manifesting that the grief is shared.21 Ghost Bikes
offer similar tribute. Initiated in 2003, white-painted bicycles—locked to
a street sign near the site where a bicyclist was killed, and accompanied
by a small plaque—serve as reminders of a death and are statements in
support of cyclists’ right to safe travel.22 They also recognize the identity/
affinity group of urban bicyclists with values rooted in lifestyle and con-
cerns that bridge class, ethnicity, race, and religion. (David Charles Sloane
suggests that public memorials for COVID-19 victims compensate for the
inability of families to organize funerals for loved ones; see chapter 6.)
After unexpected deaths of public figures, declamatory and material
displays of grief erupt in places identified with the deceased. In 2020,
after basketball star Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash, flowers, can-
dles, basketballs, jerseys, and notes were left at the Staples Center in Los
88 The Future of the Corpse

Angeles, Bryant’s home turf. The murder of George Floyd, a previously

publicly unknown Black man, was videorecorded during the almost ten-
minute long period his neck was pinned under the knee of a white police
officer. Within hours, the intersection in Minneapolis, where Floyd’s mur-
der took place, overflowed with grieving demonstrators, Black Lives Mat-
ter signs, flowers, candles, and messages to the family and the world.
Renamed after George Floyd, the site has evolved into a cultural memorial
space and center of activism for social justice. Space and location thus
embody meaning that evolves with events, also witnessed on the Edmund
Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where mourners walked in ritual fash-
ion after Congressman John Lewis died, to honor him and to recall his
role in the pivotal 1965 protest march that eventually resulted in the
adoption of the Voting Rights Act.

Contemporary Grief Theories

Mourning rituals throughout time are well documented, but grief prac-
tices are less so. In the West, where Christianity has dominated, sorrow
and loss were not denied by the church, but Protestant as well as Catholic
leaders urged that grief be temperate. Belief in Christ as the savior of the
soul was expected to soothe the pain. Support was offered by community
and family. Personal sorrow was recorded by individual writers, but gen-
eral theories were not formulated until Sigmund Freud “discovered” the
unconscious and gave birth to the field of psychology.23 His work trans-
formed grief from a relational contract between God and individual souls,
a spiritual and religious concern, to individuals’ psychological health,
their “psyche,” a secular concept, which in Freud’s view was created by a
composite of experiences and was an individual, interior matter.
Freud contended that cutting emotional ties to the deceased is the nor-
mal course of mourning.24 (Paradoxically, when Freud’s own daughter
died at a young age, he experienced the impossibility of “giving up the
object,” writing, “This is how it should be. It is the only way of perpetuat-
ing that love which we do not wish to relinquish.”25) Psychologist and
psychiatrists who followed after Freud heeded his professional opinion
rather than his personal experience, with an almost century-long effect
on the various strategies recommended by grief counselors and research-
ers.26 Informally labeled seeking and finding “closure,” Freud’s professed
approach came to be adopted also by laypeople, who have clung to it
beyond its expiration date in professional circles. It suited the “hidden
death” ethos that characterized much of the mid-20th-century decades
and that still lingers with some people.
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 89

Toward the end of the 20th century, professional bereavement counsel-

ors began to abandon the notion that mourners needed to go through
specific stages or undertake certain tasks to come to grips with their grief.
Such approaches imply a need to reach a resolution, to finish a job that,
when completed, no longer includes the deceased. Researchers in the field
noted that mourners stay connected with their loved ones in redirected
relationships after a death. Unable to fit these observations into the old
model promoting detachment, they began to counsel “continuing bonds,”
that is, the nurturing, rather than severing, of those connections.27
“Continuing bonds” presents differently depending on the quality of
the bond in life, and initial attempts to forge a uniformly suitable path to
“conquer” grief were abandoned early. Professional therapists now grant
vast latitude in their guidance. They reject “recovery,” which implies a
curable illness. Many are also careful about using terms such as “grief
journey” and “grief work.”28 “Journey” must not connote a beginning and
an end, since grief may surface for the lifetime of the bereft person. “Grief
work” and “tasks” should not imply that grieving is separable from lived
life, since the experience of grieving individuals is that grief melds into
the texture of daily living and cannot be “unblended” as a separate proj-
ect. Grief theorists and practicing counselors now favor individualized,
personal growth-oriented approaches and methods. Tools include mean-
ing making and mindfulness.
Mindfulness is interpreted as being present in the moment, meeting
whatever arises with compassion and tapping into the body’s natural
relaxation response. One practitioner enjoins recognizing the humanity
in ourselves and human interdependence, forgiving ourselves and others,
alternating between restoring personal strengths and resources and
mindfully facing the pain; enjoying a day alone in silence; allowing dis-
tractions and meeting them with awareness; finding benefits in change;
embracing transformation; cultivating joy, empathy, and gratitude.29
Meaning making seeks positive outcomes in a loss through the creation of
tangible memorials that reflect the deceased’s character and interests,
such a donating to a cause, designing a useful object that embodies the
loved one’s spirit, or undertaking a purposeful act that recalls the loved
one’s life.
Such strategies for living better with grief have primarily been devel-
oped to serve a white, middle-class population in the historic ethos of
individualism and capitalism that has marked the West, and especially
the United States.30 The psyche profession is becoming cognizant that
mindfulness and meaning making are not universally applicable strate-
gies. Judicious application of these approaches and awareness of their
90 The Future of the Corpse

implications are imperative.31 The strategies may be insufficiently nuanced

to address the problems of some segments of society, while other groups
may have adequate innate resilience and circumstances and only require
minimal or no intervention even after a profoundly traumatic loss. To
address this broad variety of needs, “meeting the person where they are,”
has become a valuable catchphrase, along with “companioning,” as in
“walking with” rather than advising and crafting plans and solutions.32
A grieving person can receive comfort in the arms of a trusted individual
without any requirement of finding meaning and achieving mindfulness.
The profession increasingly recognizes that the assertion made by Epi-
curus (341–270 BCE), that “the art of living well and dying well are one,”
applies to mourning as well as dying: grieving well and living well are
one. To millennials and Generation Z, this includes a renewed emphasis
on community. A belief in one’s own power to control one’s life and cir-
cumstances risks leaving emotionally vulnerable people feeling inferior
for not managing their grief. Humans are social beings, and almost all
grief-stricken survivors need a supportive community to envelop them
and assure that they need not face their pain alone. Dependence on others
is not a weakness and should not come at the cost of feeling diminished
because of inability to manage grief in solitude.33
The urgent need for community—and often, the inability to have
one—became stark during the 2020 pandemic, when sharing sorrow
after a loved one died could only occur via electronic devices. Hugs were
reduced to elbow bumps, at best, and the comfort that presence brings
was truncated or eliminated. Nascent technologies substituted—to vary-
ing degrees of success—for human touch. Websites, blogs, chat rooms,
and messaging were better than no connection at all when friends were
unavailable and family distant. (For details about these, see chapter 8.)
Many of the tools grew exponentially during the pandemic and are likely
to remain in use even when this scourge is in the past, as a complement to
human support in grief if not as a substitute.
Many nondominant groups have a long history of integrating mourning
into life, but the Black communities have perhaps the most tenacious leg-
acy. “The condition of being black is mourning,” writes the poet Claudia
Rankine.34 Her words are manifested in excess deaths of Black newborns
and childbirth mortality, in the high death rate due to violence among
young men, in Black parents’ fear that their children will have the fate of
George Floyd and countless others for how they dress or comport them-
selves, for standing in the wrong place or with wrong posture. Easing
mourning of this magnitude and scope cannot be achieved in individual
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 91

grief therapy but can only occur communally and, in a more just future,
by radically restructuring significant aspects of society.

Based on current trends, in the coming decades we can expect mourn-

ing practices to become both more personalized and more communal.
Ongoing social turbulence reorients traditional bereavement conventions
and makes room for new expressions and rituals. As “the other” becomes
familiar and the customs of different groups become broadly visible in
diverse neighborhoods and through the media, new venues and gestures
will emerge for ritualizing around the deathbed, during mourning, and
while coping with grief. The lack of a shared narrative presents challenges
but also opens possibilities for innovations that meet new needs.35
Altered belief and value systems accompany redefined identities and
affinities; recomposed lives need harmonizing rituals and expressions.
Americans are noticing that secular practices and rituals can have the
gravitas of ancient religions without the promise of the soul going to
heaven or being reincarnated.36 Humanist and other nonreligious groups
speak of transcendental values from a naturalist (not supernatural) per-
spective, honoring the memory and legacy of the deceased and emphasiz-
ing the natural order of birth to death from a material as well as familial
perspective.
Rituals that embody symbolism without specific dogmatic intention
will continue to unite diverse groups and serve individuals: candle light-
ing (or cell-phone flashing), releasing biodegradable balloons with mes-
sages, floating origami boats down a river, inscribing shells and stacking
stones, decorating a site with flowers, walking in unison, reciting poetry.
Even mundane gestures—baking a special cookie, visiting a certain place,
joining in a song, wearing a designated garment, or repeating a practice
beloved by an ancestor—can be endowed with the power of ritual for a
sole mourner, an individual, a family, or a gathered community.
Religious funeral services are not likely to disappear in the United
States in the near future, but we can expect many religiously unaffiliated
and minimally adherent individuals to seek out—and to create—rituals
that are not clearly delineated as either religious or secular, practices that
resist categorization as secular or religious but embrace what is fulfilling
in each.37 These newfound and rediscovered traditions will blend or coex-
ist, at times competing but more often overlapping and complementing
each other in a sacred, cultural, and social spirit.38
92 The Future of the Corpse

As we move further into the 21st century, we can expect neuroscience

to further uncover connections between deliberate thought and “instinc-
tive” emotions, altering established tenets about knowledge, reality, and
mortality.39 Such discoveries along with an increasingly diverse popula-
tion foretell that fresh approaches to public funeral rituals and private
mourning practices will continue to evolve and be reimagined.

Notes
1. Elements of the content of this chapter appear in Karla Rothstein and
Christina Staudt, Post-Mortem: Sustainable Disposition and Innovative Spaces of
Remembrance (Columbia University Press, forthcoming).
2. Similar concepts in Abigail Benner, “10 Ways Rituals Help Us Celebrate
Our Lives,” Psychology Today, August 26, 2015, accessed December 23, 2020,
https: //w w w.psycholog y tod ay.com /us / blog /in-f lu x / 201508/10 -ways​
-rituals-help-us-celebrate-our-lives.
3. Scientific evidence is emerging that traces this effect to our nervous sys-
tem; see Francisco Gino Norton, “Why Rituals Work,” Scientific American, May
14, 2013, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article
/why-rituals-work.
4. William G. Hoy, Do Funerals Matter? The Purposes and Practices of Death
Rituals in Global Perspective (New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2013);
the Funeral Source Network, accessed March 30, 2021, https://thefuneralsource​
.org/tfs001.html.
5. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981; orig. L’homme devant la mort [Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1977]).
6. Hoy, Do Funerals Matter?, 118.
7. Matthew Engelke, “The Coffin Question: Death and Materiality in Human-
ist Funerals,” Material Religion 11, no. 1 (2015): 26–49.
8. Alan Wolfelt, “Why Is the Funeral Important,” Heartfelt, Ltd., accessed
October 23, 2020, https://m.heartfelt-ltd.com/planningfuneral.html.
9. Pew Research, Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid
Pace,” October 17, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.pewforum​
.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace.
10. Justin McCarthy, “US Confidence in Organized Religion Remain Low,”
Gallup, July 8, 2019, accessed August 25, 2019, https://news.gallup.com/poll​
/259964/confidence-organized-religion-remains-low.aspx.
11. Paul D. Numrich and Elfriede Wedam, Religion and Community in the New
Urban America (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015).
12. In 2008, Pew Research estimated one million adherents: “The Religious
Composition of the United States,” in The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious
Affiliation; Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (technical report) (Washington, DC:
Redirecting Funeral Rituals and Mourning Practices 93

Pew Forum Web Publishing and Communications, Pew Research Center, Febru-
ary 2008).
13. “US States by Population of Buddhists,” World Atlas, n.d. accessed August
5, 2019, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/us-states-by-population-of-buddhists​
.html.
14. Eleanor Cummins, “Why Millennials Are the “Death Positive” Genera-
tion,” Vox, January 22, 2020, accessed September 5, 2020, https://www.vox.com​
/the-highlight /2020/1/15/21059189/death-millennials-funeral-planning​
-cremation-green-positive.
15. Kristen Bialik and Richard Fry, “How Young Adulthood Today Compares
with Previous Generations,” Pew Research, February 10, 2019, accessed March 30,
2021, https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/millennial-life-how-young-adulthood​
-today-compares-with-prior-generations; Nancy J. Hanson-Rasmussen and Kristy J.
Lauver, “Environmental Responsibility: Millennial Values and Cultural Dimen-
sions,” Journal of Global Responsibility 9, note 1 (2018): 6–20, https://doi.org/10.1108​/
JGR-06-2017-0039.
16. This story, experienced by the author, is published with slight variation by
Wartburg, “Advance Life Planning—Westchester Stories,” n.d., accessed March 30,
2021, https://www.advancelifeplanning.org/a-memorial-service-to-remember.
17. The blog The Daily Hearse sends out daily emails with stories of new ways
to satisfy clients with services and new products and encourages its target audi-
ence of funeral directors to be flexible and adhere to the wishes of their clients.
18. Virginia R. Beard and William C. Burger, “Change and Innovation in the
Funeral Industry: A Typology of Motivations,” Omega: Journal of Death and Dying
75, no. 1 (2017): 47–48.
19. Mark Harris, Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry
to a Natural Way of Burial (New York, NY: Scribner, 2007).
20. Candi K. Cann, ed. Dying to Eat: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Food, Death,
and the Afterlife (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017).
21. George E. Dickinson and Heath C. Hoffmann, “Roadside Memorial Policies in
the United States.” Mortality 15 (2011):154–67; K. Mchunu and Lincoln Geraghty,
rev ed., “Roadside Death Memorials Revisited: Mourning in Public Spaces,” Cogent
Arts & Humanities 7, no. 1 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1792154.
22. Ghost Bikes, accessed December 29, 2020, http://ghostbikes.org.
23. The term “psychology” had been used in philosophical treatises to describe
subjective consciousness since the 16th century; see https://psychclassics​.yorku​
.ca/Krstic/marulic.htm, accessed March 12, 2019. Prior to Freud, other scholars
explored the topic of grief but not from the perspective of psychology, a discipline
that did not exist before Freud. For a succinct history of grief prior to Freud, see
Leeat Granek, “Bottled Tears: The Pathologization, Psychologization, and Privati-
zation of Grief” (PhD diss., York University, 2008), 19–22.
24. “Mourning and Melancholia,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psy-
chological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. James Strachey, vol. XIV, 1914–1916
(London: Hogarth Press, 1961), 243–58.
94 The Future of the Corpse

25. “Mourning and Melancholia,” 255.

26. Jeanne W. Rothaupt and Kent Becker, “A Literature Review of Western
Bereavement Theory: From Decathecting to Continuing Bonds,” Family Journal:
Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families (January 2007): 6–15, https://doi​
.org/10.1177/1066480706294031.
27. Dennis Klass, Phyllis R. Silverman, and Steven L. Nickman, eds., Continu-
ing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief (New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 1996).
28. David E. Balk, “Recovery Following Bereavement: An Examination of the
Concept,” Death Studies 28 (2004), 361–74.
29. Adapted from Heather Stang, Mindfulness & Grief, with Guided Meditations
to Calm Your Mind and Restore Your Spirit (New York, NY: CICO Books, Ryland
Peters & Small Imprint, 2018).
30. Jennifer M. Silva, Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of
Uncertainty (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013); Ronald Purser,
McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (London:
Watkins Media, 2019).
31. Jessica M. Sales; Natalie A. Merrill, and Robyn Fivush, “Does Making
Meaning Make It Better?: Narrative Meaning Making and Well-Being in At-Risk
African-American Adolescent Females,” Memory 21, no. 1 (2013): 97–110,
https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2012.706614; Silva, Coming Up Short; George
Bonanno, “Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the
Human Capacity to Thrive after Extremely Aversive Events?” American Psycholo-
gist 59, no 1 (2004): 20–28.
32. Alan D. Wolfelt, Companioning the Bereaved: A Soulful Guide for Caregivers
(Fort Collins, CO: Companion Press, 2006), with updates on the website Center for
Loss, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.centerforloss.com/wp-content
/uploads/2015/10/Introduction-to-Companioning-the-Bereaved-by-Dr-Alan​
-Wolfelt.pdf.
33. Silva, Coming Up Short, chapter 5.
34. Claudia Rankine, “The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning,” New
York Times Magazine, June 22, 2015.
35. Inge B. Corless, “Future Trends in Dying, Death and Bereavement: A Call
To Action, International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement,” Illness,
Crisis & Loss 13, no. 4 (2005): 377–85, accessed June 17, 2020, https://www​
.iwgddb.com /w p- content /uploads / 2016/08/ Illness- Cr isis-L oss-20 05​
-Corless-377-85.pdf.
36. Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of
Religion (New York, NY: Random House, 2012).
37. Beatrice Marovich, “Religion, Secularity, Gender, Violence, & Death,”
Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 16 no. 2 (Spring 2017): 180–83.
38. Veronica della Dora, “Infrasecular Geographies: Making, Unmaking and
Remaking Sacred Space,” Progress in Human Geography 42, no.1 (2018): 48.
39. Paul Thagard, “Preface,” The Brain and the Meaning of Life (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2010), loc. 94 of 5254, Kindle.
 CHAPTER FIVE

Modernizing the Law of Human

Remains: Challenges and
Opportunities
Tanya D. Marsh

Introduction: The Structure of the Law of Human Remains

For the past century, most Americans have shared fairly consistent
views about what constitutes acceptable death care practices: the involve-
ment of a funeral director shortly after death has occurred, preparation of
remains by death care professionals, and a ceremony attended by family
and friends to mourn the deceased, which is followed by cremation or
casketed burial in a single-occupancy grave marked by a slab of stone in
perpetuity. It is popularly assumed that this limited range of options is
required by the law. It is not.
However, the law of human remains in the United States institutional-
izes these prevailing death care practices for a couple of reasons. First,
legislatures and courts demonstrate a limited imagination. The law
assumes that the prevailing social norms represent the full range of pos-
sible approaches to death care. Therefore, statutory-law and common-law
decisions only expressly contemplate a limited menu of mainstream
options. Second, the funeral services industry has exercised significant
influence over the development of the law. Although the origins of the
96 The Future of the Corpse

American law of human remains are in English ecclesiastical and com-

mon law, for the past century the development of the statutory law has
been steered by the death care industry, which is heavily invested (both
financially and psychologically) in the services that it currently offers.1 It
is important to recognize that the law of human remains was not devel-
oped as a single body of law that reflects a consistent view of what consti-
tutes the respectful disposition of human remains or the proper role of
government in mediating the relationship between the living and the
dead. It was developed in chunks, often to achieve a narrow, timely pur-
pose. Common-law doctrines arise episodically, as plaintiffs seek a spe-
cific resolution to a particular problem. The statutory law of human
remains has typically been enacted in response to a crisis. For example,
modern New York cemetery law was primarily designed to respond to the
scandal that erupted surrounding the dilapidated conditions of a handful
of cemeteries in Brooklyn and Queens in the late 1940s and charges of
profiteering by the managers of those cemeteries.2 As a result of these pat-
terns of development, the law of human remains in the United States is
simultaneously more restrictive and more permissive than Americans
typically assume.
The law of human remains in the United States has developed in fits
and starts over nearly four centuries. Its normative root is the funerary
traditions of the Europeans (primarily English Protestants) who con-
trolled colonial legal structures.3 In the most recent century, the law has
been dominated by the funeral and cemetery industries. The highly frag-
mented law of human remains is scattered throughout American law. It
has not been extensively studied by legal scholars in the United States,
nor is it particularly well understood by those who squarely work inside
the status quo or those who wish to reform it.
In the United States, the law of human remains is primarily found at
the state level, both in common-law doctrines rooted in English ecclesias-
tical law and in statutory regimes that were originally enacted in the 20th
century and continue to be refined. States typically have four kinds of
statutes regarding the disposition of human remains.
Criminal Statutes. Most states have statutes that criminalize mistreat-
ment of human remains before and after interment. There is significant
variety from state to state, but many state statutes specifically prohibit
sexual interaction with a corpse as well as unauthorized dissection. Some
statutes expressly forbid actions such as mutilation and dismemberment.
Most states also forbid unauthorized disinterment and grave desecration.
Public Health Statutes. All states require that death certificates be filed
within a certain period after death occurs or is discovered. Suspicious
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 97

deaths may be or must be investigated by the appropriate authorities,

which includes the possibility of autopsy. Public health statutes also
address the disposition of remains that are held by the coroner or medical
examiner and are unclaimed by family members within a set period of
time. In most (but not all) states, unclaimed remains are given to medical
and other schools for use in anatomy labs. Such unclaimed-remains stat-
utes apply in some states to other classes of people, including people who
die in state facilities such as prisons and state hospitals (some old statutes
still refer to almshouses) and people whose families cannot afford disposi-
tion. Public health statutes may also require particular treatment of
cadavers if death was caused by an infectious disease. They also typically
require embalming before shipping corpses via common carrier (i.e., air-
plane, bus, train). Most states require that a death certificate be appended
with a “burial transit permit” or similar permission before final disposi-
tion or removal from the state. These permits are filed with the state and
indicate the place and manner of final disposition.
Occupational Licensing of Funeral Directors. The funeral industry is
highly regulated, and the primary mechanism of that regulation is state
occupational licensing statutes. These statutes define a phrase such as
“the practice of funeral service” and then restrict those activities to per-
sons who are licensed in that state. States also license funeral establish-
ments and require that “the practice of funeral service” exclusively take
place within those licensed establishments.
Licensing of Cemeteries. Most states license most cemeteries, but the cat-
egories of cemeteries that are licensed and the extent of resulting regula-
tion vary significantly from state to state. Some states license only for-profit
cemeteries open to the public. Several states forbid cemeteries to be
owned by for-profit entities. Those states that do license and regulate
cemeteries are primarily concerned with the perpetual care of such cem-
eteries and the proper administration of funds derived from pre-need
purchases of cemetery lots. States tend to give cemeteries wide latitude to
set their own rules, and they give great deference (and often exemptions
from licensing requirements) to cemeteries owned by religious organiza-
tions, families, and fraternal organizations.
The fragmented nature of the law of human remains leaves significant
gaps and unanswered questions. This uncertainty is particularly relevant
to those who seek to undertake new pathways in death care that are nei-
ther expressly prohibited nor permitted by existing law.
This uncertainty creates meaningful risk for the growing number of
death entrepreneurs. We are in the midst of a death care revolution in
the United States.4 Disruption to the limited menu of consumptive and
98 The Future of the Corpse

therefore expensive options is fueled by several social changes. An

increasingly diverse population seeks death care options that resonate
with cultural and religious traditions beyond the English Book of Com-
mon Prayer. The primary consumers of funeral and memorial goods and
services are no longer the tradition-bound “greatest generation” but the
more individualistic baby boomers and disruptive Gen Xers. Concerns
about the environment have led to a backlash against the model of
embalming to metal casket to concrete vault and the perpetual dedication
of a plot of land to a single set of remains. In 2020, the National Funeral
Directors Association Consumer Preferences and Awareness Survey found
that more than 61 percent of consumers expressed interest in green or
“eco-friendly” funeral services.5 At the same time, the popularity of cre-
mation over burial continues to rise in the United States, even though
there are concerns about the amount of carbon consumed by the process.
Cremation is increasingly favored for several reasons: (1) it is less expen-
sive than the full-service funeral followed by burial; (2) it permits more
flexibility; and (3) personal mobility has loosened ties to the ancestral
hometown and, therefore, the family cemetery.6
Any attempt to analyze the feasibility of new methods of sustainable
treatment and disposition of human remains requires an understanding
of the relevant legal landscape. The law of human remains addresses five
primary topics: (1) what we are permitted to do with human remains; (2)
what we are forbidden to do with human remains; (3) what we are required
to do with human remains; (4) who is permitted to conduct activities
related to human remains; and (5) where we are allowed to conduct activi-
ties related to human remains otherwise permitted by law.

What We Are Permitted to Do with Human Remains

Historically, the corpse’s role in American society has been to temporar-
ily provide the focal point for grief and then to undergo a method of perma-
nent disposition. When Europeans first colonized America, they followed
European customs for the disposition of the dead, which meant ground
burial and eventually, with the construction of churches and churchyards,
entombment. For more than two centuries, both social convention and the
law limited final disposition options to burial and entombment.
The first American innovation in disposition of the dead was crema-
tion, which was first discussed seriously in New York City in the early
1870s. At that time, cremation was not permitted by law in any state. The
first step in the adoption of cremation was to convince state legislatures
to legalize the process. At one of the first meetings of the New York
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 99

Cremation Society in April 1874, Unitarian minister Octavius Brooks

Frothingham argued for cremation on the basis of public health and cost.
“If it can be proved that cremation is better for the earth, the air, and the
pocket,” Frothingham said, “then they can carry their point.”7 The second
step in the implementation of cremation was for private actors to invest in
the necessary technology. The first crematory was established in Pennsyl-
vania in 1876, and by 1900, twenty-six crematories had been built in
fourteen states and the District of Columbia.8 The public was slow to
adopt cremation. A full century after the initial legalization of cremation
in the United States, the cremation rate was still only 5 percent.9 It took
another forty years for the cremation rate in the United States to reach 50
percent.10
Today, most states limit the legally permissible methods of disposition
of human remains to burial, entombment, cremation, removal from the
state in which the death occurred, and donation for medical study. States
either explicitly limit legally permissible options via statute or create
required forms (death certificates and burial transit permits) that include
only those options.
One of the main obstacles to the initial legalization of cremation was
that it was so different from burial that, in the view of the legislators, it
required specific regulations. The regulatory approaches employed by the
states vary. A few states in the Northeast require that crematories be
owned by and located on cemeteries. Other states require them to be
owned by licensed funeral directors. A third category of states permit
crematories to be owned by third parties. In states where crematories are
owned by funeral directors, consumers may contract directly with crema-
tories. In the remaining states, families may only purchase cremation
through a funeral home, which subcontracts with the crematory.
Advocates for two newer forms of disposition in the United States—
alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction—have largely asked
legislatures to adapt the regulatory structures for cremation to these
technologies.
Alkaline hydrolysis, also known as aquamation, is a process of break-
ing down human remains using a combination of heat, pressure, and a
strongly basic liquid. After four to six hours, only soft, porous bone
remains. This can be reduced by a cremulator to form a powder that is of
similar consistency to the “ash” that is produced by cremation after skel-
etal remains are processed in a cremulator.
Alkaline hydrolysis has been marketed as “water-based cremation,” a
less environmentally impactful alternative to fire-based cremation. That
characterization, plus the similarity in the appearance of the resulting
100 The Future of the Corpse

material, perhaps explains why many of the twenty states that have legal-
ized the process have done so by expanding the definition of cremation to
include alkaline hydrolysis. For example, Nevada defines “cremation” as
“the technical process that reduces human remains to bone fragments by
using alkaline hydrolysis or incineration.”11 Other states created a set of
statutes that explicitly run parallel to cremation statutes. For example,
when North Carolina legalized alkaline hydrolysis in 2018, it made it
clear that “[t]he hydrolysis of human remains shall be conducted in com-
pliance with all requirements for cremation” and that “[a]ny solid remains
or residue remaining after hydrolysis shall be treated and disposed of as
cremated remains under this Article.”12
The approach followed by states such as Nevada and North Carolina
meant that few changes to the statutes were required, although technical
regulations regarding minimum standards, training, and the operation of
equipment needed to be written. That does not mean, of course, that in
those states that have legalized alkaline hydrolysis, the process was with-
out controversy. Some opposition to alkaline hydrolysis came from those
whose economic interests were at stake. A bill to legalize aquamation in
Indiana was unanimously passed out of committee but defeated on the
floor of the Indiana House of Representatives following a speech by Rep.
Dick Hamm, who just happens to own a casket company. Rep. Hamm
compared the process to “flushing” a loved one. “We’re going to put [dead
bodies] in acid and just let them dissolve away and then we’re going to let
them run down the drain out into the sewers and whatever.”13 A similar
pejorative characterization was adopted by other opponents. For exam-
ple, New Hampshire state representative John Cebrowski, arguing against
the law in 2009, said, “I don’t want to send a loved one . . . down the
drain to a sewer treatment plant.”14
In 2019, Washington became the first state to legalize another new
method of disposition—natural organic reduction.15 This process also
takes place inside a chamber, as cremation and alkaline hydrolysis do.
The agents for accelerated decomposition are microbes, which are present
in the mixture of wood chips, alfalfa, and straw that surround the corpse.
Cremation and alkaline hydrolysis reduce the human corpse to bone frag-
ments and powder within a few hours. Natural organic reduction takes
approximately thirty days and the end result is about a cubic yard of soil.
Washington defined “natural organic reduction” very generally as the
“contained, accelerated conversion of human remains to soil.”16 The use
of the word “soil” in this definition suggests that the Washington legisla-
ture understood that, scientifically, what remains following the natural
organic reduction process was fundamentally different from what remains
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 101

following cremation or alkaline hydrolysis. But the revised definition of

“human remains” includes this soil. “‘Human remains’ or ‘remains’ means
the body of a deceased person, including remains following the process of
cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, or natural organic reduction.”17
It is significant that most states have defined that which remains fol-
lowing cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction as
“human remains.” Once matter has been classified as human remains,
there is no mechanism in any state that allows it to be legally transformed
into something else. Further, the term has meaning in other portions of
state codes and at common law, in particular, doctrines that restrict what
we may do with human remains.

What We Are Forbidden to Do with Human Remains

The law that establishes the outer boundaries for what constitutes
acceptable treatment of human remains has always been vague. Histori-
cally, it has been an offense against the common law to “indecently” han-
dle a dead body. Although this term has never been precisely defined,
commentators have given us several examples of prohibited treatment.
Human remains may not be “cast out so as to expose [them] to violation
or so as to offend the feelings or endanger the health of the living.”18 No
person may “cast [a corpse] into the street, or into a running stream, or
into a hole in the ground, or make any disposition of it that might be
regarded as creating a nuisance, be offensive to the sense of decency, or be
injurious to the health of the community.”19
In 1821, a man was convicted of unlawfully and indecently throwing
the body of a child into a river.20 The court attempted to explain why this
conduct violated the common law.

From our childhood we all have been accustomed to pay a reverential

respect to the sepulchres of our fathers, and to attach a character of sacred-
ness to the grounds dedicated and inclosed as the cemeteries of the dead. . . .
It is an outrage upon the public feelings, and torturing to the afflicted rela-
tives of the deceased. If it be a crime thus to disturb the ashes of the dead, it
must also be a crime to deprive them of a decent burial, by a disgraceful
exposure, or disposal of the body contrary to usages so long sanctioned, and
which are so grateful to the wounded hearts of friends and mourners. If a
dead body may be thrown into a river, it may be cast into a street:—if the
body of a child—so, the body of an adult, male or female. Good morals—
decency—our best feelings—the law of the land—all forbid such proceed-
ings. It is imprudent to weaken the influence of that sentiment which gives
solemnity and interest to every thing connected with the tomb.21
102 The Future of the Corpse

There were a handful of such reported cases in the 20th century. In

1939, a defendant was convicted in Maine of disposing of a body in a fur-
nace, essentially, a private unauthorized cremation. The court noted that
“the essence of the offense charged and proved is, not that the body was
burned, but that it was indecently burned, in such a manner that, when
the facts should in the natural course of events become known, the feel-
ings and natural sentiments of the public would be outraged.”22 In 1949,
a woman was convicted in Arkansas for keeping a dead body for five days
in order to cash an Old Age Assistance check. In addition to the obvious
fraud, the woman was charged with committing the common-law offense
of “treating the dead human body indecently” because “during these five
days the body was placed in different positions simulating life.”23 In 1967,
a New Mexico man was convicted of the common-law offense of keeping
a woman’s remains wrapped in blanket and plastic sheet for eight days,
“with the intent of preventing a decent burial or disposition thereof.”24 As
recently as 2002, Tennessee has recognized “the improper disposal of a
dead body” as a common-law offense.25
Most states have enacted laws criminalizing mistreatment of human
remains that mirror the standards set forth in common law. The Model
Penal Code, which has been adopted in whole or in part in thirty-seven
states, includes a crime called “abuse of a corpse” that is committed when
a person “except as authorized by law, . . . treats a corpse in a way that he
knows would outrage ordinary family sensibilities.”26
In a diverse society, the standard of “ordinary family sensibilities”
seems hopelessly Euro-Protestant-centric and unconstitutionally vague.
For example, wood-fueled, open-air cremation would seem perfectly nor-
mal to Americans with a strong cultural connection to India27 but would
horrify others. Recent immigrants from Tana Toraja, a mountainous
region of Indonesia, may expect that they can keep the mummified
remains of deceased family members in their homes.28 “Mainstream”
American culture confines such practices to Faulkner short stories,29
although it should be noted that I have had several unconnected friends
from New Orleans ask me if it is legal for them to be preserved via
taxidermy and displayed annually at Mardi Gras celebrations. (Unfortu-
nately, I cannot see any way to accommodate their wishes under current
law.)30 Even the use of charnel houses and ossuaries, not to mention reli-
quaries, essential to the practice of Catholicism for more than a thousand
years, would surely offend the “ordinary” sensibilities of many modern
Americans.31
The criminalization of methods of treating human remains in a way
that violates undefined “ordinary family sensibilities” may have a chilling
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 103

effect on legitimate practices from non-European Protestant cultures, but

according to the only federal appeals court to consider the matter, a varia-
tion on that phrase is not unconstitutionally vague or violative of the First
Amendment.32 In 2001, Thomas Condon gained access to the Hamilton
County, Ohio, morgue and photographed several corpses that he posed
and decorated with props.33 Mr. Condon claimed that his activities were
in furtherance of a photographic essay entitled “life cycles.” The Ohio ver-
sion of the Model Penal Code statute, which Mr. Condon was convicted of
violating, provides:

(A) No person, except as authorized by law, shall treat a human corpse in

a way that the person knows would outrage reasonable family
sensibilities.
(B) No person, except as authorized by law, shall treat a human corpse in
a way that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities.34

On appeal, Mr. Condon argued that the statute was unconstitutionally

vague and overbroad. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed as the
statute was applied to Mr. Condon. The court reasoned:

Although the “reasonable community sensibilities” standard contained in

Ohio’s corpse-abuse statute is not defined with specificity, we believe that
it constitutes a comprehensible normative standard sufficient to put a per-
son of ordinary intelligence on notice that the conduct at issue in this case
was prohibited. . . . As the Ohio Court of Appeals explained in this case:
“Community mores concerning the proper treatment of a corpse are not . . .
esoteric or otherwise difficult to discern. Irrespective of one’s religious
views, and even if one is an atheist or an agnostic, it is almost universally
understood that the bodies of the dead are to be treated with the utmost
respect and in a manner that will not inflict any more emotional pain upon
the wounded hearts of friends and mourners.”35

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Ohio Court of Appeals
indulged in the same fallacy that plagues American court decisions in this
area—ascribing “universality” to Christian (specifically Protestant)
norms. The court could have easily upheld this conviction by emphasiz-
ing that Condon had no authorization to interact with the remains and
that he knew that his treatment of them would outrage reasonable family
sensibilities. But the problem with most abuse-of-corpse statutes is that
they can just as easily be enforced against a family that is treating remains
in a manner that the family and the deceased deem respectful if that treat-
ment is outside the norm for the community. This issue is particularly
104 The Future of the Corpse

relevant in states such as Ohio, which modified the Model Penal Code
wording from “ordinary family sensibilities” to “reasonable community
sensibilities.” Families within a community may obviously have different
sensibilities than the community in which they reside.
This issue is no less acute in states that have enacted criminal statutes
based on the traditional common-law offense but use a wide variety of
standards other than “indecent” treatment of human remains. For exam-
ple, Georgia’s statute criminalizes willing “defacement” of human remains:
“A person commits the offense of abuse of a dead body if, prior to inter-
ment and except as otherwise authorized by law, such person willfully
defaces a dead body while the dead body is lying in state or is prepared for
burial, showing, or cremation whether in a funeral establishment, place of
worship, home, or other facility for lying in state or at a grave site.”36
Meanwhile, Oregon law provides that “a person commits the crime of
abuse of corpse in the first degree if the person: (a) Engages in sexual
activity with a corpse or involving a corpse; or (b) Dismembers, mutilates,
cuts or strikes a corpse.”37
Is defacing a dead body the same or different from mutilating it? Obvi-
ously, the Oregon legislature saw a distinction between the words dis-
membering, mutilating, cutting, and striking, since it saw fit to use all
four terms in the statute. Would disposing of a body via alkaline hydroly-
sis or natural organic reduction violate these statutes? Given that there is
not a single reported appellate case interpreting or applying the vast
majority of these statutes, death care entrepreneurs are understandably
reluctant to invest in these newer processes without express legalization,
given the risk that a local prosecutor and jury may view them negatively.
Another problematic aspect of laws that forbid particular treatment of
human remains is the expansive definition in state statutes of “human
remains.” Laws that refer to dismembering and mutilating remains invoke
images of intact corpses. But, as noted above, consider that most states
tend to define “human remains” broadly. For example, Nevada defines the
term to mean “the body of a deceased person, and includes the body in
any state of decomposition and the cremated remains of a body.”38 Cre-
mated remains, once pulverized into ash, can be visually indistinguish-
able from other ash. Yet again, under Nevada law, they remain forever
essentially human.
Although statutes purport to treat all human remains as equal, the
laws are clearly not uniformly enforced. At least a third of vendors at
funeral industry conferences offer products to transform cremated human
remains into objects of art such as glass paperweights or jewelry. There
are even companies that will mix cremated remains into paint and then
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 105

create a portrait of the deceased. Do these methods of memorialization

violate abuse-of-corpse laws?
What about the curiosity shops and online vendors that trade in human
skeletal remains? Dismembering human remains clearly violates the Ore-
gon law cited earlier, but what about displaying, owning, selling, or pur-
chasing a human skull after it has been removed from the body and
de-fleshed? What about the companies that promise consumers that their
tattoos can be removed postmortem, preserved, and framed?39 The law
clearly forbids the “indecent” treatment of human remains, but what that
standard means and how those laws are enforced still generate meaning-
ful uncertainty that can understandably stifle innovation.

What We Are Required to Do with Human Remains

In the United States, we have few obligations with respect to human
remains, even those of our family members. At English common law, it
was illegal for a person to bury the remains of an individual who died
violently without reporting the circumstances of the death to the proper
authorities. It was also illegal to allow remains to lie unburied “until
putrefaction had set in” without notifying authorities of the death.40 Under
modern U.S. law, only certain groups of people, particularly medical pro-
fessionals and funeral directors, have a legal obligation to timely report
that death has occurred. For example, in Kentucky, if a licensed embalmer,
funeral director, or ambulance service is the “first person at the scene of
death other than private citizens,” then such person is required to report
a suspicious death to the local law enforcement agency.41
Some states have adopted statutes that expand this duty to more indi-
viduals who have knowledge that death has occurred. These statutes fall
into two broad categories: (1) statutes that impose a general obligation on
people to report the discovery of human remains or all deaths and (2)
statutes that require notification of or forbid the disposition of human
remains following a suspicious death. Both categories of statutes vary
widely with respect to the scope of obligation created and the penalties
for failure to report.
Ohio provides an example of this first category: “No person who dis-
covers the body or acquires the first knowledge of the death of a person
shall fail to report the death immediately to a physician or advanced
practice registered nurse whom the person knows to be treating the
deceased for a condition from which death at such time would not be
unexpected, or to a law enforcement officer, an ambulance service, an
emergency squad, or the coroner in a political subdivision in which the
106 The Future of the Corpse

body is discovered, the death is believed to have occurred, or knowledge

concerning the death is obtained.”42 Violation of this provision is known
as “failure to report knowledge of a death,” which is a misdemeanor of the
fourth degree, punishable by a jail term not to exceed thirty days43 or a
fine not to exceed $250.44
Idaho provides an example of the second category of statute: “Where
any death occurs which would be subject to investigation by the coroner
under section 19-4301(1), Idaho Code, the person who finds or has cus-
tody of the body shall promptly notify either the coroner, who shall notify
the appropriate law enforcement agency, or a law enforcement officer or
agency, which shall notify the coroner.”45
Idaho Code § 19-4301(1) provides that the following types of deaths
are subject to investigation by the coroner: violent deaths, whether appar-
ently by homicide, suicide or accident; a death that occurs under suspi-
cious or unknown circumstances; and the death of a stillborn child or of
any child if there is reasonable suspicion that the death occurred without
a “known medical disease.”46 Failure to report one of these deaths is pun-
ishable by up to a year in county jail or a fine not to exceed $1,000.47
These “obligation to report the presence of human remains” statutes do
not typically distinguish between the newly dead and interred human
remains. There are separate statutory regimes that apply to individuals
who discover interred remains or skeletal remains in the course of
“ground disturbance activities.” Such individuals are generally required to
first notify local law enforcement or the coroner, and then, if the remains
are determined to be “non-forensic,” to notify the state archaeologist or
division of historic preservation. Most states then require a determination
of whether or not the remains are of Native peoples, since they are
accorded additional protections under federal law.
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAG-
PRA)48 was enacted by Congress in 1990 in response to the destruction
and desecration of Native American burial sites and the active trade in
human remains and grave goods as curiosities, scientific artifacts, and
museum pieces. By 1990, U.S. museums had accumulated large collec-
tions of Native American remains and grave goods. Congress responded
to widespread criticism that these artifacts were sitting on dusty shelves
and that their storage and display was culturally inappropriate.
To address these issues, NAGPRA establishes that any sacred or funer-
ary objects (including human skeletal remains) discovered on federal or
tribal lands after November 16, 1990, belong to the lineal descendants of
the deceased or, if lineal descendants cannot be identified, the Indian
tribe or Native Hawaiian organization with the closest cultural affiliation
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 107

with the remains. In addition, a process was established for museums to

repatriate human remains and funerary objects held in their collections.
The requirements that some individuals are sometimes required to
report the presence of human remains are actually the most consistent
obligation in the law of human remains. Perhaps surprisingly, family
members have little to no legal duty with respect to the disposition of
human remains. Instead, the obligation to dispose of human remains is
primarily placed on the estate of the decedent or, if there are insufficient
funds, the state.
English law has long provided that the dead have a right to a “decent,
Christian burial” but has struggled with identifying the person required
to effectuate that burial and the person obligated to pay the cost. Prior to
the enactment of the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, which per-
mitted married women in the United Kingdom to own and inherit prop-
erty, legal disputes necessarily dealt with designating a responsible man.
Therefore, 19th-century English cases held that the primary duty to orga-
nize a decent burial rested upon the father of a deceased minor child49 or
the husband of a deceased wife. An 1862 English case explains, “The law
. . . has provided not only for the place where the burial is to take place,
but also who shall be charged with the performance of the duty. Where
the deceased has a husband, the performance of that last act of piety and
charity devolves upon him. The law makes that a legal duty which the
laws of nature and society make a moral duty.”50
Courts in the United States also had to deal with assigning the duty to
organize and bear the cost of a decent funeral. In one line of cases, relying
on English precedent, U.S. courts held that a husband was obligated to
bury his deceased wife and pay the funeral expenses.51 This common-law
duty has been enforced even in circumstances where the wife left a sepa-
rate estate, perhaps reflecting a lack of understanding of the context of
those original decisions from an era before married women were allowed
to own property.52 Courts in the United States have also held that, as a
matter of common law, parents are obligated to bury their children53 but
that guardians are not obligated to bury their wards.54 Other cases have
held that the decedent’s estate is primarily liable for funeral expenses,55
which is consistent with modern state statutory law.
U.S. courts have, however, declined to impose a common-law duty on
children to bury their parents. For example, in the early 1950s, Frank
McKibben died at the home of his daughter, Madeline Golker, in New
York.56 Mr. McKibben was a widower with seven surviving children. Six
of the seven children coordinated to make arrangements for their father’s
funeral and burial. The seventh, Robert McKibben, refused to contribute.
108 The Future of the Corpse

When Ms. Golker brought suit to compel her brother to pay his pro rata
share of the costs, the court found that “whatever the moral situation
involved, the court can find no legal duty on the part of Robert McKibben
to contribute anything to the cost of the burial of his father.”57

Who Is Permitted to Conduct Activities Related to Human Remains

For most of human history, the preparation of the dead for disposition
was a responsibility primarily discharged by families and religious com-
munities. In England, from 800 CE until the Burial Acts of the 1850s, the
dead were entrusted to the established church. As a result, prior to the
end of the 19th century, there was virtually no English common law or
statutory law that regulated who was permitted to conduct activities
related to human remains other than the Church of England. For the first
several centuries of European colonization in the Americas, this histori-
cally philanthropic activity continued to be largely the domain of families
and religious communities, supplemented by limited commercial activity
in urban areas. For example, in Philadelphia in 1810, fourteen women
advertised as “Layers out of the Dead.”58 Other early entrepreneurs, again
typically in dense cities where space and materials were limited, manu-
factured caskets and tombstones as well as provided transportation to the
burying ground.59
The popularization of embalming in the decades following the Civil
War set the stage for the creation of a legal regime that, for the first time,
limited who was permitted to conduct activities related to human remains.
The men who learned the quasi-medical process of embalming desired to
transform themselves from merchants who merely sold funeral goods and
services into professionals who specialized in preparing the dead for dis-
position.60 Transparently desiring protection from competition, these
funeral directors asked the state legislatures to create occupational licens-
ing regimes that defined the “practice of funeral service” and then to
restrict that commercial activity to licensed individuals.
There is no uniform definition of “practice of funeral service” in state
statutes. The key activities reflected in state law are: (1) preparing human
remains for burial or other disposition; (2) managing a funeral home or
mortuary; (3) making funeral arrangements; and (4) holding oneself out
to be in the business of a funeral director or undertaker. In some states,
the sale of funeral goods and services is also defined as the practice of
funeral service.
Nearly every state licenses an occupation known as “funeral direc-
tor.” States approach the scope of this license in three different ways:
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 109

(1) separately licensing funeral directors and embalmers (“dual license”

states); (2) issuing a single license that includes both sets of activities
(“single license” states); and (3) licensing only embalmers. The states are
fairly evenly split between dual-license and single-license states.61
Licensure requirements vary from state to state. All states require
funeral director applicants to have obtained a minimum level of educa-
tion. The vast majority of states require funeral director applicants to have
graduated from a mortuary science or funeral service school accredited
by the American Board of Funeral Services Education (ABFSE). The
ABFSE has established certain minimum requirements that emphasize
embalming and the restorative arts, typically in a two-year associate’s
degree program.
Every state except California and Wyoming requires funeral director
applicants to complete an apprenticeship or internship with a licensed
funeral director. Many states separately license these trainees. The length
of the required apprenticeship ranges from twelve to thirty-six months.
During this apprenticeship period, applicants are required to embalm a
minimum number of bodies, assist in making a minimum number of
funeral arrangements, and conduct a minimum number of funerals. An
industry survey indicated that in 2018, half of funeral homes paid interns
ten to fifteen dollars per hour, and 40 percent paid fifteen to twenty dol-
lars per hour.62
All states require applicants to pass a written exam before licensure,
although those exams vary. Licenses are typically granted for a limited
period of time and must be renewed annually or biennially. Most states
require licensed funeral directors to complete continuing-education
requirements.
States do not only license individual funeral directors; the vast major-
ity also require them to work in particular types of structures called
“funeral homes” or “funeral establishments.” In order to be licensed,
funeral homes must typically meet minimum requirements. For example,
in North Carolina,
Every funeral establishment shall contain a preparation room which is
strictly private, of suitable size for the embalming of dead bodies. Each
preparation room shall: (1) Contain one standard type operating table.
(2) Contain facilities for adequate drainage. (3) Contain a sanitary waste
receptacle. (4) Contain an instrument sterilizer. (5) Have wall-to-wall floor
covering of tile, concrete, or other material which can be easily cleaned.
(6) Be kept in sanitary condition and subject to inspection by the Board or
its agents at all times. (7) Have a placard or sign on the door indicating
that the preparation room is private. (8) Have a proper ventilation or
110 The Future of the Corpse

purification system to maintain a nonhazardous level of airborne contami-

nation. . . . Every funeral establishment shall contain a reposing room
for dead human bodies, of suitable size to accommodate a casket and
visitors.63

A “preparation room,” such as that required in North Carolina, is a room

outfitted to perform embalming. Where mandatory, an embalming room
is required regardless of whether the funeral home offers embalming ser-
vices to customers.
The typical funeral home is a small business—72 percent have four or
fewer employees, and less than 10 percent have more than nine employ-
ees.64 The largest company in the death care industry—Service Corpora-
tion International—controls approximately 15 percent of the market, but
the vast majority of funeral homes are “mom and pop” operations owned
by the funeral director.65 For most of the past century, funeral homes were
passed on from father to son. That is changing. In 2019, fewer than 6 per-
cent of funeral service students had a parent in the industry. Sons are not
waiting around to inherit the funeral home from their father. Instead, in
2019, the most likely person to enroll in a mortuary science program was
a Caucasian female, twenty-one to twenty-five years of age with one or
two years of college.66
The educational requirements have broadly proven to be a barrier to
entry. The graduation rate at mortuary colleges is approximately 55 per-
cent, down from 75 percent in 1975.67 In addition, half of mortuary sci-
ence graduates are projected to leave funeral service within five years
after graduation.68 As a result of these trends, many in the funeral services
industry fear that licensed funeral directors and embalmers are not being
replaced at a sufficient rate. The president of ABFSE wrote in an industry
publication that part of the issue is salary and working conditions: “I also
strongly believe that employers cannot reasonably expect to continue to
hire people for $30,000–$35,000. This is especially true when they also
don’t offer retirement, guaranteed time off and benefits. Furthermore, you
cannot expect employees to work 50 to 60 hours without days off. This
model is no longer feasible for the new workforce.”69
A young death care services entrepreneur who overcomes the barriers
to entry posed by the education and apprenticeship requirements, and,
discouraged by the low salary and working conditions as an employee or
simply interested in blazing an independent path, finds that it is quite
expensive to set up shop. In 2015, Service Corporation International
described for its investors the “average characteristics of a new build
funeral home.”70 One and a half to two acres were required to build a
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 111

6,000- to 9,000-square-foot structure at an average cost of $2 million to

$4 million.71
Death care entrepreneurs focused on reestablishing the role of the fam-
ily and religious communities have encountered issues with the rigid
occupational licensing structure that governs who is permitted to con-
duct activities related to human remains. For example, in the 1970s, the
Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minneapolis resurrected the traditional
Jewish mourning and burial practices through the Chevra Kevod Hamet
(Society to Honor the Dead).72 Members of the group volunteered to pre-
pare deceased members of the congregation for burial in accordance with
Jewish law, including watching and purifying the body and walking the
family through shiva. Inspired by this story, a number of other syna-
gogues across the country followed suit.73 Some synagogues, however,
have encountered problems with modern regulatory law.
The case of Wasserman v. Burrell, filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Middle District of Pennsylvania, demonstrates the existing conflicts
between modern licensing regimes and traditional methods of preparing
the dead.74 Rabbi Wasserman, the director of funerary practices of the
Vaad HaRobonim of Pittsburgh and its Chevra Kadisha (Sacred Society),
sued the members of the State Board of Funeral Directors after he was
repeatedly investigated for the unlicensed practice of funeral directing.
Rabbi Wasserman asserted that he was simply “engaged in centuries-old
prayer, practices and custom of religious burials and funerary rites, with-
out payment or profit, and without any use whatsoever of preservatives or
cosmetics for the deceased.”75 The parties reached a settlement in which
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania agreed that individuals, religious
denominations, or committees of congregations of religious believers who
handle, transport, prepare, and dispose of deceased human bodies in
accordance with the practice or observance of religion shall not be
required to become licensed funeral directors in the Commonwealth.76
At the same time that some religious communities have attempted to
restore their traditional role in mediating the transition from life to death,
another neotraditional group has emerged to try to reclaim that role for
the family. Beginning in the late 1990s, a smattering of people (mainly
women) who desired to assist families reduce or eliminate the involve-
ment of a funeral director began styling themselves as “death doulas,”
“death midwives,” and “home funeral guides.”77 The National Home
Funeral Alliance formed in 2010 to advocate for these “natural death care
assistants” (NDAs). Most NDAs are not licensed funeral directors,
although some licensed funeral directors do assist families who want to
hold home funerals. Unable to actually assist families in preparing human
112 The Future of the Corpse

remains for burial or other disposition or in making funeral arrange-

ments, both core activities that require licensure as a funeral director,
NDAs generally confine themselves to offering education and encourage-
ment to families to care for their own dead. NDAs therefore occupy a gray
area in the law. They are not expressly permitted to conduct activities
related to human remains and are therefore unable to take advantage of
the shield from liability that state licensure affords. At the same time, they
are not expressly prohibited from offering a limited range of advisory and
educational services.
The 2020 National Funeral Directors Association’s annual Consumer
Awareness and Preferences Survey found that nearly 60 percent of respon-
dents feel “somewhat confident,” “confident,” or “very confident” in “plan-
ning and executing a funeral/memorial service without the help of a
funeral director.”78 Although the home funeral movement is still new and
the number of natural death care assistants is low, this survey finding
suggests that they are tapping into an important cultural moment. It may
be that after a century after the forced commodification and commercial-
ization of death care, the American public is willing to reevaluate legal
restrictions on who may conduct activities relating to human remains.

Where We Are Permitted to Conduct Activities Related to Human Remains

State law has surprisingly little to say about the final topic—where we
are permitted to conduct activities related to human remains. As noted
previously, states regulate funeral homes but not their location. Since at
least the mid-20th century, states have regulated cemeteries but primarily
to ensure the integrity of perpetual care funds. Many types of cemeteries,
including those owned by families and religious organizations, are exempt
from even these laws.
Instead, most of the regulation of the location of funeral homes and
cemeteries takes place at the local level through zoning law. There are two
kinds of local laws that might restrict the location of a cemetery or funeral
use: (1) ordinances that specifically apply to cemeteries and funeral uses;
and (2) comprehensive zoning ordinances that generally segregate com-
mercial uses.79 It is well settled that the latter category of zoning ordi-
nances is constitutionally permissible.80 The former category is generally
permissible pursuant to the state’s police powers, but there are some limi-
tations. Ordinances that forbid cemeteries and funeral activities in resi-
dential districts have been found by courts in a number of states to be
reasonable.81 In addition, ordinances that limit the siting of funeral homes
in a limited area of a city,82 or via special exception, have been held to be
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 113

permissible.83 The Michigan Supreme Court reflected a century ago on

the reasonableness of a local zoning ordinance that separated funeral uses
from residential areas.84

We think it requires no deep research in psychology to reach the conclusion

that a constant reminder of death has a depressing influence upon the normal
person. Cheerful surroundings are conducive to recovery for one suffering
from disease, and cheerful surroundings are conducive to the maintenance of
vigorous health in the normal person. Mental depression, horror, and dread
lower the vitality, rendering one more susceptible to disease, and reduce the
power of resistance. . . . [This] is a matter of common knowledge. The con-
stant going and coming of the hearse . . . the not infrequent taking in and out
of dead bodies; the occasional funeral, with its mourners and funeral
airs . . . ; the unknown dead in the morgue . . . ; the thought of autopsies, of
embalming; the dread, or horror, or thought, that the dead are or may be
lying in the house next door, a morgue; the dread of communicable disease,
not well founded, as we have seen, but nevertheless present in the mind of the
normal layman—all of these are conducive to depression of the normal per-
son; each of these is a constant reminder of mortality.85

The view of the court is increasingly out of step with modern views of
mortality. However, the rigidity of modern zoning codes is slow to change
and still largely reflect a 19th-century desire to segregate funeral activities
and cemeteries from residential areas.
An example of a contemporary city that broadly permits funeral homes
is Indianapolis, Indiana. The Indianapolis/Marion County Zoning Ordi-
nance establishes five commercial districts.86 “Mortuary, funeral home” is
listed as a permitted use in four of the five districts.87 The use is defined
thus: “An establishment for the preparation of the deceased for burial and
the display of the deceased and rituals connected with, and conducted
before burial or cremation. This definition includes columbaria and may
include a facility for the permanent storage of cremated remains of the
dead. This definition does not include freestanding crematoria facility.”88
In contrast, Chicago and Phoenix more strictly restrict funeral homes.
The Cook County, Illinois (Chicago), zoning ordinance states that “funeral
homes and undertaking establishments” are permitted only by special-
use permit in certain commercial districts.89 In the city of Phoenix, “mor-
tuaries” are permitted in the Planned Shopping Center Overlay District.90
In addition, a special-use permit may be granted by the Council upon the
recommendation of the Commission for a mortuary in the Four Corners
Overlay District91 provided that the property abuts an “arterial street or
freeway.”92
114 The Future of the Corpse

Cemeteries are even more restricted. In Indianapolis, a cemetery is

only permitted in a special-use district “and may not be interpreted as a
Permitted or Special Exception use in any other primary or secondary
zoning district.”93 In other words, no new cemeteries may be located in
Indianapolis without a specific rezoning of the parcel of land to permit
the use. However, the term “cemetery” is not defined in the local ordi-
nance. As referenced above, the Indianapolis definition of “mortuary,
funeral home” expressly includes columbaria. So does Indianapolis per-
haps intend a “cemetery” to mean only land dedicated to the perpetual
use of intact human remains, buried in a grave or entombed in a mauso-
leum? That would include green burial, but what about the new “memo-
rial forests” where developers are selling interests in established forests
and permitting families to spread cremated remains around a particular
tree?94 A memorial forest clearly is not a columbarium, so it would not be
regulated as a “mortuary, funeral home,” but neither does it match the
traditional understanding of a cemetery.
As death care entrepreneurs creatively expand the traditional under-
standings of a funeral home and a cemetery, more pressure will be brought
to bear on vague and undefined terms in local zoning laws as sites for
activity relating to human remains are sought.

The Way Forward

There is growing interest in pushing the boundaries of the law of
human remains in the United States to explore more sustainable methods
of disposition and to reassert the roles of family and community. Navigat-
ing the gray areas in existing law creates significant risk for death care
entrepreneurs. The law should be a living organism, flexible enough to
adjust as social norms shift and community values and priorities evolve.
But in practice, the process of changing the law either through the legisla-
tive process or through the courts is expensive and heavily weighted in
favor of the status quo. That does not mean, however, that the endeavor is
without possibility. There is much common ground for a variety of death
care entrepreneurs and innovators seeking different goals to challenge
and expand the law of human remains.
This chapter is too short to fully examine the breadth and depth of the
law of human remains in the United States. Nor, obviously, does it substi-
tute for legal advice. But I hope it provides an overview of the structure of
the law of human remains in the United States that will help illuminate
the legal and structural challenges faced by death care entrepreneurs and
will shine a little light on possible ways forward.
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 115

Notes
1. Tanya D. Marsh, “Regulated to Death: Occupational Licensing and the
Demise of the U.S. Funeral Services Industry,” Wake Forest Journal of Law and
Policy 8, no. 1 (2018).
2. State of New York, Report of the Attorney General on the Subject of Cemeteries
(Albany, NY: Williams Press, 1949); David Charles Sloane, The Last Great Neces-
sity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 193–97.
3. Percival E. Jackson, The Law of Cadavers and Burial and Burial Places, 2nd
ed. (New York, NY: Prentice-Hall, 1950), 22–28; Samuel B. Ruggles, Law of
Burial: Report to the Supreme Court of the State of New-York in 1856 (Albany: Weed,
Parsons & Company, 1858).
4. Tanya D. Marsh, “The Death Care Revolution,” Wake Forest Journal of Law
and Policy 8, no. 1 (2018): 1–4.
5. Deana Gillespie and Edward J. Defort, “Inside the 2020 Consumer Aware-
ness and Preferences Survey Part 4,” Memorial Business Journal 11, no. 34 (2020): 3.
6. Pam Kleese and Barbara Kemmis, “The Cremation Experience,” The Cre-
mationist 55, no. 4 (2020): 6.
7. “New-York Cremation Society: Report of the Committee on Organization—
Addresses of Dr. Barnard, Prof. Seely, and Rev. Dr. Frothingham,” New York Times,
April 25, 1874, 7.
8. John Storer Cobb, A Quartercentury of Cremation in North America (Boston:
Knight and Millet, 1901), 15–17.
9. Cremation Association of North America, CANA Annual Statistics Report:
Featuring Final 2018 Data, Newly Released 2019 Data, and Projections to 2024
(Wheeling, IL: CANA 2020).
10. Cremation Association of North America, CANA Annual Statistics Report.
11. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 451.617 (2019).
12. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-210.136 (2019).
13. Tony Cook, “Casket-Making Lawmaker Helps Kill Bill Allowing Alterna-
tive to Burial,” Indianapolis Star, March 30, 2015.
14. Emily Atkin, “The Fight for the Right to be Cremated by Water,” New
Republic, June 14, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://newrepublic.com​
/article/148997/fight-right-cremated-water-rise-alkaline-hydrolysis-america.
15. Brendan Kiley, “Washington Becomes First State to Legalize Human Com-
posting,” Seattle Times, May 21, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/washington-becomes-first-state-to-legalize​
-human-composting.
16. Wash. Rev. Code § 68.04.310 (2019).
17. Wash. Rev. Code § 68.04.020 (2019).
18. E. Lewis Thomas, Baker’s Law Relating to Burials (London: Sweet &
Maxwell, 1901) 36–37.
19. Seaton v. Commonwealth, 149 S.W. 871, 873 (Ky. 1912).
20. Kanavan’s Case, 1 Me. 205 (1821).
116 The Future of the Corpse

21. Kanavan’s Case, 227.

22. State v. Bradbury, 9 A.2d 657 (Me. 1939).
23. Baker v. State, 223 S.W.2d 809 (Ark. 1949).
24. State v. Hartzler, 78 N.M. 514, 516 (N.M. 1967).
25. Wilks v. State, 2002 WL 31780720 (Tenn. Crim. App., Knoxville, Dec. 13,
2002) (unpublished opinion).
26. American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, § 250.10 (1962).
27. David Arnold, “Burning Issues: Cremation and Incineration in Modern
India,” NTM 24, no. 4 (2016): 393–419.
28. Amanda Bennett, “When Death Doesn’t Mean Goodbye,” National
Geographic, March 2016; Caitlin Doughty, From Here to Eternity (New York, NY:
W.W. Norton, 2017).
29. William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily and Other Stories (New York, NY: Ran-
dom House, 1942).
30. Caitlin Doughty, “You Can’t Keep Your Parents’ Skulls,” The Atlantic, Sep-
tember 4, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/science​
/archive/2019/09/why-you-cant-display-your-relatives-skull/597307.
31. Paul Koudounaris, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and
Charnel Houses (London: Thames & Hudson, 2016).
32. Condon v. Wolfe, 310 F. App’x at 807, 821 (6th Cir. 2009) (“[W]e conclude
that § 2927.01(B) is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Condon.”)
33. State v. Condon, 789 N.E.2d 696, 704 (Ohio App. 2003).
34. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2927.01 (1972).
35. Condon v. Wolfe, 310 F. App’x at 822.
36. Ga. Code Ann. § 31-21-44.1 (1998).
37. Or. Rev. Stat. § 166.087 (1993).
38. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 440.025 (1961).
39. Megan Rosenbloom, Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Sci-
ence and History of Books Bound in Human Skin (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2020).
40. Sidney Perley, Mortuary Law (Boston: George B. Reed, 1896), 12.
41. Ky. Rev. Stat. § 72.020(5) (1942).
42. Ohio Rev. Code § 2921.22 (1972).
43. Ohio Rev. Code § 2929.24 (2002).
44. Ohio Rev. Code § 2929.28 (2002).
45. Idaho Code § 19-4301A (2006).
46. Idaho Code § 19-4301 (2005).
47. Idaho Code § 19-4301A (2006).
48. 25 U.S.C. § 3001 et seq.
49. Regina v. William Vann, 169 E.R. 523 (Crown Cases Reserved, 1851).
50. Bradshaw v. Beard, 142 E.R. 1175 (Court of Common Pleas 1862).
51. Apostle v. Pappas, 277 N.Y.S. 400 (N.Y. Sup 1935).
52. For example, Smyley v. Reese, 53 Ala. 89 (Ala. 1875)(“The statutes creating
the wife’s separate estate do not absolve the husband from his common-law
Modernizing the Law of Human Remains 117

liability for the wife’s funeral expenses.”); Appeal of Staples, 52 Conn. 425 (Conn.
1884) (“It is the duty of the husband to defray the expense of burying in a suit-
able manner his deceased wife, and he has no right to charge it against her
estate.”); Sears v. Gidday, 2 NW. 917 (Mich. 1879) (“The liability of a husband for
the funeral expenses of a deceased wife is not affected by the fact that she may
have left her property by a will to another, and that person assisted in the
arrangements and direction of the funeral.”)
53. Jewell v. Jewell, 255 S.W.3d 522 (Ky. App. 2008).
54. Weaver v. Dunkel, 1929 WL 2903 (Ohio App. 2 Dist, 1929).
55. Dutton v. Brashears Funeral Home, 357 S.W.2d 265 (Ark. 1962).
56. McKibben v. McKibben, 119 N.Y.S.2d 685 (N.Y. Mun. Ct. 1952).
57. McKibben, at 688.
58. Margaret M. Coffin, Death in Early America (New York, NY: Thomas Nel-
son, Inc., 1976), 81.
59. Robert W. Habenstein and William M. Lamers, The History of American
Funeral Directing (Brookfield, WI: National Funeral Directors Association 2014),
139–55.
60. Habenstein and Lamers, History of American Funeral Directing, 155.
61. Hawai’i is the only state that licenses only embalmers. As of August 2020,
twenty-nine states issued dual licenses and twenty states (plus the District of
Columbia) issued single licenses. T. Scott Gilligan, “More States Opt for Dual
Licensing,” Memorial Business Journal 11, no. 35 (2020): 3.
62. Thomas A. Parmalee, “Compensation Survey Shows Pay Creeps Up for
Most Licensed Staff,” in The Funeral Director’s Guide to Statistics 2020 (Wall, NJ:
Kates-Boylston Publications, 2020), 18.
63. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-210.27A (1987).
64. Devin McGinley, Funeral Homes in the U.S. (report) (Los Angeles: IBIS-
World, August 2017), 22.
65. Eric Tanzberger, “Company Overview,” Presentation, Service Corporation
International, Raymond James Annual Institutional Investor Conference,
Orlando, FL, March 2020.
66. “Inside the ABFSE Mortuary Science Program Enrollment/Graduation
Numbers,” Memorial Business Journal 11, no. 26 (2020): 4.
67. Blair Nelson to Elizabeth A. Carter, October 15, 2015, accessed March 30,
2021, http://www.dhp.virginia.gov/Bhp/studies/FuneralServiceProvider.pdf.
68. Blair Nelson to Elizabeth A. Carter, October 15, 2015.
69. Jzyk Ennis, “One Must Look at the Rolling Data,” Memorial Business
Journal 11, no. 26 (2020): 9.
70. Jay Waring, “Driving Long-Term Growth & Value,” Presentation, Service
Corporation International, SCI’s Investor Day, New York, NY, February 2015.
71. Waring, “Driving Long-Term Growth & Value.”
72. Arnold M. Goodman, A Plain Pinebox: A Return to Simple Jewish Funerals
and Eternal Traditions (Brooklyn, NY: Ktav Pub & Distributors Inc., 2003), xiii.
73. Goodman, A Plain Pinebox, xxv–xxx.
118 The Future of the Corpse

74. Memorandum of Understanding, Wasserman v. Burrell, No. 1:12-CV-1521

(M.D. Pa. filed Dec. 17, 2012).
75. Wasserman Memorandum, 2.
76. Wasserman Memorandum, 8.
77. Philip Olson, “Home Funerals as a Social Movement,” in Changing Land-
scapes, Green Burial Council International, ed. Lee Webster (Placerville, CA: Green
Burial Council, 2017), 43.
78. Gillespie and Defort, “Inside,” 2.
79. Tanya D. Marsh, “A New Lease on Death,” Real Property, Trust and Estate
Law Journal 49, no. 3 (Winter 2015): 439.
80. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 394 (1926).
81. For example, St. Paul v. Kessler, 178 N.W. 171, 174 (Minn. 1920); Spencer-
Sturla Co. v. Memphis, 290 S.W. 608, 615 (Tenn. 1927).
82. Brown v. City of Los Angeles, 192 P. 716, 717 (Cal. 1920); Ex parte Ruppe,
252 P. 746, 751 (Cal. Dist. App. Ct. 1927).
83. Patricia E. Salkin, American Law of Zoning (St. Paul, MN: Thompson/West,
2011), 18–52.
84. Jack Lewis Inc. v. Mayor of Baltimore, 164 A. 220, 224 (Md. 1933).
85. Saier v. Joy, 164 N.W. 507, 508 (Mich. 1917).
86. Indianapolis/Marion Cnty., Ind., Code of Ordinances § 740-104.A, et seq.
(2019).
87. Indianapolis/Marion Cnty., Ind., Code of Ordinances Table 743-1 (2019).
88. Indianapolis/Marion Cnty., Ind., Code of Ordinances § 740-202.F (2019).
89. Cook Cnty., Ill., Code of Ordinances §§ 5.1.4, 5.3.3, 5.4.3 (2001).
90. Phoenix, Ariz., City Code § 659(B)(80) (2014).
91. Phoenix, Ariz., City Code § 660(C).
92. Phoenix, Ariz., City Code § 647(i).
93. Indianapolis/Marion Cnty., Ind., Code of Ordinances § 743-208 (2019).
94. Nellie Bowles, “Could Trees Be the New Gravestones?” New York Times,
June 12, 2019.
 CHAPTER SIX

Nature versus Culture: Shifting

Values in American
Cemeteries 1

David Charles Sloane

The United States has entered a period of cultural hybridity in which

mourners have diverse choices. As a result, many people cling to the cem-
etery as a mourning space, while a growing number of others are uncertain
of their relationship to this traditional disposition place. Many factors influ-
ence these tendencies, including a declining commitment to faith, chang-
ing disposition technologies, a pervasive societal environmental sensibility,
and the ever-stronger trend to personalize the memory of the deceased.
This chapter analyzes how the reconceptualization of disposition practices
is tied to debates of how the cemetery should encompass nature and cul-
ture. After a century during which Americans “industrialized” nature’s
beauty, we now have had a half century of reformers attempting to reinte-
grate nature into burial by stripping away the cultural artifacts and tech-
nologies that have come to define conventional burial sites.
In doing so, we are moving from a human-centered disposition process
to a nature-centered one. Such a transition suggests that we are separating
material cultural expressions from disposition. Reformers argue we must
embrace humans as members of an ecological web, and they view that
relationship to nature as the primary defining characteristic of body
120 The Future of the Corpse

disposition. Their insistence on the separation of culture and nature in

aftercare practices leads this author to ask, Should we search for ways to
rebalance culture and nature, creating a new model of memory and dis-
position? As this chapter discusses, in some ways our desire to be more
natural is seriously influencing future disposition modes, yet conversely,
the wish to individualize our mourning is happening concurrently in
new, increasingly public sites.

Nature’s Beauty
We need to look back at the transformation of the cemetery to under-
stand the central debate about nature and culture. Bodies didn’t undergo
invasive preparation prior to interment in the burial grounds of early
American settlers. Nature provided a minimal backdrop to a range of sim-
ple and eloquent memorials. As cities and towns grew in the 19th cen-
tury, growing populations needed more burial spaces, and the land that
the older town and city burial places occupied was rapidly rising in value.
To address these developments, civic leaders located new cemeteries on
the edges of the built-up areas, enlarging them for the greater numbers of
new residents.
The new peripheral cemeteries’ designs fashionably rebalanced nature
and culture. Visitors and mourners could contemplate their sorrows,
refresh themselves from the competitive routines of the city, and mourn
their loved ones in designed spaces intentionally evoking natural ele-
ments. Two styles of urban cemeteries emerged.2 Many cities replicated
the older irregular grid designs of the urban graveyards, while some civic
leaders intentionally chose topographically varied sites that were not eas-
ily laid out in identical plots. Drawing on the Romantic image of nature
and the picturesque aesthetic that accompanied much of the poetry and
literature associated with the movement, founders filled cemeteries with
more trees, shrubs, and other plantings. Images of the new landscapes
emphasized their variety of trees, hidden valleys, and expanse of lawns.
Initially, the carriages that brought the dead to the mid-19th-century
cemeteries had more in common with those of the prior century than
those a century later. While cemeteries such as Mount Auburn outside
Boston or Green-Wood in Brooklyn created vibrant landscapes for man-
aging and memorializing the dead, families still grieved at home, under-
takers simply provided pine boxes and a trailer to carry the body to the
grave, and flowers laid on the grave came from home gardens. As late as
1945, a New York State cemetery superintendent could argue that “within
the memory of some people in this room,” the older tradition consisted of
Nature versus Culture 121

a home funeral with a pine coffin pulled to the cemetery by a horse-drawn

hearse and then buried by gravediggers.3
If we compare those cemeteries to the natural burial grounds of today,
we find that the burial itself was quite similar, with no embalming and
simple pine caskets. The care of the landscape is also much the same, with
no pesticides or herbicides. They had no mechanical mowers until late in
the 19th century, so workers swept the grass with scythes much like those
used in some natural burial grounds today. The two primary differences
between a cemetery that evoked nature and a natural burial ground was a
love for lawns and the commitment to cultural representations—
monuments—that signified the conventional cemetery as both a place of
disposition and one of individual and communal memories. Through
those often opulent and overwrought monuments, Americans remem-
bered their dead and represented their social status. Natural burial
grounds definitively reject the latter, social status, representation.
Even as the older 19th-century cemetery holds similarities with today’s
natural burial ground, the establishment of new 19th-century cemetery
designs commenced a broader change in American aftercare practices
(which involve the institutional links of funeral homes, cemeteries, and
later crematories). Drew Gilpin Faust has persuasively argued that the
Civil War dramatically altered American funeral practices.4 Individual
soldiers became important, not just to each family who experienced a loss
but to the nation. Battlegrounds became burial grounds. Families who
could afford it shipped embalmed soldiers’ corpses home to be buried in
local cemeteries. The undertaker was transformed into the funeral direc-
tor. As that same superintendent stated in 1945, “the funeral director
takes charge,” “assumes the responsibility, prepares the body,” “makes all
the arrangements, transports the remains to the cemetery.” The process
had shifted from a “labor for the dead” to a “service for the living.”5 As a
result, the number of funeral directors increased from roughly eleven
thousand in 1880 to over twenty-four thousand by 1920, even as the
American death rate decreased by a third.6
As the funeral changed, cemetery managers began altering the land-
scape to make nature more easily maintained amid the proliferation of
larger and more magnificent monuments. They cleared away the dense
brush in favor of broader lawns and thinned tree stands. They pulled up
myrtle and other ground flowers so the new mechanized mowers could
more easily get through. They even eliminated most stone coping around
lots and large individual markers. The result was a simpler, smoother,
natural-looking landscape, even more than ever dominated by family
monuments rising into the sky as obelisks and statues.
122 The Future of the Corpse

In retrospect, these decisions simply reinforced the cemetery as an

environmental threat. They became a consumptive storehouse of natural
resources that could have been kept in the earth. They had begun using
more chemical means to battle weeds, were filling with chemically
embalmed bodies, and used an enormous amount of wood and stone to
bury and commemorate. They were creating an artificial landscape.

Cremation: From Social Reform to Environmental Critique

As these changes occurred in the latter decades of the 19th century,
radical reformers offered a more rationalized, new disposition technol-
ogy: cremation. When American Francis LeMoyne adapted the Italian
Ludovico Brunetti’s design for an enclosed crematory in 1876, he set off a
raucous debate about contemporary funeral practices.7 Outdoor crema-
tion is a very old practice around the world. These reformers shifted the
process indoors to crematoriums that utilized modern combustion meth-
ods to quickly and efficiently burn the body, leaving only a small residue
of cremated remains. Religious institutions, the media, and conservative
cultural forces stymied the growth of cremation for decades. Neverthe-
less, the current environmental activists’ attacks on the cemetery echo the
efforts of early cremation reformers to critique the contemporary ceme-
tery and promote an alternative.
The cremationists argued the modern cemetery was a wasteful use of
space and resources that reinforced social and class inequities. They found
unacceptable the setting aside of large tracts of land solely for the purpose
of memories and mourning. By the end of the century, the nation’s largest
city, New York, had thousands of acres in cemetery land. Smaller cities
had similar proportions. The largest cemeteries founded after Mount
Auburn in 1831 stretched over one hundred acres and beyond.
Cremationists also critiqued the cemeteries’ class divisions. From the
inception of the new burial grounds, leading families of towns and cities
employed them as vehicles to honor themselves with elaborate monu-
ments and mausoleums. As more and more families purchased larger and
larger obelisks and statues, they turned the cemetery into what critics
called a “stone yard.” No one has added up the immense historical envi-
ronmental cost of this hoard of granite, marble, and quartz.
Few early cremationists focused on the waste of natural resources.
Instead they worried about the insidious peer pressure rich and poor
families alike felt to purchase an acceptable funeral and cemetery lot. In
1928, John Gebhart published one of the first systematic studies of burial
Nature versus Culture 123

expenditures.8 He found that funeral and burial costs left many poor fam-
ilies destitute. LeMoyne hoped cremation could disrupt class distinctions
by keeping “rich and poor . . . level in their last homes, [where] the com-
mon brotherhood of man may be practically demonstrated.” His hopes
were dashed for a century. In 1960, only 3.5 percent of American deaths
were cremated. Cremation appeared irrelevant even as it was about to
begin a half century of dramatic gains.
Between 1960 and 2015, cremation became the leading mode of dispo-
sition in the nation. The percentage of families choosing cremation soared,
driven by rising funeral costs, environmental sensibility, the declining
opposition by many faith institutions (or continuing approval in the case
of slowly growing populations of Hindus and Buddhists), increasing pop-
ulation mobility, especially among wealthier classes, and the diminish-
ment of the cultural stigma against cremation. In 2019, roughly 53 percent
of American families made cremation their choice, with industry experts
estimating that the percentage could increase to as high as 65 percent
over the next decade.9 Some regions of the nation, especially the South,
have resisted the method. Still, nationally, the majority of surviving fami-
lies choose cremation over burial and entombment.
Yet cremation has not avoided the sharp critique of contemporary envi-
ronmentalists. Critics argue conventional fire cremation is a dangerous
practice that emits toxic pollutants and an environmental use that con-
sumes too much fuel and other energy. As other chapters in this volume
detail, natural burial reformers strongly encourage their followers to
choose simple ground burial over cremation and sustainable cremation
alternatives such as aquamation, promession, and recomposition.

Death Obscured, Beauty Constructed

Even as cremation struggled to gain adherents in the early 20th cen-
tury, Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los
Angeles, and other new burial places were radically revising the 19th-
century model of the cemetery.10 New, 20th-century burial places typi-
cally rejected the word “cemetery” in favor of “memorial park” and
“memory gardens.” Moreover, as Suzanne Kelly states, the memorial land-
scape and the associated funeral and burial rituals indicated how society
obscured the decay of dying and the presence of death: “Through . . .
embalming, sealed hardwood and metal caskets, concrete vaults, [and]
meticulously manicured lawn-park cemeteries, . . . death care in the
United States has been all about ignoring the very logic inherent to
124 The Future of the Corpse

the process of decay, making it seem as if it has no place, or value, in the

natural world.”11 Instead of recognizing the reality of death, life was cele-
brated in a landscape where the grass was always green.
The new professional process of dying and death started with the body.
As other chapters detail, the cemetery was the end of an increasingly per-
vasive chain of institutions for the handling of the sick, the dying, and the
dead. Sickness and dying moved from the home to the hospital. Home
health care was predominant until the last half of the 19th century. As
radiology and surgery modernized, entering the hospital became more of
a necessity. As a result, most deaths occurred in the hospital by the 20th
century, a significant change from the home-based care and deaths of
previous centuries.
After the death, the corpse was moved from the hospital to the funeral
home. While undertakers had serviced the dead for generations by offer-
ing a simple list of products, the new funeral director offered a myriad of
services far beyond just selling a casket. The funeral home allowed urban
families to move the mourning rituals out of smaller, more congested
homes into spaces specifically designed for such gatherings. Inside the
home, new professionals attended the body with new techniques gradu-
ally improved over the last fifty years of the 19th century. Formaldehyde
replaced arsenic as the main ingredient of embalming fluid. Embalmed
bodies could travel and be held for longer as mobile urban families gath-
ered from various cities and towns.
Embalming also represented a deepening desire to elongate the life of
the body. As many cultures had done before, Americans found in embalm-
ing a means of holding onto the deceased through the mourning period.
By preserving the body, families could imagine they were preserving the
deceased’s spirit. More practically, embalmed bodies could be more easily
viewed by mourners even as society placed more emphasis on hygiene,
reduced its tolerance of smells and decay, and found death more alien as
death rates declined in the 20th century.12
After a temporary stop at the family’s choice of faith organization
(church, synagogue, or mosque), the corpse arrived at the cemetery.
Instead of the family overseeing the funeral and the procession to the
cemetery, the funeral director took charge until reaching the cemetery
gates, where the superintendent led the procession to the grave. At the
grave, by the early 20th century, “greens” began to be placed over the dirt
piles and surround the grave to remove the specter of nature disturbed.
Tents and chairs provided a more civilized space for the ritual, while
gravediggers or mechanical backhoes stayed comfortably out of sight.
The professionals continue to remake the cemetery from a community
Nature versus Culture 125

graveyard to a managed space with rigorously observed rules intended to

ensure a middle-class, family-oriented, racially segregated, heteronorma-
tive mourning place.
Though embalming was, according to Jessica Mitford, the “lifeblood”
of the funeral industry, the expansion of the use of concrete or metal
burial vaults and of pesticides further expressed the consumer’s desire for
eternal life and the cemetery manager’s intention to minimize mainte-
nance costs.13 The body would descend not into a simple grave but in
many places into a metal or concrete vault. Societies have constructed
aboveground and underground vaults, including mausoleums, for millen-
nia. Working- and middle-class people could rarely afford such a service
until the 20th century. The Cemetery Handbook, an early 1910s compila-
tion of articles about cemetery management and design, did not advertise
a single vault company; traditional receiving vaults, which most cemeter-
ies had for storing bodies during inclement weather, were the only ones
mentioned.14
A half century later, G. J. Klupar described personal burial vaults as
“an intrinsic part of the interment” in his book on “modern cemetery
management.”15 Just as the superintendent in 1945 had complained about
the pervasive influence of the funeral director, Klupar commiserated with
cemetery superintendents who too often “have no control of this phase of
their operation.” Specialized companies offered the service through
funeral homes. Revealingly, he notes, that preventing “the grave from
sinking” was the primary purpose of the vault, installed at great expense
by families, “By 1998,” Mitford estimated “at least 60 percent of all Ameri-
cans wind up in one of these stout rectangular metal or concrete contain-
ers, which may cost anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand
dollars.”16 All to keep the ground level for the mowers and remove the
sight of depressed grave sites that remind visitors the cemetery is a land-
scape of death.
Atop the grave, a marker or monument signified where the deceased
was buried. Professional stone carvers created a trade in wood and stone
individual headstones as early as the 17th century.17 These gravestones
often evoked the life of the deceased through lengthy epitaphs carved
amid a powerful natural symbology. Lilies, roses, and other flowers took
on accepted meanings as symbols of charity, love, and loyalty. A visitor or
mourner strolling through the burial ground viewed not only the history
of the human population in that settlement but also a shared language of
mourning and memory.
In the new memorial parks of the 20th century, this language was
diminished, obscured, or completely eliminated from individual stones.
126 The Future of the Corpse

The new gravestones were simplified statements, giving only the name
and dates of birth and death. A faint vestige of the rich vocabulary of the
past symbols, such as the outline of oak leaves for immortality, might sur-
round the facts of the life. The stones were no longer hand carved. They
were no longer individual statements of a person’s life. They were stan-
dardized stones produced in a mechanized stone yard. They honored the
life without the allusions to how life and nature were bound.
In the new regime, the grounds were as carefully groomed as the
embalmed corpses. Cemetery superintendents modeled grave-site main-
tenance on suburban front lawns. Americans have long loved their lawns.
Jenkins persuasively argues that the lawn “began as a luxury of the
wealthy but became a status symbol of the middle class.”18 NASA scien-
tists estimate that by the 21st century, the United States had forty million
acres of lawn, a much greater acreage than any agriculture crop.19 Green
lawns defined suburban homeownership as much as family cars, garages,
and household appliances. Likewise, the lawn reshaped the landscape of
the memorial park.
As a result of the symbolic power of the lawn, the timeless war on
weeds accelerated. An impressive array of systems, including “lawn mow-
ers, rubber hoses, municipal water systems, chemical fertilizers, herbi-
cides, and pesticides” combined to attack weeds. In a brief “agenda” for
maintaining the cemetery landscape, Klupar calls “weed eradication”
“essential in a well-kept cemetery.”20 He reports that common practice
called for saturating a reel mower with weed killer, rolling a “chemically
impregnated roller” behind a mower, or attaching a spreader to a “power
mower,” although one might adapt a “gang mower” to hold “five or seven
reels” “designed to accommodate a 100-gallon tank” of weed killer.
Ken West, who designed Britain’s first woodland burial cemetery,
recalled that chemical control “was all the rage” in 1961. As a member of
a cemetery chemical spraying team, he had watched as, first, the wild-
flowers disappeared, then the voles, and the cemetery landscape eventu-
ally became “dead as a dodo.”21 Thirty-two years later, his casual
conversation with a couple of potential women customers would lead him
to design a burial landscape that rejected virtually everything about the
conventional cemetery.
However, West’s natural burying ground remained unrealized in this
earlier time. In the 1950s and 1960s, the American way of death was vic-
torious. The vast majority of Americans died in hospitals, were mourned
in funeral homes, and were buried or entombed in cemeteries. For the
most part, they were embalmed and buried in a hardwood or metallic
casket placed inside a concrete or steel outer vault. The cemetery
Nature versus Culture 127

maintenance crew power-sprayed graves to limit their sinking and imme-

diately sodded the surface to incorporate them into the surrounding
lawns. Each spring, the crew fertilized the lawns and sprayed them with
a broad-spectrum pesticide or herbicide. The corpse’s chemicals seeped
into the caskets and vaults, all made with precious natural resources.
The relationship between death and society had been utterly altered.22
Families’ relationship to their sick, dying, and dead loved ones had been
restricted, as medical and death-care professionals gained control over
the body and the process of mourning and commemoration. Instead of
family members amateurishly caring for the sick and dying, washing the
deceased and preparing them for viewing in the parlor, and finally dig-
ging a grave, specialized actors took over each of these tasks. The corpse
moved from one professional’s hands to another’s in a more stylized and
formalized process reflective of the society’s shifting relationship with the
process of death, the rituals surrounding mourning, and its attitudes
toward nature.

Emergence of Natural Burying Grounds

Even as the institutionalized process of caring for the corpse proved so
attractive to consumers and profitable for professionals, seeds for new
reforms began to take root. An emerging environmental sensibility pro-
vided the basis for a new criticism of resource overuse and polluting prac-
tices. While Mitford’s description of embalming and the pricing practices
of the links in the institutional process were what primarily appalled her
readers in the early 1960s, two decades later, environmentalists were
incensed by the burial of all these natural resources and the use of all
those chemicals. They began promoting alternatives to conventional
burial. They produced a cleaner (“greener”) version first of burial and
then of cremation, based on reducing energy and resource use but more
broadly on reuniting the corpse and nature.
Rachel Carson indirectly yet powerfully initiated a new attack on these
pesticides and other chemicals used all over America’s lawns with her
pioneering best seller Silent Spring.23 Carson’s book appeared in 1962, the
year before Mitford’s classic critique of the American way of death. In it,
Carson rejected the pervasive acceptance of pesticides. She described the
desperate plight of the nation’s songbirds as proof of our ignorance of the
costs of treating natural spaces with untested methods without concern
for their future effect. In our blind adoption of DDT, she argued, we
threatened to silence the songbird, leaving our yards less colorful, our
neighborhoods duller, and our ecology unbalanced. The only thing we
128 The Future of the Corpse

gained in return was bright, seemingly healthy grass. In the 1960s, the
nation’s mainstream marginalized her critique. As the decade ended,
though, Earth Day (April 22, 1970) demonstrated the growing environ-
mental sensibility Carson had help foment. The progress of such a sensi-
bility was further affirmed when DDT was banned two years later, under
a Republican president, Richard Nixon, showing how quickly concerns
about the environment had crossed political and social boundaries.
A couple of decades later, advocates for the environment began
demanding the end of the conventional lawn. By the 1990s, reformers
promoted a lawn redesign that harked back to a more diverse, less mani-
cured space, similar in many ways to the imperfect and wilder landscape
of the early 19th-century cemetery lawns.24 Those wilder lawns fit well
with the reform some British critics were beginning to voice.
They tied Carson’s revulsion for yard chemical abuses to the overtreated
modern cemetery. They viewed the memorial park’s lawn monoculture,
and the chemicals needed to preserve it, as a move away from earlier, more
natural beauty. Using various methods to estimate the total environmental
costs of the contaminated modern cemetery, the critique ultimately rejected
the prevailing form of burial and its damaging effect on nature.
They experimented with an alternative model started in 1993. Ken
West opened the first woodland burying ground in the city of Carlisle (in
northwestern England). The movement quickly spread through Eng-
land.25 A year later, the British Natural Death Centre created the Associa-
tion of Natural Burial Grounds (ANBG). By 2020, ANBG listed over 270
Great Britain “woodlands burial grounds.”26
The basic principles of English natural burial have held largely intact
since the group’s founding. ANBG’s guidelines admonish its members to
conserve “local wildlife and archaeological sites,” ensure the permanency
of the site, and use only “environmentally acceptable” burial containers
such as a shroud or wooden coffin.27 The guidelines urge families to pre-
pare the body as simply as possible, use renewable natural materials for
caskets or shrouds, bury at four feet so the surrounding soil can more
easily digest the body, and commemorate as little as possible, with a tree,
GPS marker, or small native stone. They reject memorial sculpture gar-
dens and attempts to preserve the corpse beyond its natural decomposi-
tion time. Instead, the principles reassert that humans are part of nature
and our corpses should return to nature.28 The intent is the sanitary and
managed sacred disposal of the remains in a collective space without dis-
pensable accoutrements.
ANBG’s position is that decay should not be hidden. The body’s return
to the elements is a “natural” process. Natural burying grounds are an
Nature versus Culture 129

expression of an ecological attitude in which the human is seen as simply

another actor within nature. As such, our deaths should be treated no dif-
ferently than that of other creatures of nature. Thus having family and
friends wash the corpse, wrap it in a shroud that mirrors the body, and
travel with it to the grave site are age-old rituals that signify a return to a
more natural approach to dying and death. Gestures, such as laying fam-
ily garden flowers on top of the shroud, using a biodegradable casket, and
hand digging the grave, symbolize the entry into the ground and can be
incorporated in the placing of the body in the earth.
The various stages of commemoration of the individual’s life can either
be incorporated into the grave-site service or take place away from the
burial site in a ritual or ceremony that does not disturb the natural setting
and ambiance of the burial place. At the grave site, appropriate readings
can focus on the individual’s life, someone might sing a song the deceased
loved, and an especially close friend might tell an emotional story. If per-
mitted by the management of the burial space, drink and food may be
shared among attendees.
Natural burial fits well with America’s growing environmental sensi-
bility. Given the rising concern about climate change, families are more
likely to ask about simpler, sometimes less expensive, and ecologically
sound alternatives to cremation and burial in conventional, contaminat-
ing cemeteries. Starting with Ramsey Creek Nature Preserve in 1997,
about half of American states have a natural burial ground or section in
2019. The Green Burial Council (2019) counts seventy-one certified coun-
cil members, spread over thirty states and one Canadian province.29 The
council designates three levels of green burial. The most popular is a
“hybrid,” which is typically a natural (or “green”) burial section within an
existing conventional cemetery. Forty-two (60 percent) of the council
members are hybrid sections.
The more restrictive burying grounds make up a much smaller per-
centage of the new sections/cemeteries. Twenty-one (30 percent) cemeter-
ies receive a “natural designation,” signifying they are often physically
separate from conventional cemeteries, even if the two burial places have
an institutional relationship. Seven members (10 percent) are “conserva-
tion” burying grounds that follow the closest set of practices to the origi-
nal concept of the English natural burying ground. These members use
the purchase of graves as the basis for establishing a permanent natural
conservation area.
The speedy spread of natural burial contrasts sharply with the history of
cremation. Christian burial practices mimicked those of Judaism and
Islam for centuries, with the exception of the early acceptance of
130 The Future of the Corpse

entombment (also acceptable among some Jewish congregations), which

may have been propelled by the Christian experience in the Roman
Empire. Christian practices diverged as the religion fragmented, with Prot-
estants being less restrictive than Catholics were, for instance. Selected
Protestants sects were among the first groups to embrace cremation, while
the Catholic Church disallowed cremation for most of its history and
banned it outright in 1886 after the 1870s invention of crematories. (The
ban was lifted in 1963, and in 1966 priests gained permission to officiate
at funerals with ashes in an urn rather than a body in a casket.)30
Although both Judaism and Islam prohibit cremation among the ortho-
dox, both maintained practices throughout that fit well with the advent of
natural burial. The burial traditions in Islam and Judaism require quick
burial (hopefully within twenty-four hours) in simply kept burial grounds.
Both discourage embalming, and they practice burial in a shroud or non-
hardwood casket. They are also similar in advocating for ground burial
without vaults that might keep the body from the soil. Reform Judaism is
not as restrictive as the orthodoxies of Judaism and Islam are, allowing
entombment in mausoleums and sometimes accepting cremation. All
these groups seem prepared to accept green or natural burial as a logical
response to the growing concerns about climate change and environmen-
tal degradation.
Determining the percentage of actual natural burials compared to con-
ventional burials remains difficult. The United States doesn’t have a cen-
tralized data collection service that informs us of how Americans are
interred. We rely instead on professional groups, such as the Cremation
Association of North America, to inform us. The Green Burial Council,
the primary association group for green burial does not provide such a
service yet. However, interest in green burial is clearly increasing. The
National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) regularly surveys con-
sumers on their attitudes toward funerals, burial, and services. In their
2019 survey, over 50 percent of respondents reported they would be
“exploring” green options because of “environmental and cost-saving
benefits.”31 This exploration could include green cremation as well as
green burial. As with the various styles of cremation, green burial offers
an increasingly clear dual benefit of helping the environment and poten-
tially saving consumers money.
The institutional acceptance of the concept is startling. Cemeteries as
old and honored as Cambridge’s Mount Auburn and memorial parks as
ostentatious and modern as Los Angeles’s suburban Hillside Memorial
Park have opened new sections or developed new practices. They exist
along with the new conservation cemeteries such as Ramsey Creek.
Nature versus Culture 131

Clearly consumers are inquiring, professionals are discussing, and insti-

tutions are responding.
One reason the Mount Auburns and Hillcrests are adopting natural
burial is that the practice is not a great departure from current conven-
tions. Again, this situation contrasts with the early history of cremation,
where facilities needed to be built, consumers’ resistance overcome, and
external institutions’ opposition fought. Fitting natural burial into exist-
ing landscapes and pricing is relatively easy. For instance, Mount Auburn
does not offer a natural burial section set off from conventional sections.
Instead, the cemetery will inter an individual using natural burial prin-
ciples anywhere in their cemetery, but especially in the cemetery’s “his-
toric core,” the sections opened from its founding to the 20th century.32
Mount Auburn’s natural burial program is indicative of how adopters
are managing the culture/nature debate. A shrouded body buried in a
natural style may be buried next to a double-depth “companion” grave
where a grave liner (vault) may be required. Individual memorials are
“generally” prohibited on natural burial graves, although plaques on adja-
cent trees are allowed. However, one of the many beautiful statues that
have filled Mount Auburn’s landscape over the decades may be rising
nearby. And a family can bury one cremation urn on a natural burial
grave in addition to the full body burial, mixing disposition methods.
Technology and culture are present even if not specifically applied to the
natural burial grave.
Hillside Memorial Park’s natural burial section, Gan Eden (Hebrew for
Garden of Eden), is quite similar to the park’s conventional burial section
yet separated from it. The section was recently designed for Jewish fami-
lies wishing to bury their loved ones naturally. A cement walkway snakes
down a gentle slope through the one-eighth of an acre section toward one
of the park’s large mausoleum complexes. On each side of the walkway
are rows of small native stones set in the middle of a strip of lawn. A bor-
der of tall native grasses separates each row of markers from the next.
Each $40,000-plus grave has a small, personalized headstone on which it
is possible to carve messages and small images. As the director of the park
notes, “When it comes down to it, Jewish burial is green burial,” so the
transition was reasonably easy for management.33 While Gan Eden reflects
a clean, more rationally designed space with uniform spaces between
rows, uniform memorials, and the natural elements carefully and consis-
tently aligned in the landscape, Ramsey Creek’s landscape leaves the
impression of a slightly unkempt forest.
At Ramsey Creek only natural burials are allowed, and the potential
conflicts between culture and nature are muted. The graves are never in
132 The Future of the Corpse

sections mowed regularly and filled with statuary or surrounded with

mausoleum crypts. Indeed, while visiting, you can see graves and small
native stone markers disappearing behind shrubbery and sinking slowly
into the loamy ground. The owners’ hope for a natural space where death
reintegrates humans into the land seems well on its way. Ramsey Creek
negotiated the nature/culture debate by making the deliberate decision to
allow small cultural artifacts while minimizing their visibility in the
mostly naturalized landscape.
While some English natural burial grounds rely on GPS siting or only
permit trees and bushes, Ramsey Creek’s founders recognized that for
Americans, prohibiting any memorialization took the philosophy too far.
Americans like the individuality of their grave sites, which not only allows
people to easily find the site but also provides visitors with an education
about the past of their community and linkages between families buried
there. Even after moving to the dominance of family monuments in the
latter 19th century, Americans continued flush-to-the-ground individual
gravestones on many lots. Each person “needs to be remembered,” as one
woman put it about her sister’s death.34
These cemeteries exemplify different ways natural burial is being inter-
preted in the United States. Many of the hybrids do not use pesticides on
the natural burying sections yet spray them on lawns across the street.
Mount Auburn has attempted to completely do away with the use of pes-
ticide in the cemetery, starting in the greenhouses where workers grow
many of the plants and flowers used throughout the cemetery. All of the
cemeteries mentioned here have embraced funerals with biodegradable
shrouds and caskets. All have limited the types and scale of the memori-
als allowed on the grave site. Few have completely prohibited monuments
and markers since that would be a significant divergence from long-
standing past traditions. Very few allow families to fully participate in the
burial. Mostly, family and friends can shovel some soil into the open
grave. Still, if we consider the environmentalists’ concerns about conven-
tional cemetery practices, these hybrid cemeteries create a potential alter-
native funeral, burial, and commemoration approach.

A Complicated (Natural) Landscape

The success of natural burying grounds in spreading so rapidly to
existing cemeteries is both obvious and puzzling. While the principles of
natural burial radically challenge the conventional cemetery, most Eng-
lish and American natural burials occur on lands owned by preexisting
cemeteries. In their informative book on natural burial, Clayden and his
Nature versus Culture 133

colleagues tally the growth of English natural burial grounds between

1993 and 2010.35 While they don’t provide specific percentages for how
many natural burial grounds are connected to an existing cemetery, they
do note that local authorities established a high percentage of the new
burial grounds and were likely expanding existing cemeteries.
The same trend is true in the United States. As the Green Burial Coun-
cil’s certifications demonstrate, the majority of new natural burial sections
are owned by preexisting cemeteries. Integration suggests co-optation.
Cemeteries could be adopting natural burial as a means of blunting the
fundamental challenge the idea represents. Again, not unlike cremation,
whose promoters initially argued the process should replace all burial and
entombment, cemetery managers could be trying to manage the threat of
being displaced by incorporating green burial as another revenue source
that has little overall impact on the current model of the cemetery.
Standing inside a “natural burial” section in a conventional cemetery,
as I have done in several cities, leaves me feeling that the managers are
offering another service rather than changing their model. The grounds
are separate but only by the most transparent means. It does not feel like
a revolution. Still, when cemetery managers installed the much riskier
crematory retorts in the middle of the 20th century, they imagined that
that addition would be not more than an option as well. That decision has
certainly turned out differently than many of those managers probably
imagined. Given that they have spent decades creating and maintaining
the current conventions, one might question cemetery managers’ philo-
sophical commitment to the new burial sections, asking if the sections are
just a cynical business opportunity. Conversely, one might suggest that as
new natural burial sections proliferate in conventional cemeteries and
influence mainstream practices, cemetery managers who first viewed
them skeptically might find them increasingly essential services.

A Return to Nature, What about Culture?

In the debate between nature and culture, natural burying grounds
clearly come down on the side of nature. Still, their landscapes are rarely
simply natural. Ramsey Creek’s managers found turning entirely away
from commemorative monuments is very difficult. Memorializing the
dead in statuary and built structures is an ancient practice among humans.
Some of our greatest American art was placed on grave sites. Such illustri-
ous sculptors as Daniel Chester French, Harriet Frishmuth, and Augustus
Saint-Gaudens are represented with important pieces in cemeteries. In
the strictest model of the natural burial ground, such art has no place.
134 The Future of the Corpse

Indeed, the GBC principles are very clear: nature is all we need;
humans should be integrated back into nature. The natural burial move-
ment has rejected the traditional balance between culture and nature as
best expressed in the landscapes of the 19th-century cemeteries. Their
leaders call for humans to subordinate their desire for remembrance to
the desirability of reintegration with nature. Their landscapes, they hope,
will have no evidence of human intervention when they are fully mature.36
The clearest example of this shift is in the burial grounds designated
“conservation” by the Green Burial Council. There, the aspiration is to
clear the land of human culture by allowing the small native stones to
disappear over the decades or to not allow any stones to begin with. How-
ever, other burial grounds wishing to diminish the connection to culture
and boost the emphasis on nature are using cremation burials in alterna-
tive sites to achieve the same purpose. Better Place Forests is a technology
start-up company that sells consumers the right to have their cremated
remains mixed with fertilizer and planted to support the growth of trees
in conservation areas starting in Northern California.37 They do place a
plaque to designate which tree the consumer has purchased the right to
be placed within for as low as $970 for a “community tree” and $30,000
to be within an old redwood. The focus, even with the cremations and the
plaques, is on being part of nature.
Of course, as discussed in detail in other chapters in this book, the
ultimate separation of culture and nature would be human composting or
recomposition. Katrina Spade’s Urban Death Project, Recompose, attempts
to replicate natural human decomposition in dense cities. The body is
composted above ground in receptacles that also contain organic material,
such as straw, and exposed to microbes. After about four weeks the body
is turned into soil, which mimics accepted methods of composting dead
livestock and medical waste. (As of January 2020, the method is only
approved in Washington State.) While families will get some remains back
that they could inter in a cemetery or use to create a shrine at home, the
avowed purpose of this process of disposition is to join human death with
the ecological cycle of life.
The debate over the role of culture in death raises, for me, an important
question. How important is remembrance? Many promoters argued dur-
ing and in the aftermath of World War II that human memory is best
served by memorialization of “living” places, such as freeways and librar-
ies, auditoria and plazas, university scholarships and support for social
services.38 After decades of growth of the nation’s environmental sensibil-
ity, separating mourning from a physical space and accepting the body as
simply a vessel left behind by death and most appropriately reabsorbed
Nature versus Culture 135

into the earth does not seem as shocking an idea as it would have, say, in
the 1950s. Instead of viewing them as repositories of memory, environ-
mentalists now proclaim the obelisks, mausolea, family monuments, and
individual gravestones an illogical use of precious resources stored in iso-
lated cemeteries visited by few.

The Shifting of Public Commemoration

While some environmental critics of current practices are promoting
the complete separation of nature and culture, Karla Rothstein and her
colleagues at Columbia University’s DeathLAB exhibit designs for “Con-
stellation Park,” an innovative public mourning space that is ecologically
sound and commemorates individuals. In the pods that would be placed
underneath the Manhattan Bridge, bodies would decay through anaero-
bic bioconversion, producing sufficient energy to create a “luminous array
of shifting intensities.”39 The pods would light a space accessible for visi-
tors to mourn and contemplate. (Images and detailed descriptions of this
and other of DeathLAB’s work can be found in chapter 10.)
In their designs, DeathLAB seeks to place the natural decay of bodies
within a designed place that reintegrates death into public space. Instead
of either the rejection of culture that pervades much of the discussion of
natural burial and recomposition or the modernist technological and con-
sumerist culture driven designs of the conventional cemetery, DeathLAB
attempts to rebalance burial and commemoration in a way that alludes to
the spirit of the 19th-century-cemetery founders through its hope for a
space the public can visit while being a sanitary and safe place to inter the
dead. DeathLAB’s designs suggest an alternative approach that retains the
millennial-long relationship of culture and nature that the 20th-century
death industry violated by its profligate practices.
DeathLAB’s effort also is suggestive of a more prevalent acceptance that
death does not have to be isolated in the funeral home and cemetery.
Over the last seventy-five years, Americans have begun separating the
body from commemoration. Not only have memorial services where the
body is not present become much more popular, especially as people’s
participation in faith organizations has flagged, but commemorating a
death in public has become much more acceptable. We only have to rumi-
nate on the remarkable outpouring of public grief for Princess Diana,
Kobe Bryant, and other celebrities to recognize that the privacy of mourn-
ing so pervasive in the mid-20th century has been upended.
And public memorialization is not only for celebrities. Family, friends,
neighbors, and others often construct a roadside shrine to memorialize
136 The Future of the Corpse

their loss for a traumatic death (by suicide, homicide, traffic crash, and
other causes). The bicycle community has proliferated ghost bikes, spec-
tral white bikes placed at the site of a cyclist’s death, around the world
since their introduction in 2003. Rest in Peace (RIP) murals started in the
ghettos and barrios of poor urban neighborhoods and have gradually
spread to other parts of our cities. Sometimes a small decal on the back
window of a pickup truck or SUV memorializing a mother or a grand-
mother surprises us as we walk to our car. All these “everyday memori-
als,” as I call them, represent a willingness to acknowledge loss without
needing the presence of the corpse.40 Most are likely complementary to
more traditional rituals that include the body, but they represent new
ways of mourning and commemoration.
In its aspiration to commercialize each phase of death’s rituals, and to
use technology to perfect landscapes and minimize maintenance, after-
care practices betrayed their responsibility to sustain our place of final
disposition as a natural memorial space. Yes, the cemetery continued to
have trees, shrubs, and grass, but the emphasis, especially in the memo-
rial parks that proliferated after 1920, was on a machinelike efficiency
that effectively subordinated nature to culture, and culture to commerce,
replacing products that used natural solutions and had imperfections
with an artificial reality maintained through chemicals and machinery.
Can designers, landscape architects, and environmentalists produce
an integrated model that is sustainable and creative? At this moment, the
institutional answers of the past century seem fragile at best, and the
organizational model that supported them—hospital, funeral home, and
cemetery—seems almost archaic. Yet a new model has not emerged,
although pieces of competing alternatives are evident. From home death
and hospice to natural burial ground and recomposition, reformers have
created alternative procedures that could together become—or contribute
to—a new pathway toward confronting death through personalization,
integrity, and sustainability. That would represent the adaptation of the
cemetery to a new ecological age.

Epilogue: 2020 and COVID-19

If the infamous 1918–1919 “Spanish flu” pandemic is any guide to peo-
ple’s response to COVID-19, the tensions discussed in this chapter
between the past, present, and future of memorialization and mourning
could continue as an uneven cultural wave sweeping some new para-
digms forward while allowing many survivors to cling to traditions and
conventions. Even as they cling, they may begin to adopt new trends, just
Nature versus Culture 137

as Americans did in the 1920s. The memorial-park cemetery design pio-

neered outside Los Angeles in 1917 would become the standard design for
virtually all new 20th-century cemeteries.41 The sleeker, less cluttered
landscape filled with flush-to-the-ground markers rendered the vast
majority of the dead equal in their privacy from public view. The only vis-
ible memorials valorized the communal values of the white middle
class—church, nation, and family—using a very figurative, idealized aes-
thetic even as abstract modernism swept through the art world.
At nearly the same time, many doughboy statues commemorating the
sacrifice of World War I soldiers were erected in the aftermath of the war,
even as critics began calling for “living memorials,” where highways,
auditoria, and other buildings would be renamed to honor the valiant
dead.42 After World War II, those seeking a shift away from representa-
tional monuments would largely be victorious.
In 1920, Americans were seeking a quiet place after the upheavals of
war and the flu epidemic. Presidential candidate Warren G. Harding
repeatedly proclaimed the United States was poised to “return to nor-
malcy.” Linguists were appalled by the word, but the sentiment was pow-
erful enough to guide Harding into the White House.43 While most
historians tie the “normalcy” Harding was wishing for to the painful
world war, he well may have been referring to the flu. The first principle
of normalcy he declared essential was “not heroics but healing.” He may
well have been consciously or unconsciously reminding his listeners of
the need to heal from the devastating flu, which between spring 1918 and
spring 1919 claimed over 675,000 American lives and somewhere
between 35 million and 100 million lives worldwide, a dramatically
higher mortality than the war itself in either the nation or the world.44
As we confront COVID-19’s impact on contemporary memorialization
and commemoration, we should remember this desire for “normalcy” in
the 1920s. Almost no mention was made of the flu pandemic in the nation’s
memorial landscape.45 Indeed, a century later, few monuments can be
found anywhere in the world to what one historian calls the “deadliest
pandemic in history.”46 Few fiction and nonfiction writers in the era’s
“Lost Generation” do more than allude to the massive number of deaths.
Once again, the pandemic may be swept away by history, leaving behind
only the private burial sites, cremation scatterings, and sporadic mention
within the larger shifts affecting commemoration.
The reality that COVID-19 might not affect contemporary commemo-
ration is evident in current reflections on how we should memorialize the
coronavirus dead. Commentators are forced to appeal back to the plague
columns of the 18th century and the war memorials of the 20th.47 Why
138 The Future of the Corpse

such a lack of historical markers? Journalist Laura Spinney has written

that a flu pandemic has a “different narrative structure” than the orderly
march of war.48 Indeed, she goes on, a history of an pandemic needs a
“new language” that she believes, in the case of the Spanish flu, took over
a century to develop. While we know how to characterize the progress of
a war from bloody to bloodless, an epidemic is less chronologically tidy or
linear and much more difficult to assess. For instance, in a war, young
men are the primary population to die. In the coronavirus pandemic,
anyone from an infant to a 101-year-old great-grandmother can die. The
events of the pandemic, its politics and economics, are so blurred they
become indistinct. If, as Spinney argues, “memory is an active process”
during which narrators tell a story of winners and losers, how does one fit
a chaotic epidemic into such order? She concludes that it is only with
great trouble and from a great historical distance.
Contrasting the pandemic to the sudden burst of commemoration
related to the synchronous police killing of George Floyd on May 25,
2020, is instructive. His death quickly provoked roadside shrines, T-shirt
memories, RIP murals, and other everyday memorials in Minneapolis,
around the nation, and even in multiple places around the world.49 These
memorials proliferated exactly as discussed in this chapter. And they
stand in stark distinction to the general lack of such public memorials to
coronavirus victims.
Even though comparatively few memorials to those deceased from
COVID-19 have appeared as the pandemic has lengthened and taken more
lives, a few temporary memorials have been erected. These memorials
have both provided spaces of individual and collective memory and have
served as pointed reminders of its cost for those denying the reality of the
pandemic. In Washington, DC, during October 2020, Suzanne Brennan
Firstenberg erected (with many volunteers) a field of over 220,000 white
engineering flags, each one representing a COVID-19 death.50 The flags
represented the innocence of the dead, while the expanse demonstrated
the incredible tragedy of the pandemic. And the exhibit continued to grow
throughout its roughly one-month duration, with visitors asked to plant
new flags as the numbers continued to rise and to write on a flag if they
knew a person who had died. As we witnessed in the power of the protests
where they chant Sandra Bland’s and others’ names, names are a powerful
means of conveying sorrow and anger.
Similarly, the city of Detroit, Michigan, organized a funeral drive-by in
September 2020 on Belle Isle, where families, friends, and eventually the
public could move slowly through dozens of large portrait photographs rep-
resenting some of the over fifteen hundred Detroit residents lost to the
Nature versus Culture 139

pandemic.51 Families could park their cars and mourn by the photographs,
which was especially poignant since many of them had been unable to attend
to their dying family members and friends in the hospital and even at the
cemetery. Both the Washington and Detroit memorials called upon conven-
tional funeral rituals (veteran flags on graves on Memorial Day and funeral
processions), substituting the flags and the photographs for grave sites.
These remarkable examples, though, have been exceptions. Even they
harken back to cemetery and public memorials yet utilize forms associ-
ated with the everyday memorials. The desire to recognize COVID-19
victims’ passing is very powerful, as we also see in the pages of obituaries
in newspapers. Still, these ephemeral memorials to the pandemic dead
seem more likely than brick-and-mortar memorials to proliferate.
Perhaps the pandemic’s memories will be brought to bear not in the
monuments raised to its dead but through the impact social isolation and
distancing has had on how people mourn. Scholars have estimated that
roughly nine people will grieve for every coronavirus death, which means
as of December 20, 2020, with an estimated 317,000 lives lost, over
2,853,000 survivors have lost a relative.52 Digital mourning sites that
already existed prior to the pandemic have experienced a sustained
increase in usage, as have livestreaming funerals and remembering family
and friends on social media. Bereft of the chance to hold the dying per-
son’s hand and to gather for a funeral, perhaps the memorials that will
most signify the pandemic will be a small household altar or a digital
footprint where millions of people commemorate their dead alone or in
very small in-person groups.

Notes
1. Elements of this chapter were adapted from, David Charles Sloane, Is the
Cemetery Dead? Memory and Mourning in the 21st Century (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2018).
2. Dell Upton, “The Urban Cemetery and the Urban Community: The Ori-
gin of the New Orleans Cemetery,” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 7 (1997):
131–45.
3. Stacy Leech, “Cemetery Management and the Public,” Proceedings of the
Seventeenth Annual Conference of the New York State Association of Cemeteries, Inc.,
Elmira, N.Y. (New York, NY: Privately published, 1945), 38.
4. Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil
War (New York, NY: Vintage, 2009).
5. Leech, “Cemetery Management and the Public,” 38.
6. James J. Farrell, Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830–1920 (Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press, 1980), 157; Gary Laderman, Rest in Peace: A Cultural
140 The Future of the Corpse

History of Death and Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 19.
7. David Charles Sloane, The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American
History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), 155.
8. John Gebhart, Funeral Costs (New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928).
9. Cremation Association of North America (CANA), “Industry Statistical
Information,” 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, at https://www.cremationas​
sociation.org/page/IndustryStatistics.
10. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, and Is the Cemetery Dead?
11. Suzanne Kelly, Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring
Our Tie to the Earth (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2015).
12. Laderman, Rest in Peace.
13. Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death Revisited (New York, NY:
Vintage Books, 1998).
14. The Cemetery Handbook: A Manual of Useful Information on Cemetery Devel-
opment & Management (Chicago: Allied Arts Publishing Co., n.d. [ca.1910s]).
15. G. J. Klupar, Modern Cemetery Management (Chicago: Catholic Cemeteries
of the Archdiocese of Chicago, 1962), 143.
16. Mitford, American Way of Death, 76.
17. Sloane, Last Great Necessity.
18. Virginia Scott Jenkins, The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994), 5.
19. Cristina Milesi, Christopher D. Elvidge, John B. Dietz, Benjamin T. Tuttle,
and Ramakrishna R. Namani, “Mapping and Modeling the Biogeochemical Cycling
of Turf Grasses in the U.S.,” Environmental Management 36, no. 3 (2005): 426–35.
20. Klupar, Modern Cemetery Management, 223.
21. Andrew Clayden, Trish Green, Jenny Hockey, and Mark Powell, Natural
Burial: Landscape, Practice and Experience (London: Routledge, 2015), 18.
22. Mark Harris, Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry
to a Natural Way of Burial (New York, NY: Scribner, 2007).
23. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).
24. Jenkins, Lawn.
25. Andrew Clayden, and Katie Dixon, “Woodland Burial: Memorial Arbore-
tum versus Natural Native Woodland?” Mortality 12, no. 3 (2003): 240–60.
26. ANBG, “Introduction to Natural Burial,” 2020, accessed March 30, 2021,
http://www.naturaldeath.org.uk/index.php?page=the-anbg; Josefine Speyer and
Stephani Wienrich, eds., The Natural Death Handbook (London: ANBG, 2003).
27. Clayden and Dixon, “Woodland Burial.”
28. Jeremy Stewart, “Fault Lines in the Graveyard: The Contested Nature of
Natural Burial.” Dialog 57 (2018): 295–302.
29. Green Burial Council, “Quick Find Green Cemetery List,” 2019, accessed
March 30, 2021, https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/quick_find_green_cemetery​
_list.html.
Nature versus Culture 141

30. Stephen Prothero, Purified by Fire: A History of Cremation in America

(Berkeley: University of California, 2001).
31. NFDA News Releases, “Consumers Moving Past Traditions for Funerals,”
National Funeral Directors Association, October 15, 2019, accessed March
30, 2021, https://www.nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news-releases/id/4703
/consumers-moving-past-tradition-for-funerals-survey-says.
32. Mount Auburn Cemetery, “Natural Burial,” accessed in 2020, https://
mountauburn.org/natural-burial.
33. Danielle Berrin, “Hillside Introduces Eco-Friendly Burial Option,” Jewish
Journal, March 25, 2015, accessed March 30, 2021, https://jewishjournal.com​
/news/los_angeles/167225.
34. Dean Olsen, “Roadside Memorials Gain Popularity,” Peoria Journal Star,
September 10, 1998.
35. Andy Clayden, Trish Green, Jenny Hockey, and Mark Powell, “From Cab-
bages to Cadavers: Natural Burial Down on the Farm,” in Deathscapes: Spaces for
Death, Dying, Mourning and Remembrance, eds. A. Maddrell and J. D. Sidaway
(Farnham, England: Ashgate), 33.
36. Johnny P. Stowe Jr., Elise V. Schmidt, and Deborah Green, “Toxic Burials:
The Final Insult,” Conservation Biology 15, no. 6 (December 2001): 1817–19.
37. Christie Hemm Klok, “Could Trees Be the New Gravestones?,” New York
Times, June 12, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com​
/2019/06/12/style/forest-burial-death.html.
38. Andrew Shanken, “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United
States during World War II,” Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 130–47.
39. Benjamin Wallace, “Because a Columbia Lab Is Trying to Turn Corpses
into Glowing Installation Art under the Manhattan Bridge,” New Yorker, Decem-
ber 12, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/12​
/reasons-to-love-new-york-2016.html#forty-three.
40. See Sloane, Is the Cemetery Dead?, chapters 5 and 8 for a more elaborate
discussion of everyday memorials.
41. Sloane, Last Great Necessity.
42. Shanken, “Planning Memory.”
43. John F. Wilson, “Harding’s Rhetoric of ‘Normalcy,’ 1920–1923,” Quarterly
Journal of Speech 48, no. 4 (1962): 406–11.
44. John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in
History (New York, NY: Viking Penguin, 2004), 450.
45. David Seagal, “Why Are There Almost No Memorials to the Flu of 1918?”
New York Times, May 14, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes​
.com/2020/05/14/business/1918-flu-memorials.html.
46. Barry, The Great Influenza.
47. Christopher Knight, “A Memorial that Fits the Times,” Los Angeles Times,
May 6, 2020, E1; Thomas Curwen, “After It’s Over, How Will We Grieve?,” Los
Angeles Times, April 28, 2020, B1.
142 The Future of the Corpse

48. Laura Spinney, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the
World (New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, 2017), 293.
49. Austin Steele and Kyle Almond, “George Floyd Murals Are Popping Up All
Over the World,” CNN, June 26, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.cnn.com/2020/06/06/world/gallery/george-floyd-murals-trnd/index.html.
50. Mikaela Lafrak, “This Artist Installed over 220,000 White Flags in D.C. to
Represent COVID-19 Deaths,” NPR, October 23, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.npr.org/local/305/2020/10/23/927203388/this-artist-installed-over​
-220-000-white-flags-in-d-c-to-represent-c-o-v-i-d-19-deaths.
51. David Williams, “Detroit Turned a Park into a Memorial for the City’s
1,500 COVID-19 Victims,” CNN, September 1, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/us/detroit-coronavirus-memorial-trnd/index​
.html.
52. Ashton M. Verdery, Emily Smith-Greenaway, Rachel Margolis, and Jona-
than Daw, “Tracking the Reach of COVID-19 Kin Loss with a Bereavement Mul-
tiplier Applied to the United States,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
of the United States of America, 117, no. 30 (July 28, 2020): 17695–17701.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Rethinking the Role of

the Funeral Director
Lee Webster

Nate: No, I refuse to sanitize this anymore.

David: This is how it’s done.
Nate: Yeah? Well, it’s whacked. . . . What is this hermetically
sealed box, this phony AstroTurf around the grave? Jesus.
David, it’s like surgery: clean, antiseptic, business. He was
our father!
David: Please don’t do this.
Nate: You can pump him full of chemicals, you can put makeup
on him, you can prop him up for a nap in the slumber room,
but the fact remains, David, that the only father we’re ever
going to have is gone. Forever . . . You can’t really accept it
without getting your hands dirty.
— Six Feet Under, “Nathaniel Fisher’s Funeral,”
season 1, episode 1, airdate June 3, 2001

The graveside confrontation between brothers David Fisher, the only

remaining licensed director in the family funeral home, and Nate, the
black-sheep outsider, starkly demonstrated the disconnect between staid
conventional practices and the rising reevaluation of their meaning in the
first episode of the groundbreaking television series Six Feet Under that
took a deep dive into the funeral industry at the turn of the century.1
144 The Future of the Corpse

From its first episode and throughout its five-season run, the show
continued to shatter preconceived notions of the profession’s contribution
to American cultural life by touching on taboo topics, joining a nascent
evolution in how we think and speak about more than just how to be
appropriately bereaved and pay the bill. The series continued to expose
the fissures in the relationship between contemporary funeral profession-
als and their “families” (what the industry calls its clients), through the
Fisher brothers’ strained relationship.
In preparation for the filming for Nate’s natural burial in a later epi-
sode, industry fashion designer Esmerelda Kent was asked to design a
shroud that became the prototype for her future business.2 Three years
earlier, the first green burial cemetery in the United States, and also the
first conservation burial ground in the world, Ramsey Creek Preserve,
had been opened in Westminster, South Carolina, by local country doctor
Billy Campbell and his British-born wife, Kimberley.3 The creation of
green burial space and innovative burial products were early hallmarks of
change that would ignite an evolution of public awareness of the cultural,
environmental, and economic disparities inherent in American death
practices.
A whole new generation was alerted to funeral industry and death
practices that Jessica Mitford had begun to expose forty years earlier and
that the funeral industry had doubled down on while public distrust
grew.4 This time, the issues would be addressed, if not by the industry
itself then by outside entrepreneurs and social justice activists. Consum-
ers would begin to realize that they were going to have to organize if they
wanted after-death practices that were more authentic, environmentally
responsible, impactful, self-determining.
To understand the future direction of the funeral industry, the context
in which the business was born, thrived, and is now struggling, needs
reviewing. If we can identify the reasons that keep it from evolving, con-
sumers may envision a future funeral service that is responsive and pro-
scriptive yet viable for the industry.

Root Causes of the Perception of Funeral Industry Dysfunction

The funeral industry was built on the hopes and dreams of early Civil
War–time embalmers who envisioned a kinship with the burgeoning field
of public health and medicine. So central was the undertakers/morticians/
funeral directors’ desire to create a public persona as elevated as that of
physicians that they wore medical coats and carried similar gear. The sell-
ing of cadavers for medical experimentation and the replacement of
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 145

miasma theory with germ theory intertwined in the public eye. Amid
false health claims and manufactured dangers about dead bodies, result-
ing in overdesigned, polluting body containers and vaults, the public
accepted the nouveau funeral professional in place of family and commu-
nity care of the dead.
The gradual co-opting and medicalization of the historically female
realm of authority in both wellness and after-death care effectively
removed women from these roles. Death space became dominated by
men who actively undermined and denigrated the role of women in com-
munities of practice, replacing them with a sanitized, commercialized,
product- and service-based business, available to the wealthy at the outset
and then, as time went on, to anyone who could aspire to it. “By commer-
cializing, technifying, and regulating deathcare through law and licen-
sure, undertakers drew deathcare out of the domestic sphere and
reorganized it within the male-dominated, public-professional sphere.”5
Undertakers also sought to cultivate an elevated role for themselves in the
broader community.
This translates into modern-day funeral directors who believe they have
a role in public-health discourse as though they were experts in infectious
disease control, as well as a role in crafting legislation that attempts to
monopolize the market on body disposition.6 Much of the legislation in nine
states (Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska,
New Jersey, New York) that compels the hiring of a licensed funeral director,
regardless of the client’s ability to pay, was influenced by the 20-billion-
dollar-a-year, industry-supported lobby and individual funeral directors
who fill state legislative seats.7 Add to that the curious practice of populat-
ing mortuary boards—charged with regulating the state’s commercial
operations—with funeral directors, the very people who are ostensibly
being monitored. This system of self-governing is an outgrowth of the mor-
tuary school system that relies on self-accreditation rather than independent
evaluation and direction as is customary with most postsecondary-school
accrediting processes, creating an environment in funeral service of entitle-
ment and resistance to outside influence and innovation.8
The insular nature of the industry, perhaps justified by the solemnity
and responsibility of caring for the dead, lends itself to a culture of exclu-
sivity and irresponsiveness to systemic injustices. What was once an
open, family, and community-based experience—the loss of one of its
members—has, over time, become a hidden, behind-the-scenes, sched-
uled series of moments, with funeral directors at the helm.
This closed circle has created a professional culture of disregard for the
environmental repercussions of marketing and selling toxic chemical
146 The Future of the Corpse

processes and products that fill our land and pollute our air and water-
ways.9 This insularity enables a culture of systemic inequities—racial dis-
parity, homophobia, poverty, and other social injustices—that foster
persistent, unequal treatment of families and individuals.
Adding to the conflicted perception of professional funeral service is
the long-standing schism between average consumers’ often negative
opinion of the industry as a whole and their deep love and respect for a
local director whose firm has been almost an extension of the family for
generations. This enduring connection leads family members to defer to
the director whom they assume knows what best suits their family’s
needs, if not their wallet.
While the arrangement conference—when items and services are
chosen—is couched in language stating that the family is in control, the
door to subtle persuasion is open, and some consumers feel a gamut of
emotions beyond grief that increases their discomfort: shame for not
being able to afford the “best” as described by the salesperson; frustration
for not being more knowledgeable, and more in control, when pressured
to make the “right” choices; guilt for not feeling more sure about what
their loved one wanted, thereby risking embarrassing or angering friends
and family. While funeral directors strive to support family choices, they
are, above all, relying on the business to provide for their own families.
Matters related to death heighten sensitivity and the risk of interpersonal
damage when things go awry.
According to Joe Sehee, who founded the Green Burial Council three
years after the pilot premiere of the Fisher family’s story, “No one goes to
a restaurant and orders something that’s not on the menu.”10 He was refer-
ring to the reluctance of funeral directors to add green funeral services to
their General Price List of goods and services, a form required by the
Federal Trade Commission, thereby ensuring that the demand for green
burial stays low.

The Funeral Industry in Crisis

Sixth-generation funeral director Caleb Wilde, best known for his long-
running blog Confessions of a Funeral Director and book of the same title,
spoke frankly to a room full of Order of the Golden Rule funeral directors
in 2018,11 framing the future of funeral service using the “Innovation
Adoption Lifecycle” chart that explains who responds to the imperative of
change.12 From Innovators to Early Adopters, on to Early and Late Major-
ity adopters, the chart ends with reluctant Laggards. He warned that
funeral directors might find themselves in the last category, citing their
consistent resistance to change, regardless of the source of innovation.
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 147

In a thoughtful—and somewhat shocking—article published in the

May 2016 issue of the National Funeral Director Association’s publication
The Director, Carol Lynn Green, an environmental compliance attorney for
the NFDA for over twenty-five years, posited that the cornerstone of
funeral practice, embalming, was coming to an end.13 The growing
research on the toxicity of embalming fluid convinced her to sound the
alarm to reduce the use of formaldehyde products. Subsequent studies
pointed to similar findings, including the eight times higher than average
risk among funeral directors of contracting myeloid leukemia, and three
times the norm for contracting ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, with more
indicators of increased risk for contracting other cancers, neurological
diseases, and respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmo-
nary disease (COPD).14
Reducing or eliminating the practice of embalming with formaldehyde
products is anathema to an industry that relies on chemical preservation
as a method to retard natural decomposition of the body. Although
embalming is not, and has never been, legally required in any state (nor is
it a medical necessity but rather a cosmetic procedure that delays decom-
position for a few days), funeral homes uniformly require embalming for
a public viewing in their establishment. An open casket in a slumber
room or on-site chapel is so normative for many Americans that those
who may not wish the invasive and toxic procedure performed on their
loved one will mostly agree to it anyway to fulfill societal expectation.
The full funeral package includes the expensive (average 250 percent
markup) “in repose” casket with the embalmed body, whether on display
or not. The nondeclinable fee, covering the funeral home’s overhead plus
paperwork, transportation, body care products, rental space, and other
incidentals, usually brings the average base price of $7,000–$8,000, often
cited by professional organizations, to a higher number.15 The consumer
is likely shocked that this number does not usually include the actual
burial, vault, opening and closing costs of the grave, the plot, or items
associated with cremation. The disconnect lies in the provider’s versus
the consumer’s perception of what constitutes a funeral. Add to that the
historic lack of transparency in industry pricing, and one could argue
that distrust may be warranted.
The intent of the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule requirement
of a General Price List (GPL) as a tool to empower families is to be com-
mended, but the reality falls far short.16 The rule only requires that a per-
son be handed a GPL upon arrival at the facility. Attempts to require
mandatory online pricing were being reviewed by the FTC in 2020.17
Other than minimal universal language in specific sales categories, GPLs
have little uniformity. A consumer attempting to compare apples to apples
148 The Future of the Corpse

between funeral homes may have a hard time distinguishing similar ser-
vices, especially when some items are absent altogether. Funeral directors
have long balked at revealing their prices, further sowing seeds of mistrust
among consumers. The rapid movement to no-frills, direct cremation sug-
gests that consumers are getting tired of trying to suss out the facts.18
Higher numbers of cremations at lower prices than full funerals meant
that funeral homes must find new forms of revenue from the services
rather than the products side to remain solvent. Some quarters of the
industry experimented with soft-skill offerings that would potentially
accomplish the goal of reparative outreach while avoiding overhead costs
and demonstrating a new side of the modern funeral director, one of care
and empathy. While some funeral directors became celebrants and grief
counselors, the model was eventually perceived as an attempt to co-opt
related fields that had been firmly within clergy’s responsibility. There also
appeared to be some reluctance from the buying public to continuing their
relationship with funeral directors beyond the grave site. Clergy, who had
been experiencing diminishing followers of the faith, were feeling squeezed
out of their own wheelhouse. Though the experiment got mixed results
across the country, it did solidify the suspicion that funeral directing would
soon be trending in a new direction: specialized event planning.
Other outside pressures were building. Baby boomers and do-it-
yourselfers were saying yes to taking back death care in the same way
they had taken back home birth decades before. As the home funeral
movement gathered momentum after the founding of the National Home
Funeral Alliance, funeral directors began strategizing to recoup potential
losses. One suggested moving the family’s furniture into their slumber
room to re-create the individual’s home ambiance, not something that
would be embraced by families seeking an authentic experience.19 Dis-
counting practical services, such as transportation and paperwork filing,
is more in line with families’ needs. Funeral directors tend to be reluctant
to discount basic services covered under their nondeclinable fee, such as
death certificate filing.
Next came an increased push for preplanning, encouraging prear-
rangement conferences in the funeral home or around the kitchen table to
make detailed funeral plans—and make payments ahead of time. Unfor-
tunately, that effort was met with reports of monies disappearing, despite
regulations designed to protect funds in escrow, prompting the Funeral
Consumers Alliance to escalate its efforts to educate consumers to pre-
plan, but not prepay.20 With preplanning yielding little immediate reward
for the significant time invested, many funeral directors indicated reluc-
tance to engage in these activities unless death was imminent.21
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 149

Into the 2000s, the concept of personalization became popular among

industry professionals who saw that they missed meeting the needs of
baby boomers who were increasingly responsible for their parents’ funer-
als and were beginning to reevaluate their own wishes through the lens of
environmental and social responsibility. Funeral directors began offering
customized products, such as monogramed golf balls handed out to
mourners to honor the deceased duffer and bringing in a couple cubic
yards of sand to create a faux bunker for the viewing of the casket. Per-
sonalization, meant to soften the edges of the standard funeral service
and celebrate the individual, instead became associated with, as funeral
director and owner of A Sacred Moment Funeral Service Char Barrett
describes, “the tchotchkes on the four corners of the casket.”22
Funeral directors have been negotiating the tension between a quest
for authenticity and the comfort of the usual. While more people are balk-
ing at the mahogany casket and Victorian black ambiance, funeral direc-
tors are hesitant to take risks and veer away from providing predictable,
stable, reliable products and services that do not disappoint anyone, espe-
cially in a litigious environment.23 Funeral directors are paid to keep the
many aspects of a funeral running smoothly. Divergence from the stan-
dard presents an opportunity for failure and a reduction of the bottom
line. The industry relies on word-of-mouth recommendations and fami-
lies hiring the same funeral home throughout generations; one slip could
have repercussions on future business.
Most funeral directors come to the work from families who have been
in the business for generations and out of a sincere dedication to serving
families in time-trusted ways. The job is demanding, requiring round-
the-clock availability. They are particularly vulnerable to liability claims
for subjective reasons and general unhappiness, rather than concrete per-
formance failure. Add to that the financial investment in maintaining
costly infrastructures (often old Victorian homes, expensive to heat and
cool and to keep open beyond normal business hours) and qualified staff.
Then consider that there are too many of them (in 2014, roughly 2.5 times
the number needed to service the current annual death census). This cre-
ates fierce competition for each corpse. Funeral homes must vie for their
share of a dwindling number of full-service cases, forcing them to maxi-
mize the revenue from each funeral service.24 Lisa Carlson, funeral reform
pioneer, noted early in her work that funeral professionals want to be paid
full-time salaries for part-time work. Though someone must be on call
night and day, a great deal of that time is spent waiting.
The average full-service funeral is often much more expensive than the
surviving family anticipates.25 Funeral homes owned by megacorporations
150 The Future of the Corpse

such as Service Corps International (Dignity) charge an estimated 34–38

percent more than average independently owned firms.26 The average
funeral director (not owner) makes a median annual salary of $58,310 a
year, comparable to a third-grade teacher at $58,230.27
The industry was already struggling—and then the COVID-19 pan-
demic began. In the early stages, as New York City feared overwhelming
its hospitals and medical systems, the funeral industry was asked to step
up to manage an exponentially growing number of deaths. Many of the
deceased were indigent or homeless people, the elderly, prisoners, people
from pockets of poverty, people of color, people with comorbidities indic-
ative of a sustained deficit of medical attention, and others whose vulner-
ability to the virus was rooted in a lifetime of suffering social and economic
inequities.28
The disparity put the funeral industry into sharp focus. Who cares for
the dead who cannot afford a funeral? Families trying to come up with
unplanned funds were in a crisis that went well beyond the already diffi-
cult day-to-day struggle.29 How were local funeral homes, swamped with
bodies (with no place for disposal, no relatives to view them) but no
funeral services to perform—how were they to carry on their business
and survive financially? In normal times, many funeral homes have con-
tracts with the city or county for inexpensive basic disposal. Some states’
funeral homes share the responsibility and write the cases off as tax
losses. Suddenly, industry professionals, flown in from all over the coun-
try to help in overwhelmed areas, were expected to continue serving with
no guarantee of payment. The situation resembled DMORT-level service
(at a moment’s notice, a mass casualty anywhere in the world must be
addressed) but without the organization or the pay.30
Calls for transport for those who died in hospitals, care facilities, pris-
ons, and at home rose exponentially; the wait time for removal stretched
from hours to days. Families were unable to be with dying loved ones
unless they were at home, and they were frequently crushed when told
that there could be no funeral service, no graveside burial, no wake. Many
families were culturally accustomed to large gatherings, homegoings, and
other expressions of collective grief in large settings that were simply
impossible under pandemic conditions. Progressive funeral directors and
home funeral guides trained in after-death body care walked families
through basic after-death care over the phone.31 Amy Cunningham,
Brooklyn, New York, owner of Fitting Tribute Funeral Services, repeat-
edly encouraged families to use their time before the transport service
arrived to honor their loved one while they could with lit candles, poems,
music, garden flowers, anything that resonated for those sheltering in
place. She told them, “This is your wake.”32
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 151

Char Barrett, of A Sacred Moment, a funeral service, in Seattle,

Washington—blocks from where the first fatality of the pandemic
occurred in the United States—observed that “COVID-19 is parting the
veil, shredding all the heavy scene setting” that has been part of the
industry’s job description—and in many ways the source of its power and
control. “The rule followers have been challenged, and the boundary con-
ditions that the industry has been accustomed to for so long have now
been broadened.”33
What goes on behind the scenes in funeral service in normal times was
exposed by the pandemic through continual stories in the New York Times,
the Washington Post, and other major news outlets.34 Refrigerator trucks
were full of corpses in body bags awaiting cremations that would take up
to two weeks to schedule; drones photographed burial in well-organized
trenches on Hart Island.35 Headline articles with images of stacked body
bags in New York City funeral home chapels and prep rooms awaiting
burial and cremation upstate, in Vermont, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania
introduced the public to the essential services of those charged with caring
for the dead during a global crisis and presented an unaccustomed, inside
view of funeral homes.36 Norm-shattering interviews revealed funeral
directors who were unprepared for anything of this magnitude and spoke
honestly about their job reduction from event planners to basic functionar-
ies, gathering information, processing paperwork, and getting the bodies
to disposition with dignity and respect despite the conditions.37
The industry was at a crossroads and had to self-determine its future.
Returning to pre-COVID-19 practices was not an option. A Foresight
Company study conducted four months into the pandemic revealed con-
sumer expectations that would have been unthinkable before the crisis.38
Some results included:

• Forty percent of consumers expected livestreaming of services would be

available permanently.
• Only 21% were willing to pay for this additional service.
• Twenty-six percent felt strongly that it was important to attend the funeral
in person—down from 42%.
• Forty-six percent of consumers said they would handle funeral arrange-
ments virtually, an activity that has historically only occurred in person
with a funeral director.
• Fifty-two percent said they would only do business with companies that
provided online pricing options.

Unfortunately, the language of the study betrayed the reluctance of

funeral professionals to make significant change. Livestreaming for an
152 The Future of the Corpse

“additional” fee implies that consumers were expecting online viewing to

substitute for, not supplement, other services, and that funeral directors
were failing to frame the product offering (or at least describe it clearly
and persuasively) to make its price and place in the funeral appealing.
More encouraging was the language of the study’s partner and chief
operating officer, Chris Cruger: “We’re experiencing a sea of change in
consumer behaviors with long-term implications for technology and
physical infrastructure as well as the deployment of human resources for
the funeral and cemetery professions. Webcasts and online pricing have
gone from nice-to-haves to minimum expectations overnight. You can’t
put that genie back in the bottle.”39
Old wounds were revisited as well. An article in the business trade
online magazine Connecting Directors was titled “Are Deathcare Profes-
sionals Still the ‘Poor Stepchildren’ of Emergency Preparedness?”40 At the
beginning of the pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) was
scarce, and medical facilities scrambled for supplies. Early allocation lists
of essential workers did not include funeral directors. The Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) had to be reminded that PPE was necessary for
handling dead bodies to protect workers who could potentially be
exposed to expelled droplets through the inadvertent compression of
corpses’ chests during transit.41 When the World Health Organization
(WHO) recommended the cessation of embalming for obvious exposure-
risk reasons, some funeral directors were outraged that a nonindustry,
authoritative medical entity curtailed their nonmedical procedure.42

Revisiting the Purpose of Funerals

Before considering how the system of funeral service may change in
the future, it behooves us to review how it is perceived in the present,
evaluating the full spectrum of funeral care through the eyes of consum-
ers, change advocates, and industry professionals.
First, we need to acknowledge that the dominant culture generated the
tales describing American death practices. Narratives chronicle care for
the farmer who died in an equipment accident, not the demise of freed
Black slaves who were denied land ownership.43 They are not about Asians
mining gold in the West whose graves are nowhere to be found in the few
remaining pioneer cemeteries. They are not about the deaths of First Peo-
ples and the appropriation of sacred land, leaving them to carve out burial
space in the margins.
Drew Gilpin Faust’s description in This Republic of Suffering of the ideal
death is a predominantly white, Christian scenario.44 As Pastor Cody
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 153

Sanders paraphrases, “One died at home in the presence of family around

the deathbed. The dying person was conscious of death’s approach and
willing to accept it. Family members assessed the spiritual state of the
dying in relation to the deathbed scene, including careful attention to the
dying person’s last words. . . . Our notions of the Good Death are informed
by our cultural landscape and, for many, by our religious imaginaries.
Typically, the Good Death is an approximation of the kind of death most
people of some racial and economic privilege in the society enjoy.”45
This description of the Good Death, based on the ideal of the domi-
nant culture, is still central to the meaning attributed to the death experi-
ence and to the ensuing rituals that create perceptions of “the American
funeral.” The focus on “last words” conjures up not only the last words of
the soon-to-be-deceased but also underlines the importance of last words
of the mourners. “I don’t want a big stone or a monument,” declares
Andrika Donovan, retired psychiatric nurse, filmmaker, and green-burial
advocate. “But there will be words.”46
With patients in isolation during the 2020 pandemic, they and their
families relied on other means of relaying last words, primarily techno-
logical programs and platforms. These media made it possible, to varying
degrees of satisfaction, to speak the words that signaled that it was time to
mourn, time to “mend the tear in the fabric of the community.”47 Funeral
attendees, accustomed to in-person viewing of the body for the so-called
memory picture, had to make the leap to distance grieving but were
relieved and uplifted by sharing music, readings, poems, stories, and
other ways to express the essence of the shared human experience of
death while still acknowledging cultural and personal uniqueness.48
When our options have been distilled down to the basics, when opulent
homegoings and vigils and Tuesday evening visitations and elaborate cas-
kets are not available, we still have words.
Understanding that we already have these tools and the innate knowl-
edge to use them to usher our loved ones out of this life, how will the
recalibration of the funeral industry emerge, given its three pillars of
practice: materials (e.g., caskets, flowers, vaults), competences (e.g., paper-
work filing know-how and access), and meanings (e.g., religious practice,
organic rituals, communication during the funeral period)?49 Viewed
through the lens of social practice theory, Elena Slominski notes, “If the
elements cease to be linked, or if any of the individual elements deviate
too far from the standard, the practice either evolves into a new form, or
disintegrates completely.”50
How the industry, already on shaky ground, will adapt to the pan-
demic disruption is unclear, but we have some theories based on trends
154 The Future of the Corpse

that were intensifying prior to the outbreak. Despite the foot-dragging

and nostalgic posturing by some funeral professionals eager to “get back
to normal,” achieving positive change will most certainly depend on three
stakeholders co-operating: the consumers/bereaved, the reformers/advo-
cates, and industry practitioners.
Reimagining, reframing, and redefining how we navigate death are our
challenge. Three fundamental revolutionary changes are required for this
mending to occur: comprehensive and widespread educating of the pub-
lic to the mysteries of death care; opening access to goods, services, and
systems currently closed to the public; and a willingness of the profes-
sional industry to partner in collaborative, mutually beneficial ways.

The Role of Consumers

Funeral change comes first from those who literally buy into the sys-
tem: purchase the materials, the competencies, and the meanings. The
compliant consumers upon whose pocketbooks the industry was built
are gone, and many of their descendants are rethinking the logistics and
meaning of participating in a system that no longer aligns with many of
their values. Notably, the profession did not build itself. Our great-
grandparents may have valued the elevated status of hiring care of the
dead and may have been relieved to do so given the growing swirl of
unsubstantiated claims regarding the danger of dead bodies.
As the deadly opioid epidemic of recent years (primarily among the
affluent) attests, Americans prefer to pay to dull their pain, physical or
otherwise, rather than confront it. The sense of entitlement to not feel
pain or be subject to discomfort is both an expression of American indi-
vidualism and an expectation fostered by affluence. The distaste for con-
fronting the pain of loss through death is partly at the heart of our
continued reliance on professionally directed funerals. Promise of relief
from the heavy lifting was a staple midcentury marketing technique.
Leave the body care, the hosting of the mourners, the details of arranging
the burial, the form filling, the flower pickup to others. All the family had
to do was show up. Of all the things that contributed to our current dis-
connect to death, this is probably the most well executed. “With their
dominance over the funeral regime since the early 20th century, funeral
directors have dictated societal norms and practices around death to a
large extent.”51 From the beginning, according to Cunningham, “the work
was perceived as something that no one else wanted to do in urban set-
tings.”52 Gradually, interest in hands-off practices spread from the cities
into rural communities.
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 155

Currently, we are seeing a pushback against the curious premise that

we are not capable of coping with the pain of loss. We are beginning to
recognize that the very tasks that we have been outsourcing tether us to
the reality of our changed world and the emotional pain that is the cata-
lyst for grief, the active process by which we ultimately achieve accep-
tance. Those tasks—bathing and dressing the body, making the necessary
calls, locating information for the death certificate, physically carrying
the dead from the land of the living to the land of the dead in old-
fashioned processions—open the grief spaces and give us a framework
for tying all the threads of our lives back together.
Even those who are unable to assume physical responsibilities for their
dead due to logistics are beginning to see the process differently, starting
with viewing the funeral period not as a disruptive event but as liminal
time, a time to stop and take stock in the moment, a concept that suffered
from the commercial scheduling of grief in a distant location rather than
where the death occurred. With the 2020 pandemic preventing estab-
lished ways and schedules, consumers of death care recognized the need
to slow down, be in the moment, address what can be done that needs to
be done, both logistically and spiritually. As we sheltered in place, “This is
your wake” resonated, conveying that stewarding the time around the
death is important and that we can again be in charge of our experience,
to whatever degree we choose and local laws permit.
Social networks are expanding to include more community participa-
tion by redefining our support circles after death. Community care
groups, often called threshold circles, are forming to educate community
members, who are prepared to be invited to assist when a member or
relation of the group dies.53 A return to how death was handled in prein-
dustrial times, this model mimics when lay members of the town, faith
community, and birth midwives provided emotional, spiritual, and
practical support. The local woodworker built the casket; the hatmaker
sewed the shroud. Now members of the circle either build or source prod-
ucts that are crafted by local artists or the handy carpenter in a garage
workshop.
Home funeral guides and care communities fill a gap that cannot be
replaced by the industry for those who have relocated to areas where
there is no family or those who have outlived their own circle of friends.
Having a ready-made proxy in place to handle at least the initial details
until family can arrive is a great comfort to many who dread the imper-
sonalized care they may receive in a morgue or funeral home prep room.
“We want to die surrounded by those we love, and we also want those we
love to surround us when we have lost someone close to us.”54 It follows
156 The Future of the Corpse

that we also want to be cared for in death by those with whom we are in
nurturing relationships.
Once established and trusted, regional or neighborhood threshold cir-
cles may also eventually be able to assist the indigent or other disenfran-
chised populations. Identifying underserved, marginalized populations is
part of the work of end-of-life navigator, poet, and longtime celebrant
Dina Stander: “The edge of social justice in funerals can be found in the
way we treat the homeless and prisoners. . . . A society that discards
people so easily needs transformation.”55 She goes on to say that threshold
circles may support small, culturally appropriate subcommunities in
caring for their own.
If funerals are only seen through a formal funeral business lens, we
exclude those unable to purchase goods and services. Those souls at the
mercy of the system usually receive minimal attention, consisting of
paperwork filing and a quick disposition. Collaboration between caring
community groups and funeral professionals may be how we give the
disenfranchised dead desirable organic, compassionate ceremonial care.
It may also be a way for communities to shine a spotlight on the inequali-
ties that precede death. Already leading a march to change the social
structure of their communities for the better, threshold members are per-
fectly positioned to raise awareness inside and outside the death sphere.
Threshold circles also have a valued place in supporting the LGBTQ
community. Rabbi Lori Stein describes common circumstances where
nuclear family has rejected responsibility for its gay or otherwise differ-
ently identified sibling, cousin, or child.56 Family is often defined expan-
sively in LGBTQ+ groups, with friends filling the shoes of estranged
biological kin and willingly taking on the responsibilities, privileges, and
intimacy that familial relationships bring. Since threshold circles also
function as public educators, they may provide valuable death-care infor-
mation to members of the community. Eventually, people involved infor-
mally in community-supported, family-directed funerals may form a
group, or community of practice, with norms that the collective agrees to
over time.57
What denies access and equity in nondominant social groups may also
be what strengthens them. We have seen the power of social cohesiveness
in the homegoings of such public figures as Aretha Franklin, George
Floyd, and Congressman John Lewis. We can trace the history of Black
funerals to suppression of human need for connection and recognition.
The conundrum is that while Black funeral tradition sanctions bold
expressions of grief and employs a well-developed funeral system, costs
are often exorbitant and untenable for many. Regardless of race, matching
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 157

state-by-state average incomes with funeral consumption habits, we see

that states with the lowest per capita annual earnings are purchasing the
most elaborate, expensive funerals.58
While this is an access issue of choice—low-income consumers choose
to purchase high-end funerals by second mortgages on their homes,
online funding appeals, or similar—others have access limitations
imposed by the state. Most states utilize the Electronic Death Registration
System (EDRS) as a central repository for information from original, hard-
copy death certificates. EDRS electronically transfers and archives medi-
cal and demographic information. Each state determines its own system
and conditions of use. Some states have suspended paper death certifi-
cates in favor of electronic means, making it difficult for laypeople to file
their own paperwork where only funeral directors and/or medical per-
sonnel have approved access to the system’s entry platform. In states that
have not restricted citizens from handling most aspects of the death care
of a loved one, such as requiring a professional be present, family death
care can still be difficult. Hospitals and nursing homes often have policies
that insist on the family hiring a funeral director even when it is not
legally required. Consumers are ill equipped in the moment to challenge
institutional policies that were adopted without regard for state or consti-
tutional laws that protect the rights of families to care for their own dead.
Systemic lack of access, insensitivity to racial and gender politics, and
cultural expectations must be addressed to create beneficial change.

The Role of Funeral Reformers and Advocates

Advocating for consumer legal rights is critically important to ensure
choice among funeral goods and services without legislative impediment.
As the white paper Restoring Families’ Rights to Choose states, “While it is
true that a minority of Americans will choose a home funeral, and most
will gladly rely on funeral directors, it is the right to choose that must be
protected.”59 The paper goes on to say, “With historically high levels of
poverty and unemployment, Americans willing to be self-sufficient when
a death occurs should not be prevented from doing so by laws that com-
pel them to spend money they don’t have.”60
The National Home Funeral Alliance was formed in 2010, working
alongside the Funeral Consumers Alliance and other organizations to
promote the legal and cultural possibilities of home funerals. Focusing on
education, the early leaders of the NHFA prepared papers, forms, and
blueprints that cleared away misapprehensions and myths that had
been cultivated for decades. They replaced them with concise, practical
158 The Future of the Corpse

information, believing that this would lead to implementation by families

imbued with the confidence to care for their own dead.
The early NHFA provided a forum for voices of nonclergy celebrants,
end-of-life doulas, hospice providers, and others seeking to reform funer-
als from various perspectives. Much of the work involved engaging profes-
sionals, expanding their access channels and services to families choosing
to care for their own dead to whatever degree they were comfortable or
able. These collaborative efforts were termed blended funerals.61 Above all,
the organization demonstrated a model of inclusion and partnership that
informed the drive for a new, more equitable relationship between con-
sumers, lay helpers, and funeral professionals going forward.
A secondary role of the two organizations has been to join resources in
order to challenge pending legislation that threatens to limit the rights of
citizens. Nationwide participation was elicited in 2016 to block a law pro-
posed in the Virginia assembly that would have required the storage of all
dead bodies in a 40° refrigerated unit, including in private homes. The
bill, introduced by a legislator who was a funeral director, passed the first
of three readings before home-funeral advocates could launch efforts to
educate lawmakers. Confronted with the bill’s far-reaching consequences,
restricting Americans’ fundamental rights to privacy in their homes and
to home funerals, legislators, many of whom were not previously familiar
with home funeral, dropped the language. But other lawmakers and
funeral professionals had paid close attention.
Choice and access preoccupy funeral consumer advocates, along with
public education. The FCA has protected families’ rights for over thirty
years, often acting as an intermediary between the consumer and the
funeral industry. They have also been instrumental in spearheading
efforts to revise and update the Funeral Rule to effect greater transpar-
ency of the industry and improved access and accuracy in pricing and
requirements. Online price lists, clearly desired by the public, are essen-
tial to dismantling the mystery that surrounds the death trade and to
creating informed funeral consumers. While some funeral directors balk
at disclosure, the example of many hospitals and medical practices begin-
ning to publish their treatment and procedure prices on their websites
may influence the industry to follow suit.
A major win for consumers has been an increasing number of states
instituting Designation of Agent laws. These statutes permit individuals
to designate someone outside the state’s proscribed next-of-kin succes-
sion to handle funeral arrangements.62 A form must be completed and
witnessed prior to the death. Since the authority to execute a Durable
Power of Attorney for Health Care (DPOAH) ends when the patient dies,
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 159

this separate legal tool is important to include in advance directive portfo-

lios when choosing agents outside of the family. It not only provides a way
to manage difficult nuclear family dynamics but also gives members of
nonnuclear LBGTQ families a legal instrument with teeth. And it protects
funeral professionals who can provide compassionate care without fear of
being sued.
For transgender or nonbinary people for whom treatment after death is
of particular concern, Designation of Agent documents empower a trusted
friend to ensure that the deceased’s self-identified gender is respected and
represented after death, in body care as well as ceremonies. The Jewish
community has been setting an example for the funeral industry: “How a
trans person self-identified during their lifetime is how tahara [the
care of the body and ritual performed by same-sex caregivers] will be
performed.”63
Responsive religious leaders continue to be essential in securing the
rights of faith community members as they interface with professional
funeral practice. As counterintuitive as it may sound, with increasing
numbers of people not engaging in regular religious practice, the presence
of religious leaders is all the more powerful when they are advocating for
just treatment. Environmentally responsible burial practices, broadly
known as green burial, are rising and reminiscent of enduring Jewish and
Muslim practices. Quaker burials abjure vaults, embalming, and any-
thing that impedes nature, as do other traditions outside the most promi-
nent American Christian denominations, which have adopted practices
promoted by funeral industry marketers. Catholic and Orthodox churches
are creating new green burial spaces in their cemeteries to match original
doctrines that yielded under the pressure to conform to the contemporary
funeral model, evidence of the influence of steadfast religious leaders
holding true to their faith values in an increasingly secular world.64
As a direct result of the 2020 pandemic, more laypeople began to dis-
cuss and engage in advance funeral planning, which previously was pri-
marily the territory of estate attorneys and funeral professionals. Despite
the nudge from proponents of death positivity, individuals find it difficult
to complete directives, as they lack knowledge about options beyond the
standard funeral offerings. Advocacy organizations have offered education
and direction, and death-positivity events such as death cafés65 have pro-
vided a venue for furthering open discussion, but the massive loss of life
due to COVID-19 was finally what drove many Americans to complete
their funeral plans on paper and have conversations about before- and
after-death care preferences. As New Narrative virtual memorial services
founder Christina Andreola put it, “At the beginning of coronavirus, we
160 The Future of the Corpse

came together and said this can all be reimagined with alternative, more
modern solutions. My colleagues were asking: How can we team up to be
competitive?”66
This prompted the reevaluation of pro bono service within the advo-
cacy world, which traditionally provided free advice and support. Mone-
tized services benefited those who strove to make a living, but others
argued that the primary objective of alternative funeral support was being
violated. “The ultimate goal of home funeral guides and celebrants is to
share tools, skills and support, then get out of the way. The end game is to
reduce suffering, but that happens through empowerment.”67
The emphasis on the commercialization of pre- and postdeath care
information, along with the sale of products and services, within the
alternative advocacy community creates conflict, because it threatens to
weaken the message of individual and communal empowerment. The
worldview that has been driving funeral reform advocacy since its infancy
stands in direct opposition to some of its own members’ need to support
themselves.68 Furthermore, it raises tension between the commercial
death-positive funeral world and the professional funeral industry where
the advocacy movement for years has been trying to find common ground.
Environmental justice deeply affects the relationships between families
and professional death-care workers, including cemetery operators. Green
burial expert Suzanne Kelly writes eloquently about the lack of opportu-
nity for large segments of the population to participate in progressive,
environmentally proactive practices and disposition options.69 Not all dis-
enfranchisement has a socioeconomic basis. Individual state law may
prohibit funeral professionals from owning or operating cemeteries of any
kind; the relationship may be considered a potential conflict of interest.70
If the public perceives the availability of environmentally responsible
burial space as the purview of funeral directors, and they are not legally
empowered to provide it, the onus is on advocacy groups, alternative
death-service practitioners, and community activists to negotiate for envi-
ronmental equity. Informal partnerships between funeral professionals
and other stakeholders may be the best path toward achieving viable sus-
tainable disposition options.
Entrepreneurs such as Katrina Spade—founder of Recompose, a non-
profit company promoting an aboveground, human-composting process
that mimics green burial—are setting the example with a reenvisioned
disposition method that is legally compliant yet open to partnerships and
workspace that benefit both the public and the profession.71 The future
will tell whether collaboration between professionals will result in
affordable access for disenfranchised groups or whether green burial,
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 161

recomposition, alkaline hydrolysis, or other innovative body-disposition

methods will become the practice of the elite, with standard flame crema-
tion remaining the most financially accessible option.

Funeral Industry Recommendations

The National Funeral Directors Association, which considers itself the
“world’s leading and largest funeral service association,” has summarized
its members’ view of key trends for ensuring the success of the profession
going forward.72 On its webpage, Trends in Funeral Service, the following
major areas of proposed change are defined: (1) putting a greater empha-
sis on personal values rather than material goods or hobbies; (2) paying
greater attention to preplanning the details of the event as opposed to just
customary pre-need agreements; (3) making the distinction between the
disposition process of direct cremation and the funeral home package
offering that still includes visitations, chapel services, and so forth;
(4) going beyond the photographic slideshow to use technology in more
comprehensive and effective ways; (5) practicing environmental con-
sciousness and being eco-friendly; and (6) acknowledging the move away
from generational family employees and inviting women back into the
death space.
The National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association (NFDMA),
the leading professional association for Black funeral directors, has been
in operation since 1924 under several different organizational titles and
leadership with a mission to educate and support funeral directors in ser-
vice to the Black community.73 With a long history of outreach services
in the United States and abroad, their motto reads simply, “Serve with
Dignity, Respect, and Integrity.” The exclusionary history of the domi-
nantly white profession has enabled the Black community to develop its
own funeral traditions and professional service. The future of Black funeral
homes will be determined by their own rich commitment to community.
Unanswered questions include Does the funeral industry as a whole
need to change? If so, how significant are the infrastructure needs, such as
energy efficient, socially adaptable gathering spaces in lieu of the Victorian
home with slumber rooms and chapels? How will the funeral profession
meet consumer demand for more authentic send-offs? How might the
industry reframe itself within the scope of its mandate? Will current funeral
professionals accept innovations from consumers and funeral reform
thought leaders to shape the future of funerals and funeral service?
Slominski describes social practice theory as applied to funeral prac-
tices: “The funeral regime is held in place chiefly by the fear of dead
162 The Future of the Corpse

bodies, the convenience of outsourcing, the ignorance around funeral con-

sumer rights, the assumptions around legalities, and the familiarity of fol-
lowing the status quo.”74 If consumer advocates continue to be successful
in mitigating fear, educating the public about their legal rights, and suc-
cessfully demonstrating the convenience and affordability of keeping or
bringing a loved one home after death, the only remaining component
scaffolding the industry is our human proclivity for repeating actions,
under the guise of tradition, that no longer serve needs. As social and
cultural needs in death care are redefined, the distance between satisfac-
tory past practices and what resonates with contemporary mourners wid-
ens. The NFDA recommendations for improvement, while a start, are
based on the assumption that the foundation is solid enough to withstand
the erosion of some of its basic structural pillars. A more comprehensive
vision may be outside the industry’s conventional wheelhouse but is at
the core of the mission of many insider professional innovators and dis-
ruptors who identify as progressives.

Redefining Roles
The evolution from undertakers to morticians to funeral directors
reflected a change in both scope of services and status. Shifting product
focus from winding cloths to shrouds and plainly crafted pine boxes to
elaborately manufactured and sealed steel caskets signified a parallel
development. Experimenting with interpersonal bereavement services
has evolved to soul-searching by progressive professionals who want to
provide cutting edge services that are rapidly responsive and resonate
with families in clear and meaningful ways.
Dismissing the terminology of funeral directing and event planning,
they are recasting themselves as “experience designers,” an all-inclusive
term coined by Amy Cunningham that leaves room for family self-
direction and genuine partnership.75 Shawn LaValleur-Adame, owner and
founder of DIY Dying funeral home, attests that “consumers are wanting
to do and know more” and that it is her job to “bring them what they
want” by offering a broad range of home funeral and green services.76
Char Barrett, who has been providing family-friendly support since
2008, says, “We have been moving from being funeral directors to being
production directors, like in the movies. This works with cookie cutter
services, and with livestreaming and other types of visual products, but it
doesn’t go nearly far enough in creating an organic experience with just
the right ambiance for each family.”77 Amy Cunningham agrees: “It’s not
just that we are making online Zoom calls or livestreaming the burial or
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 163

memorial available, we have to know how to frame it, control it, make it
work to the mourner’s best advantage to create a seamless experience, not
just a technological extravaganza.”78

The Funeral Home Gets a Makeover

Both Cunningham and Barrett have renegotiated how they deliver all
facets of their services.79 They predict that the costly Victorian houses that
Americans associate with funerals will be abandoned as soon as their
owners can divest themselves of them in favor of care-and-call centers:
small business facilities with limited storefronts, minimum overhead, and
versatile open spaces for visitations and meetings. They regret the reduc-
tion in face-to-face contact over coffee and warm chocolate cookies caused
by the 2020 pandemic restrictions but cheer the reduction in overhead
costs, the positive environmental effects of curtailed traveling, and the
time gained to spend in direct customer service.
Some funeral directors are finding the shift from in-person contact to
online planning more difficult, and yet they recognize the need to change
in big ways and small. “I’ve always said, if you really want to get to know
a person, make a funeral arrangement with them. . . . I’ve missed that,”
says New York funeral director Paul Kearns-Stanley, in an interview with
National Public Radio. “And I’m afraid that that is going to somehow not
come back, to a degree anyway.”80
The advantages of creating different kinds of safe and open gathering
spaces are considerable. Intimate spaces designed to welcome diverse
communities make room for people who have historically been reluctant
to enter the formal atmosphere of a Victorian conference room. A facility
with neutral style features may be customized to reflect the ambiance
each specific family envisions for its visitation or ceremony. It may also be
wired to maximize use of technology. Some progressive funeral directors
are exploring parks, beaches, forests, and other communal places for
gatherings. Funeral directors in urban areas may be receptive to contem-
porary building space and divestiture of older homes; rural funeral homes
are likely to double as the family home and on-site location of their cre-
matorium, and owners are therefore less likely to consider downsizing or
suggesting alternative venues.

Better Use of Technology

Self-proclaimed “hustler” Ryan Thogmartin, owner of Disrupt Media,
has staked his claim on smarter use of technology, including social media,
164 The Future of the Corpse

encouraging the industry to move into the future with advice from his
online media platforms.81 Thogmartin represents a younger generation of
entrepreneurs who are actively trying to change how the industry presents
itself to the public. While some professionals find this approach in conflict
with conventional funeral director reserve, professionals just entering the
workforce are prepared to adopt cutting-edge communication tools and
electronic support, especially as a result of pandemic dictates.
All-weather cameras attach to gravestones so that family members can
visit their loved one’s grave virtually, and testimonial video apparatus cre-
ate visual memory pictures and messages beyond the grave. These new
products and services contribute to an estimated 68-billion-dollar death-
care market in the United States by 2023.82
During the 2020 pandemic, online family conferences replaced in-
person meetings. Both funeral professionals and consumers found that it
allowed for unexpectedly innovative and collaborative group thinking.
The built-in egalitarian nature of Zoom and similar virtual platforms
create an inclusive, participatory, and empowering climate. One conse-
quence of the pandemic has been recognition of the inequitable access to
internet connectivity along socioeconomic and racial lines.83 If that
improves, so will online funeral arrangement opportunities.
Online arrangements accommodate families living in disparate loca-
tions and those who do not want to congregate in a shared physical space.
Community members who find it difficult to physically gather due to
location, cost, mobility restrictions, or other factors can benefit from
online grief gatherings. For parents with pregnancy or infant loss, mak-
ing online arrangements may be preferable to leaving the home.
In an attempt to broaden their virtual offerings, funeral homes have
been providing either the services of a director schooled in digital pro-
grams or referrals to digital companies specializing in livestreaming vari-
ous aspects of in-house and graveside services. Many funeral directors
were reduced to pointing a cell phone toward the proceedings for real-
time video during COVID-19 with mourners tuning in at home when
distance restrictions allowed less than a handful of people to be present.
The more sophisticated the program—and the operator—the more in-
demand this service will become. The Foresight study indicated a poten-
tial complication: only half the people expecting permanently available
livestreaming services would be willing to pay for it.84
Several funeral directors discovered hidden advantages of pandemic
in-person restrictions when forced to employ e-signature platforms to get
death certificates and cremation authorizations legally signed. The time
savings—no gathering of or traveling to all necessary signatories, coupled
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 165

with instantaneous processing—convinced many to make e-signing the

future norm.85

Changing Faces in Service

The professional funeral business will undergo radical change in the
coming decade. The multigenerational, family-run funeral home will
need to adapt in several ways.
Corporations such as Service Corps International built their empire in
part by purchasing family-owned Mom-and-Pop businesses, raising
prices and paying salaries to the previous owners. “Approximately 89.2
percent of funeral homes in the United States are privately owned by fam-
ilies or individuals. The remaining 10.8 percent are owned by publicly
traded corporations.”86 Given consumers’ penchant for hiring the famil-
iar, the large corporations led the public to believe the acquired firms
were still under local ownership. Some of these business arrangements
soured when the community discovered the truth, and many previous
owners bought their businesses back.
This begs the question, Why would a generations-old business agree to
such deceit, given the importance of its standing in the community? One
reason may be the changing pool of employees. Children of family-owned
funeral homes are choosing other vocations, leaving the business in the
hands of unrelated strangers. Familial connection to funeral service and
the relationships keep the business thriving and are essential to success-
ful operation. The loss of a supply of workers from within the family
means hiring staff who expect similar benefits as in other workplaces,
adding expenses that contribute to a financial squeeze. Most importantly,
it breaks down the social fabric that has been a mainstay for the stability
of the profession.
So who is taking their place? Ironically, women. Over a hundred years
after being deemed redundant in postmortem care, women are returning
to the death space. They are arriving with fresh expectations and motiva-
tions. “Today, more than 60 percent of mortuary science students in the
United States are women. Many of these women have discovered and are
attracted to the skills and traits needed as a funeral director, including
communication skills, compassion, a desire to comfort those coping with a
death, as well as organizational and event-planning skills.”87 This interpre-
tation of women’s increasing interest in professional funeral is incomplete.
The rise in back-to-basics home funerals and end-of-life doulas, both
preceded by the hospice movement, might be partially responsible for
women’s desire to reclaim their place in after-death care. As Philip Olson
166 The Future of the Corpse

points out, “Over the past twenty years, however, a women-led natural
deathcare movement has emerged and expanded in the US and, to a lesser
extent, in Canada. Self-styled death doulas, death midwives, and home
funeral guides have appeared in most states across the country. Growing
numbers of laywomen (and a modicum of men) have begun to offer
deathcare assistance to the dying and to the families and loved ones of
those who have died.”88
Women have been spearheading the social movements that promote
alternative home care—more affordable, socially and environmentally
responsible, family-centered after-death care—since the 1990s. They have
been advocating for domestic and legal funeral reform. They formed organi-
zations and local threshold circles and began community education net-
works. They went up against legislators and the funeral lobby to block
restrictive laws affecting families’ rights. They learned that their work was
valuable, that lasting change only occurs when systems change on the inside
to reflect the values of those on the outside, and that to achieve this, collabo-
ration between home funeral advocates and funeral directors would be key.89
By entering the profession, women stand to change the practices and
expand the scope of death care in the United States to include more
blended funerals, with relationships between mourning families and
funeral directors more collaborative than transactional, where choice and
innovation are honored. Women tend to favor less invasive corpse proce-
dures and are often reluctant to embalm. The new, female funeral direc-
tors often exercise more relational, nurture-based problem solving than
their typical predecessors did. They are not just coming to funeral service
with better “organizational and event-planning skills.” They are coming
with interpersonal and communication skills that are potentially more
inclusive, more supportive, and more organic than consumers are used to
seeing in the profession.

Other Community- and Family-Centered Trends

Progressive funeral directors such as Char Barrett and Amy Cunning-
ham have been providing this level of service, seeing their roles as “more
support, less directing.”90 During the 2020 pandemic, they and many oth-
ers adapted quickly to the rapidly changing state and local distancing
requirements affecting everyone: families with multiple deaths, deaths at
home and in hospital, ethnic groups known for large gatherings now
reduced to zero or a few witnesses. Their role was suddenly to find ways
to make it work in the moment, wherever and however it could be accom-
plished safely.
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 167

Drive-by viewings became a staple. People remained in their vehicles,

driving around a prearranged site with the closed casket on full display in
the center or visible through the open door of a van, appropriately called
“van viewings.” Photographs were taken of the deceased when no viewing
was possible, a practice not common to Americans in over a century.
“Since we can’t get into the crematory yet, the witnessing is of the casket’s
arrival at the building, at the back bay where the hearses back in. And they
are Zooming from there, having their ten-person moment,” says Cunning-
ham. “Perhaps it’s not the kind of chapel or sanctuary they’re used to, but
I tell people that the reason we do this is to accompany your loved one the
whole way. And we will make it sacred because we are there.”91
Families who have discovered that they can care for their dead family
member at home and then conduct meaningful memorials outside an
industrial crematory are likely to remember and appreciate smaller-scale
gatherings with bigger-than-life impact. Barrett concurs. “Our viewings
are now at the crematory. I don’t sugarcoat it. I explain that the cremation
itself is a very industrial process, so the environment you are coming to is
a very industrial one. This is what the back room looks like.”92
Cunningham continued, “Even post-COVID-19, I predict that
we may be going directly from the death space to the final resting place
when we extend the time at home before disposition more often, using
refrigeration more wisely to avoid embalming. For memorialization, the
presentation of ashes is going to be more elaborate, more ceremonial,
another opportunity to use language in ceremony on the person’s front
porch, or in the hall, for the memorialization; the unveiling of the stone,
the yahrzeit, the first anniversary, first birthday, all those things” will offer
people a chance to acknowledge and prolong the mourning period.93
More life storytelling, more participation, and more witnessing are on
the menu. Progressive funeral directors such as Cunningham and Barrett
are envisioning space for products suitable to difficult situations, such as
pregnancy and infant loss, and expanding their product lines to match
individual needs without the hard sell. Online grief stores that educate as
well as sell products will offer books, music, comfort items, and biode-
gradable and low-impact vessels along with jewelry, glass keepsakes, and
biometric fingerprints.94
This approach to locations and products has potential to transform the
government-mandated General Price List (GPL) into a powerful market-
ing tool that includes service options, such as monument design, that are
not typically part of the immediate at-need discussion.95 Funeral director
Shawn LaValleur-Adame also sees a renewed family-centered path for-
ward for professionals: “There will be more planning ahead, and
168 The Future of the Corpse

shopping around for services.”96 People will be increasingly savvy about

comparison shopping and will need to have a more standardized, apples-
to-apples GPL system that is transparent and designed for readability.
Consumers were already moving toward online shopping as their new
normal before the pandemic. Drastically increasing consumer access to
both online and in-house products and services may be the most impor-
tant move a funeral home can make to signal willingness to work more
responsively with families.

Cooperative Funerals Making a Comeback

“I had already been thinking that we place too much emphasis on the
hour-long funeral service. Saying farewell to someone is really the task of a
lifetime, and something that you do most intensely over the period of the
first full year,” Cunningham mused. “Maybe when we catch our breath,
we’ll evaluate where we’re headed as an industry and how we might pro-
vide better services to more people, and take the drive to profit from the
funeral out altogether by looking at cooperative funeral home structure.”97
Funeral cooperatives are not new; they were foundational for the
Funeral Consumers Alliance. The longest operating funeral cooperative
in the country, People’s Memorial in Seattle, Washington, has been in
operation since 1939, providing its members discounted rates on prod-
ucts and services purchased from participating funeral providers.98 The
newly envisioned service could combine the professional cooperative
model with the community-care group model to provide a central hub of
home funeral guides, funeral directors, celebrants—anyone with exper-
tise in after-death processes who serves the community in various capaci-
ties at reasonable costs.
Membership could be transferable from city to city, creating a ready-
made connection to like-minded people, with potential for additional,
targeted community outreach in support of the underserved. Co-ops
could conduct community-building events, educational lectures and
readings, and opportunities to meet and showcase goods. Co-ops could
also be structured, in part, on principles of what Stander calls radical
financing, that is, people who can afford a higher price support those who
cannot, giving equal access to the goods and services. “In a world where
people who can pay more generally get better quality, and take it for
granted that others get less, explaining ‘being a good sharer’ is an invita-
tion outside the usual transactional comfort zone.”99 The model may be
made viable on the same philanthropic principles and moral imperatives
as other charitable acts.
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 169

The advantages of cooperatives to funeral professionals are myriad:

preplanning means more predictable revenue prospects; shared responsi-
bilities mean relief from the pressure; bulk ordering among funeral homes
could reduce costs; and shared promotional marketing outreach could
establish efficient, appropriate messaging. “As Mark Harris spoke to so
well in his book Grave Matters, in the old days prior to the Civil War
before the American funeral industry was formed, communities took care
of their own,” continues Cunningham.100 “And it feels to me like we could
attend to that kind of care again and find ways to make death less of a
medical event, and more of a community-based experience.”101
While this utopian vision of future funeral service is rooted in history,
many funeral directors are not schooled in or prepared to make this sig-
nificant leap. A few funeral professionals have made progress by combin-
ing resources to handle the dead whose families are absent, in fact or by
intention. For instance, Detroit area funeral directors have formed a
response “mercy chain” to meet the increasing demand for care of
unclaimed dead ready for release from the Medical Examiner’s Office.102
They look for proof of veteran status, religious affiliation, or other indica-
tors that aid in providing an appropriate final send-off. Funds to cover
burial are contributed through the Michigan State Funeral Directors
Association, the Jewish Fund, and other sources. Strangers come out “to
witness the service, some dressing up, some bearing flowers, just so those
being laid to rest would have the dignity of human attendance.”103 Rather
than competing for indigent cremation contracts or taking the service on
as a loss burden, this model of community death care is meeting human
needs at an unprecedented level.

Embracing Green Practices

The funeral industry has previously turned a blind eye to the disas-
trous repercussions of a hundred years of ignoring and misrepresenting
the effects of burying tons of concrete, steel, formaldehyde, and other
toxic substances in cemeteries, as well as startlingly high levels of carbon
dioxide, mercury, and other heavy metals emitted during cremation and
contaminating air and water. “Greenwashing” describes products and ser-
vices that seem eco-friendly at first glance but have hidden environmental
costs, such as fossil fuel consumption of a wicker casket transported three
thousand miles to its destination, or cremation urns purporting to turn
cremated remains to soil by adding fertilizer.
This concept has unfortunately found a home in funeral service, with GPLs
offering “green” packages of products and services that have significant carbon
170 The Future of the Corpse

footprints and other hidden disqualifiers. Offering a green funeral when envi-
ronmentally sound disposition options are not available is disingenuous and
must cease. Promoting cremation and its by-products as the most environ-
mentally responsible option is irresponsible.104 Validating gimmicks that are
not science based or in the best interests of clients damages the industry’s rep-
utation. Given the industry’s tendency to evolve slowly, we can hope that these
practices are growing pains and that the next generation of funeral directors
will be better equipped to serve their eco-responsible families.
Limited education around green funeral practices is, in part, to blame
for the industry’s slow acceptance of this disposition choice. The only
green funeral course taught in a United States mortuary college, titled
Changing Landscapes in Funeral Service, was developed to address igno-
rance of long-overdue environmental imperatives and expose mortuary
students to a different viewpoint.105 Courses that emphasize real-world
demands for less invasive procedures, improved worker safety, more envi-
ronmentally appropriate and affordable, science-based disposition
options, and funeral service that shares these values with their communi-
ties will eventually replace the age-old teaching of embalming, the cor-
nerstone of the industry. Mortuary school reform that pivots from the
conventional curriculum toward environmental values is essential for
meaningful improvements in funeral service.
Consequential change requires a shift from resource- and carbon-
footprint-intense burial and cremation containers to biodegradable soft-
wood boxes, seagrass, willow, and wicker baskets, and linen, cotton, and
wool shrouds. The reluctance of funeral directors to exhibit such products
or their representing them as off-brand fads is shortsighted. Whether for
interment in a green burial cemetery or cremation, the public is demand-
ing more organic, locally sourced vessels that reflect their personal values,
especially if they self-identify as eco-friendly. These products could easily
take the place of what Barrett calls “the anchor,” that is, the casket.
“Without the casket, there is a level of disconnect for the family. The cas-
ket or shroud evokes such strong responses. The more authentic, the
more meaningful.”106
Green burial cemeteries are increasingly in demand and favored by
those choosing disposition with positive environmental benefits. The
Conservation Burial Alliance (CBA) formed to support cemetery opera-
tors and conservation land trusts that ensure burial spaces follow best
practices similar to those developed by the Land Trust Alliance.107 The
involvement of major conservation groups such as The Nature Conser-
vancy lends credibility to the effort to conserve green space while con-
necting people to the land in a permanent way, generating revenue for the
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 171

landowner and the land trust, and encouraging continued family and
community involvement in conservation efforts.108
Burial in municipal and religious cemeteries that eschews vaults, steel,
and exotic wood caskets and promotes eco-friendly disposition is a step
toward more sustainable practices that the public willingly embraces.
Shaping the vision for eco-responsible death care, the Green Burial Coun-
cil certifies cemeteries, products, and funeral directors that meet its strin-
gent standards. The Council’s educational materials, tools, and programs
provide a road map for industry professionals and help them respond to
the rapidly growing demand for green death care.109
Creating eco-friendly disposition processes and spaces is just the begin-
ning. We also must reimagine memorial spaces to make them more cultur-
ally appropriate, accessible, and meaningful, as well as affordable.110 Simply
storing bodies in a columbarium or scattering the inert pulverized bone of
cremation in the woods is not environmentally sound or sustainable. Fami-
lies want to have an ongoing connection to the space where a loved one is
buried, not just a visit on Memorial Day. Many natural cemeteries are add-
ing permanent or fleeting art installations, carefully situated to incorporate
the visitor into the experience during the interment and afterward. Wheel-
chair accessible trails ensure that everyone feels welcome. In a 2015 survey
of green cemetery operators, the GBC learned that the preferred activities
of their visitors included meditation, bird watching, picnicking, and hik-
ing.111 Newly designing or converted burial spaces with facilities that meet
human needs for contact and connection without gimmicks may help dis-
solve cultural death denial and enhance personal death experiences.

Where to Go from Here

“There are ideas and technologies right on the horizon that have the
potential to radically transform the funeral industry.”112 Innovative ideas
and technologies have every chance of contributing to a changed world-
view in—and of—funeral service, but the imminently most critical trans-
formation is altered perceptions and behaviors among industry members.
To remain viable, the funeral industry must address systemic social injus-
tices, including racial disparity, homophobia, and poverty, in the same
way that other businesses are reimagining and retooling. It must become
genuinely responsive to the increasing demand for sustainable processes
and products. It must reflect on the economic feasibility of maintaining
suppliers that exceed demand. It must, above all, redefine the relationship
between its customers and its partners to create more functional and cul-
turally relevant death spaces. Nate Fisher would approve.
172 The Future of the Corpse

Notes
1. Six Feet under aired on HBO from June 3, 2001, to August 21, 2005.
2. Esmerelda Kent, accessed March 30, 2021, https://kinkaraco.com.
3. Ramsey Creek Preserve, Westminster, South Carolina, accessed March
30, 2021, https://www.memorialecosystems.com.
4. Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death Revisited (New York, NY: Vin-
tage Press, 2003).
5. Philip Olson, “Domesticating Deathcare,” Journal of Medical Humanities 39,
no. 2 (2018): 195–215.
6. Josh Slocum, Executive Director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, per-
sonal interview, July 10, 2020.
7. Josh Slocum and Lee Webster, Restoring Families Rights to Choose: The Call
for Funeral Legislation Change in America (Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Publish-
ing, 2016), 3.
8. Slocum, personal interview, July 10, 2020.
9. Lee Webster, The Science behind Green Burial, Changing Landscapes: Explor-
ing the Growth of Ethical, Compassionate, and Environmentally Sustainable Green
Funeral Practices (Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2017), 239–52.
10. Joe Sehee, founder and former executive director of the Green Burial
Council, in conversation with the author in early 2010.
11. Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director (New York, NY: Harper
Collins, 2017). Founded in 1928, the Order of the Golden Rule supports inde-
pendent funeral homes who qualify.
12. Everett M. Rogers, Innovation Adoption Lifecycle Diffusions of Innovations,
5th printing (New York, NY: Free Press, 2003).
13. Carol Lynn Green, “Excising a Health Risk,” Washington Wire, The Direc-
tor, May 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.greenburialcouncil.org​
/uploads/1/2/4/2/124231485/nfda_embalming_article.pdf.
14. Michael Hauptmann et al., “Mortality from Lymphohematopoietic Malig-
nancies and Brain Cancer among Embalmers Exposed to Formaldehyde,” Journal
of the National Cancer Institute 101, no. 24 (December 2009): 1696–1708, https://
doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djp416; Andrea L. Roberts et al., “Job-Related Formalde-
hyde Exposure and ALS Mortality in the USA,” Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery
& Psychiatry 87, no. 7 (2016): 786–788, https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/87/7/786;
Richard B. Hayes et al., “Mortality of U.S. Embalmers and Funeral Directors,”
American Journal of Industrial Medicine 18, no. 6 (1990): 641–52, https://doi​
.org/10.1002/ajim.4700180603.
15. “2019 NFDA General Price List Study Shows Funeral Costs Not Rising as
Fast as Rate of Inflation,” National Funeral Directors Association, December 19,
2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://nfda.org/news/media-center/nfda-news​
-releases/id/4797/2019-nfda-general-price-list-study-shows-funeral-costs​
-not-rising-as-fast-as-rate-of-inflation.
16. The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for overseeing the funeral
industry through the Funeral Rule that mandates language used on a General
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 173

Price List but regulates neither pricing nor consistent formatting, making it easy
to obfuscate, if not hide or omit, actual prices.
17. Funeral Consumers Alliance, The Funeral Director’s Guide to Consumer-
Friendly General Price Lists: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Price List
Legal and Easy to Use (2007), accessed March 30, 2021, https://funerals.org/wp​
-content/uploads/2016/05/gplguide.pdf.
18. A direct cremation is a product on the General Price List (GPL) that
includes removal, filing of the death certification, and associated services but
does not include a viewing, visitations, or memorial. In some GPLs, it also does
not include the actual cremation or container charges.
19. Dying to Talk, Phaneuf Funeral Home radio interview with Lee Webster
(107.7 FM The Pulse, November 12, 2015).
20. Funeral Consumers Alliance, “Should You Prepay for Your Funeral?”
accessed March 30, 2021, https://funerals.org/?consumers=should-you-prepay​
-for-your-funeral.
21. Amy Cunningham, personal interview, July 19, 2020.
22. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
23. Cunningham, personal interview, July 12, 2020.
24. Josh Slocum and Lisa Carlson, Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of
Death (Hinesburg, VT: Upper Access, Inc., 2011), 36.
25. Jim T. Miller, “This Is How Much an Average Funeral Costs,” Huffington
Post, October 17, 2016.
26. New Hampshire Funeral Resources, Education & Advocacy, “2020
Funeral Service Survey,” accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nhfuneral.org​
/survey.html.
27. 2018 U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, “Funeral Service Workers [2019
Median Pay],” accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care​
-and-service/funeral-service-occupations.htm.
28. Centers for Disease Control, “Health Equity Considerations and Racial and
Ethnic Minority Groups,” updated February 12, 2021, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/health-equity​/ race​
-ethnicity.html.
29. Corey Williams, “Paying for Funerals Impossible for Many Poor Families,”
AP, January 20, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/30a6
07aa2a9b4c4b9c2f7060ef358a86.
30. “Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams,” Public Health Emer-
gency, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/responders​
/ndms/ndms-teams/Pages/dmort.aspx.
31. Lee Webster et al., “Home Funeral Guides and Pandemic Care,” Vimeo,
March 24, 2020; Khaleda Rahman, “What Is a Home Funeral? How to Care for
Sick or Deceased Loved Ones at Home during Coronavirus Pandemic,” News-
week, March 26, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.newsweek.com
/home-funeral-coronavirus-1494396.
32. Fitting Tribute Funeral Services, accessed March 30, 2021, http://www​
.fittingtributefunerals.com.
174 The Future of the Corpse

33. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.

34. A sampling: Char Barrett, “I’m a Funeral Director. The Pandemic Has
Made Saying Goodbye Painfully Lonely,” Op Ed, Washington Post, April 1, 2020;
Ann Neumann, “2 Funeral Directors on How the Pandemic Has Upended the
Business of Death,” Vox, May 6, 2020; Rich Shapiro, “The Long, Lonesome Shift
of a Crematory Worker in the Heat of COVID-19,” NBC, April 19, 2020.
35. Gina Cherelus and Caitlin Ochs, “‘Dead Inside’: The Morgue Trucks of
New York City,” New York Times, May 27, 2020.
36. Dave Mosher, “I Followed New York City ‘Deathcare’ Workers as They
Collected the Bodies of People Killed by the Coronavirus, and I Saw a Growing,
Chaotic, and Risky Battle,” Business Insider, March 31, 2020.
37. Alexandra E. Petri, “Someone Has Died. That’s When Their Job Begins,”
New York Times, April 16, 2020.
38. Foresight Company, “Pandemic Has Materially Changed Consumer Atti-
tudes about Technology, Physical Presence, and Price Transparency relating to
the Funeral and Cemetery Business,” Funeral Business Advisor, May 27, 2020.
39. Foresight Company, “Pandemic Has Materially Changed Consumer
Attitudes.”
40. Patricia Hartley, “Are Death Care Professionals Still the ‘Poor Stepchil-
dren’ of Emergency Preparedness?” Connecting Directors, June 28, 2020.
41. Centers for Disease Control, “Collection and Submission of Postmortem
Specimens from Deceased Persons with Known or Suspected COVID-19,” CDC,
June 20, 2020.
42. “Infection Prevention and Control for the Safe Management of a Dead
Body in the Context of COVID-19,” WHO, March 24, 2020.
43. Ellary Allis, “Is Death Really ‘the Great Equalizer’? African American
Deathways and Inequality in America,” interview with Dr. Kami Fletcher, Seven-
Ponds, May 13, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://blog.sevenponds.com​
/professional-advice/is-death-really-the-great-equalizer-african-american​
-deathways-and-inequality-in-america; “Homegoings: Going Home,” POV, June
25, 2013, PBS.
44. Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering (New York, NY: Vintage, 2009).
45. Pastor Cody J. Sanders, “How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently
Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative,” Religion Dispatches, April 2, 2020.
46. Andrika Donovan, retired psychiatric nurse, filmmaker, and green burial
advocate, interview conducted July 6, 2020.
47. Zenith Virago, founder of the Natural Death Care Centre, in conversation
with the author, January 2018.
48. The Memory Picture is a staple concept of the funeral industry that
encourages full-service, open casket viewings, based on the belief that the last
viewing of the embalmed and cosmetically enhanced face of the loved one will
stay with the viewer forever, promoting healthy grieving.
49. The concept of “Materials, Competences and Meaning” extracted from
Elizabeth Shove, Michael Pantzar, and Matt Watson, The Dynamics of Social Prac-
tice: Everyday Life and How It Changes (London: Sage Publications, 2012), 22–24.
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 175

50. Elena Michele Slominski, “The Life and Death of Funeral Practices: Persis-
tence and Change in the Death System and the Rise of Eco-Funerals in the
United States” (master’s thesis, University of Oslo, June 2020), 30, 31.
51. Slominski, “Life and Death,” 75.
52. Written interview, August 24, 2020.
53. Donna Belk and Holly Stevens, Undertaken with Love: A Home Funeral
Guide for Families and Community Care Groups (Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace,
2015).
54. Slocum, personal interview, July 10, 2020.
55. Personal interview, July 13, 2020.
56. Rabbi Lori Stein, from the Jewish Chaplaincy at Stanford Medicine, per-
sonal interview, June 26, 2020.
57. Etienne Wenger-Trayner and Beverley Wenger-Trayner, “Introduction to
Communities of Practice,” accessed March 30, 2021, https://wenger-trayner.com​
/introduction-to-communities-of-practice.
58. Lee Webster, “2020 Funeral Statistics,” accessed May 20, 2021, https://
www.nhfuneral.org/survey.html
59. Webster and Slocum, Restoring Families Rights to Choose, 3.
60. Webster and Slocum, Restoring Families Rights to Choose, 7.
61. Merilynne Rush, Home Funeral Guides: Illuminating the Path (2012), e-book
(out of print).
62. FCA, “Who Has the Legal Right to Make Decisions about Your Funeral?”
accessed May 20, 2021, https://funerals.org/?consumers=legal-right-make-decisions​
-funeral
63. Paula Jacobs, “Transgender Rights, Transgender Rites,” Tablet Magazine,
June 23, 2020.
64. Lee Webster, To Lie Down in Green Pastures: Why the Catholic Church Is
Leading the Way in Green Burial, Changing Landscapes (Scotts Valley, CA: Cre-
ateSpace, 2016), 229–34.
65. Death Cafe, accessed March 30, 2021, https://deathcafe.com.
66. Jennifer Miller, “Boom Time for Death Planning,” New York Times, July
16, 2020.
67. Dina Stander, personal interview, July 13, 2020.
68. Danna Schmidt, “Knocking on Deathcare’s Door,” Medium, February
2, 2020.
69. Suzanne Kelly, Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring
Our Tie to the Earth (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015).
70. David E. Harrington and Jaret Treber, “Cemeteries and Mortuaries—
Better Together or Apart?” Regulation, Winter 2012–2013, 40–47.
71. Recompose, accessed March 30, 2021, https://recompose.life.
72. NFDA, “Trends in Funeral Service,” accessed March 30, 2021, https://
nfda.org/news/trends-in-funeral-service.
73. NFDMA, accessed March 30, 2021, https://nfdma.com.
74. Slominski, “Life and Death,” 130.
75. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
176 The Future of the Corpse

76. Written interview, July 13, 2020.

77. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
78. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
79. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
80. Jessica Deahl, “New York Funeral Director: Pandemic Has Been A Wave
That ‘Knocks You Over,’” All Things Considered, airdate July 13, 2020, National
Public Radio.
81. Ryan Thogmartin, accessed March 30, 2021, https://disruptmedia.co.
82. “AFTR Launches New Death Care Category Cemetery Cameras to Enable
Virtual Visits and Constant Connection,” Connecting Directors, July 28, 2020.
83. Pew Research Center, “Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet,” accessed June
12, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org.
84. Foresight Company, “Pandemic Has Materially Changed Consumer
Attitudes.”
85. Barrett and Cunningham, personal interview, July 12, 2020.
86. “General Funeral Facts,” Statistics, National Funeral Association (NFDA),
accessed April 30, 2021, https://nfda.org/news/statistics.
87. NFDA, Statistics.
88. Olson, “Domesticating Deathcare,” 2.
89. Lee Webster, How Funeral Directors Can Support Home Funeral Families,
Changing Landscapes (Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2016), 70–77.
90. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
91. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
92. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
93. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
94. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
95. Cunningham, personal interview, July 12, 2020.
96. Written interview, July 13, 2020.
97. Grace Gedye, “Thousands of New Yorkers Are Dying: What Happens to
Their Bodies?” Washington Monthly, May 5, 2020.
98. People’s Memorial, accessed March 30, 2021.
99. Personal interview, July 13, 2020.
100. Mark Harris, Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry
to a Natural Way of Burial (New York, NY: Scribner, 2007), 42.
101. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
102. Mitch Albom, “Burying the Unclaimed Dead Shows the Greatest Respect
for Life,” Detroit Free Press, July 26, 2020.
103. Albom, “Burying the Unclaimed Dead,” 2020.
104. “Other Disposition Methods,” Green Burial Council, accessed April 30,
2021, https://www.greenburialcouncil.org/other_disposition_options.html.
105. Green Burial Council, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.greenburial​
council.org/green_funerals_course.html.
106. Personal interview, July 12, 2020.
107. Conservation Burial Alliance, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.conservationburialalliance.org; Land Trust Alliance, Land Trust Standards and
Rethinking the Role of the Funeral Director 177

Practices, 2017, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.landtrustalliance.org​

/publication/land-trust-standards-and-practices-revised-2017.
108. The Nature Conservancy, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nature​
.org/en-us/.
109. Green Burial Council certification, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.greenburialcouncil.org/our_standards.html.
110. Holly Blue Hawkins, Gamliel Institute, personal interview, July 10, 2020.
111. GBC Survey Results, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.greenburial​
council.org/gbc_survey_results.html.
112. Lucinda Herring, Reimagining Death: Stories and Practical Wisdom for
Home Funerals and Green Burials (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. 2019), 201.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Digital Tools: Grieving

through Screens
Candi K. Cann

Introduction: The Shifting World of Thanatechnology1

A decade ago, the digital landscape for managing death was limited,
consisting primarily of memorial pages on social media.2 Today, new
technologies are rapidly emerging and pushing the boundaries of innova-
tion. The arrival of the 2020 pandemic (referenced here as COVID-19) has
amplified and fast-forwarded the engagement and reliance on thanatech-
nologies. Family-owned funeral homes that initially didn’t see the value
of digital offerings, or simply didn’t have the capacity to implement them,
have now been compelled to move into the digital arena to safeguard
their businesses. Funeral homes originally entered the field of virtual
memorialization with rudimentary offerings, including digital notes to
the dead, the offering of virtual stuffed animals, lit candles, and the post-
ing of videos and pictures. Digital memorializing has become so com-
monplace that even the American military recently contracted mobile
memorials for every interred veteran. Memorialization alone is no longer
enough. In the pandemic, funeral homes have now had to learn how to
livestream virtual wakes and videoconference funeral services in addition
to providing the simpler memorialization webpages. Additionally, in a
period of mandated physical distancing, people who previously might
Digital Tools 179

have resisted moving online have found themselves increasingly reliant

on digital tools in order to mourn or connect with others as they grieve.
Digital thanatechnologies are growing exponentially, with mobile soft-
ware platforms on smartphones most likely to be the greatest area of con-
tinued expansion, and more sophisticated offerings being developed on a
regular basis. Digital technology changes so rapidly that in ten or twenty
years, many current technological landscapes will shift or disappear alto-
gether (e.g., MySpace is obsolete, and Facebook, generally used by older
populations, will likely function in twenty years largely as a digital cem-
etery). More importantly, virtual tools for expressing grief and receiving
support seem to be moving into an interactive digital platform that will
be accessible and intertwined with everyday life—on smartphones, in
gaming platforms, and in everyday, user-friendly technologies commonly
utilized at work or at home.
In this chapter I explore how technological tools can provide a means
to care for the dead as well as be a way to remember them. Technology is
changing the ways we die, how we dispose of the dead, and the tools we
use to grieve. I will examine how:

• Technology can blur the categories of dying, disposal, and bereavement

• Technology’s portability can be democratizing while shifting the way the
dead are conceptualized and accessed
• Technology creates different “afterlives” that no longer belong exclusively to
the spiritual or religious realms
• Technology contributes layers to Real Life (RL),3 offering alternate under-
standings of death and dying

Blurring the Lines between Dying, Disposal, and Death

The world of the living and the world of the dying and dead are no
longer clearly separated. Twenty-first-century technological tools at the
bedside of the dying, on the sites of corpse disposal, and in the hands of
the bereaved are transforming our vigil and remembrance rituals and giv-
ing new meaning to the concept of transcendence. Our afterlives can be
digital, virtual and can live on in cyberspace rather than just in our reli-
gious imagination. Dying—that portal between death and life—has
always transfixed the imagination and spawned new technologies that
can record the event—from death masks, to death photographs, to videos
and smartphones, rendering deaths in real time. Dying, and deathbed
scenes in general, now can be recorded for posterity, while unjust deaths
180 The Future of the Corpse

are often videotaped by bystanders in protest. Dying on film is a powerful

form of protest: from the Vietnamese monks whose images were caught
mid-immolation in protest of the Vietnam War to unintentional video-
logues broadcasting the deaths of people of color at the hands of whites.
The recorded deaths of those such as Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd
provide irrefutable evidence of the existence of white supremacy and
police brutality. Living and dying become captured forever, recorded,
reviewed and rewatched.
We no longer merely inter the dead; we care for and curate them—
through social media, digital apps, virtual guestbooks, online chat rooms,
digital avatars, interactive tombstones, gaming platforms, and more. The
most basic example might be additions to already utilized technologies
for traditional forms of body disposal, such as QR codes on tombstones.4
While QR code technology is already becoming obsolete and is being
replaced by point-and-scan apps (smartphone applications), what remains
preeminent is that digital technology is used at the burial site to recall the
interred and interact with them. At the intersection of current disposal
methods (whether burial or cremation) and mobile memorialization tech-
nology utilizing the internet, new rituals are created that combine past
and future practices. Other digital updates of older thanatechnologies
will continue to evolve, as exemplified by Eterneva, a company that trans-
forms cremains and human hair into diamonds and wearable jewelry,
engraving in microscript the information of the deceased on each dia-
mond. The management at Eterneva anticipates adding scannable codes
that will function as living and portable memorials, popping up in virtu-
ally augmented reality.5 The boundaries between living and dead are no
longer distinct.

Portable Devices and Digital Afterlives

The blurred boundaries between the living and the dead can also be
found in portable devices—in videos, on playlists, and even through aug-
mented reality, where images and voices of the dead are “overlaid” on the
Real Life (RL) world, the dead can appear to be alive and may help the
living to interact—and continue their relationship—with the dead. Debra
Bassett writes,

Four years after he died, Bob Monkhouse appeared in an advertisement to

raise awareness for prostate cancer. In the video, he appears at his own
graveside, discussing his own death. The video, which was recorded whilst
he was alive, was edited with new footage, featuring a body-double and a
Digital Tools 181

voiceover by an impressionist, to create the final advertisement. Using this

“modern necromancy”, or digital age communication with the dead,[6] he
was digitally resurrected from the grave, thus giving him digital immortal-
ity and turning him into an accidental digital zombie. Other digital zom-
bies include Tupac Shakur and Michael Jackson, both digitally recreated to
perform “live” on stage at concerts years after their deaths.7

Technology no longer merely informs us of a death or helps us remem-

ber the dead; it also serves to resurrect the dead in new, incorporeal ways,
clouding the distinction between the world of the living and the world of
the dead. Ming Lim writes in The Routledge Companion to Digital Consump-
tion that posts from the living to the dead, on social network sites, “rein-
force the materiality of the network as well as that of the deceased . . . the
ontological divide between the dead and the living is simply disregarded,
or even celebrated. The dead continue to animate past, present, and future
. . . the assumption of co-presence with the dead is striking.”8 Lim touches
upon an important point here—the idea that technologies make the dead
present again—indeed, they resurrect, in digital form. Through technol-
ogy, the deceased have come back to life.

Smartphone Memorialization
The portability of smartphones enables a closer (and more constant)
proximity to the dead. With large portions of the population having
access to and utilizing smartphones, creators of smartphone apps have
found a quick and effective way to reach a previously untapped market in
the area of death and dying. Smartphones were introduced in 2007, and
with more than half of all Americans and nearly three-quarters of all UK
citizens using a smartphone, thanatechnologies have transformed the
ways we think about, care for, and interact with the dead. Smartphone
users who engage daily in social media easily transfer their care and
remembrance for the dead by simply reinserting the dead in different
ways in already utilized platforms on their phones. As Martin Gibbs et al.
note in their article “#Funeral and Instagram: Death, Social Media, and
Platform Vernacular,” “Another important property of the materiality of
Instagram is that it is overwhelmingly deployed on mobile devices. This
property is obvious and easily overlooked, but nonetheless it is critical to
the vernacular by enabling Instagram to be embedded within everyday
practices. . . . Photo-sharing on Instagram is an informal, personal, idio-
syncratic and highly social practice that is readily appropriated as funer-
als shift from institutionalized and formal rituals to vernacular events,
182 The Future of the Corpse

with individuals and their families increasingly engaging in forms of

informal and personalized memorialization.”9
Social media platforms such as Instagram that are a part of everyday
life easily migrate from the world of the living to the world of the dead,
with memorialization customs adopting and mimicking those used
between and among the living (pictures, messages, anniversary photos,
etc.).10 In addition to social media platforms, dedicated smartphone
memorialization apps are so deeply intertwined with everyday smart-
phone utilization that the portability and ease of use of these apps inte-
grate smoothly with other available technologies.
Phone applications are so commonplace that funeral homes and ceme-
teries cannot succeed in this competitive market without a corresponding
memorial app function.11 In fact, phone memorialization apps are becom-
ing so mainstream that the U.S. Veterans Association recently contracted
with Keeper Memorials to build out a memorialization system for deceased
veterans. The functionality of this system was rolled out in 2019–2020.12
Founded in 2013, Keeper Memorials13 has a social online memorial plat-
form dedicated to memorializing the lives of the departed; users can cre-
ate a collaborative memorial, where friends and family memorialize the
dead through the interactive software iOs/Android application on their
phone or on the internet. Similarly, RIP Cemetery is a smartphone appli-
cation that allows you to create virtual tombstones on your phone and
carry them with you. On this app you can virtually offer deceased loved
ones flowers and hearts, visit them virtually, and leave them short mes-
sages. Once I’ve Gone is another app that allows you to record any final
wishes and important information, capture special memories and mes-
sages, record your life story for future generations, and even start your
bucket list.
In addition to phone memorialization platforms, other recently added
grief-support apps that allow users to participate in chat groups or access
a therapist (sometimes a live one, other times a chatbot therapist) have
gained in popularity. Most of these support apps function similarly. They
provide information that is accessible through the app, along with sup-
port systems and chat groups that connect grievers—often people with
similar losses, such as spouse losses or losses due to suicide. One can also
record directions on how to access important documents such as one’s
will or insurance policies; the information is kept safely in the virtual
vault until needed in an emergency or upon a death. The Grief Support
Network App14 and My Grief Angels15 are two other free, proximity-based
social network phone applications connecting and supporting grieving
individuals. Both apps contain a trove of online resources and articles.
Digital Tools 183

They also allow the user to join a chat group based on GPS location, so
that the bereaved can find support in real-time and locally. My Grief
Angels’s subscribers are given the moniker of “Grief Angels” and told that
their journey comes with reciprocal responsibilities, and that while they
may be the ones in need of support now, they, themselves, may one day
be helping others—whether it be their families, friends, or others in the
community. Both of these apps rely on building community and support
networks; their GPS-tracking location services make them uniquely
suited for the smartphone’s portable technology.
People also employ “low-tech” technology to remember their loved
ones by not deleting the information of dead individuals in their contact
list, by texting loved ones on certain days, even though there is no one
receiving and answering their texts, and by looking at digital photos and
videos of their loved ones on their devices. These are all technology
enabled, but we are so used to the technology that many of us forget that
these also qualify technically as thanatechnologies. I would argue that
these various forms of technology allow us to speak more about death and
grief but in ways that were previously hidden or not commonly shared in
the last hundred years. Texting, chat rooms, and virtual streaming ser-
vices (Zoom, for example), like photography and postmortem photo-
graphs, have helped bring conversations surrounding death to our
everyday lives. Digital communication has become so commonplace that
many people consider them “low-tech” and don’t remember that these are
relatively new forms of communication. Both texting and chat rooms
allow people to talk with each other in ways that they might not feel com-
fortable engaging in face-to-face. Conversations about dying and death
might then seem “easier” in these forms of conversation, the same way
that photographs and postmortem pictures comfortably situate the dead
within the everyday landscape of the living by being displayed on the
bookshelf or available to peruse in a photo album.

Augmented and Virtual Reality: Shifting the Thanatechnological Landscape

The development and utilization of augmented reality (AR) and virtual
reality (VR) are expanding rapidly, resulting in intriguing new thanat-
echnologies. Augmented reality is a technology that superimposes a
computer-generated image on a user’s view of the physical world, essen-
tially generating a multidimensional and multilayered view of the world
in which the real and virtual collide. There are various uses for AR,
though generally up until 2020, it has mostly been used by the entertain-
ment industry as a way to overlay one’s view of reality with a fantasy
184 The Future of the Corpse

projection or a hologram. The most recent and well-known example of

AR is Pokémon Go,16 in which game participants access a virtual view of
the real world through their smartphones and can “capture” Pokémon
animals worth various points. Virtual concerts featuring deceased stars,
or tour companies featuring a virtual tour guide are also recent and popu-
lar uses of AR technology. In virtual reality, the user creates a computer-
generated three-dimensional world using videos and goggles to achieve
alternate sensory experiences. Some medical schools are using VR as a
way to cut down on costs of securing, preparing, and storing cadaver
donations17 for purposes of practicing surgical techniques and studying
human anatomy,18 while other tech companies have created VR tools to
help reduce pain within a palliative care setting through guided multisen-
sory experiences.19 While some people seem resistant to the thanatech-
nologies of AR and VR, these tools will likely grow more acceptable as
they become more user-friendly and expand their applications. As future
generations become increasingly technologically proficient, AR and VR
will become a more integral part of the thanatological landscape.
As augmented- and virtual-reality technologies advance in application
and expand into different areas of our lives, virtual avatar creation will
become more prevalent. Currently several companies are developing ava-
tar websites expressly made as transhumanist visions for “continuing life
after death.” Notably the concept of augmented reality is not new. Some
will remember, for example, Princess Leia and her urgent messages to the
Jedi knights in the 1970s Star Wars epic. More recently, we have seen a
rising popularity of hologram concerts with music from the dead, for
example with Tupac and Elvis as resurrected versions of themselves per-
forming their music (as illustrated in the earlier Bassett quote). Those in
the postmillennial generation and beyond will be more familiar with
Pokémon Go. AR and VR also add a layer to the Real Life world, in which
the dead are “present” with the help of technological tools. Cemeteries,
such as Florida’s St. Augustine National Cemetery, have implemented
augmented reality tools that visitors can access via their smartphones in
order to tell the stories of the veterans buried in the grave sites.20 “Faculty
and students at the UCF [the University of Central Florida in Orlando]
researched and wrote biographies of the soldiers buried or memorialized
at the cemetery. They used primary sources including government
records, census data and newspaper accounts to uncover information
about veterans’ lives, including their occupations, where and when they
enlisted, how they were killed and other details.”21 In the future, similar
AR applications may become more common in other cemeteries—not just
those of public interest. Digitized grave markers and tombstones may
Digital Tools 185

enable access to personalized stories about the deceased; playlists, photos

and videos from or about the deceased; memorial tributes by loved ones;
digital detritus from social media repositories; and a virtual guestbook for
postmortem visits with the deceased. In short, cemeteries will be able to
“come to life” by reminding the living of the former world and interests of
the dead.
In addition to “fleshing-out” the worlds of the dead, augmented reality
also allows for a critique of dominant discourses by challenging the Real
Life discourse we see every day. For example, some scholars at the Uni-
versity of Florida are creating what they call ARCs (augmented-reality cri-
tiques),22 in which they map a landscape and challenge traditional
assumptions through an augmented overlay accessible through smart-
phones. One project on ghost bikes in Jacksonville, Florida, offers a chal-
lenge to the traditional rhetoric surrounding bike deaths, which tends to
fault the bike rider, by revealing a click-and-point memorial of each bike
death through a GPS.23 In other words, while in Real Life, one might sim-
ply see an intersection of two streets, by clicking on the AR picture of the
landscape, one accesses several years of stories about car accidents and
bike fatalities at a particular intersection. The user reads the personal
details of the individuals involved in the accidents that occurred in that
location and can view videos and pictures about the people who died. In
this way, the deaths are not simply a statistic, but viewed as a contextual
reality, layered with many complexities. The function of the ARC, then, is
to offer a different reality through smartphone technology that challenges
the RL version of reality while telling a history and/or offering a critique
embedded in a geographical location. One could think of many uses of
this technology in the future. For example, in the recent murder of
Ahmaud Arbery, one might embed the video of Ahmaud Arbery as a
click-and-scan point in the location where he was murdered in Bruns-
wick, Georgia, as a way for people to remember his murder and to protest
white supremacy. This would operate as a subversive critique of white
supremacy and be more difficult to dismantle than, say, a poster or a
memorial erected in the same location. In this way, ARCs serve to chal-
lenge and critique the injustices of the Real Life world.
Virtual reality is also being used in innovative ways to help the griev-
ing. A Korean television show recently utilized virtual-reality technology
to reunite a mother with her deceased daughter, Na-yeon, who died from
a blood disorder three years prior, at the age of seven.24 The documentary,
titled Missing You, and produced by Korean broadcasting company MBC,
was created to highlight the possible uses of technology in new and inno-
vative ways—and in this particular show—to help provide a grieving
186 The Future of the Corpse

mother the chance to reunite with her deceased child and tell her she
loves her. Though there was some negative feedback regarding the show,
with some detractors claiming that the show manipulated and preyed on
the grieving family, Na-yeon’s mother, Jang, disagreed, stating that she
appreciated seeing her daughter again through VR goggles. “It’s heart-
breaking that her time has stopped at the age of 7,” Jang said, with a faint
smile. “But I was so happy to see her that way.”25 It remains to be seen
whether this utilization of VR technology is helpful or whether it will pro-
long the grieving experience in unhealthy ways. I can imagine, for exam-
ple, the desire to simply live in the alternate reality with one’s deceased
child. For now, VR still has enough deficiencies in its application that it
could be viewed more like a multidimensional sensory experience (such
as a video) rather than a dangerous tool. Like photography and videogra-
phy, these technologies render the deceased in ways that momentarily
bring the dead back to life, whether in two dimensions, three dimensions,
or four dimensions, but ultimately, the dead are present only temporarily—
and are never completely accessible.

Gaming
In the context of thanatechnology, gaming refers to the playing and
development of video games pertaining to death and grief. While many
games center around dying and death, few games grapple existentially
with the meaning behind dying and death, and even fewer examine the
complex emotions of grief. Examples of the intersection of gaming and
mortal matters are virtual cemeteries in gaming communities where peo-
ple have been establishing and maintaining cemeteries both for charac-
ters in the game who have died and for the RL people behind them.26
Death has long indicated the end of a player’s turn in games. However, in
many games, players can return to life over and over again to try to do
better next time. Numerous games deal with issues of dying, death, and
grief, ranging from phone app games to gaming systems such as Xbox or
PlayStation. One of the more recent games that has intentionally and
directly addressed the subject of death and has won many accolades is a
game called That Dragon, Cancer.27 Available on both Mac and PC and
officially launched in 2016, That Dragon, Cancer is an indie game,28 chron-
icling the journey of Ryan and Amy Green as their youngest son, Ryan,
fights terminal cancer and eventually dies. The hopelessness and despair
that Ryan and Amy felt over the course of Ryan’s sickness and eventual
death are in part what spurred Ryan to make the game. The game is
advertised as “a journey of hope in the shadow of death.”29 In That Dragon,
Digital Tools 187

Cancer, the player sits in the hospital’s intensive care unit while trying to
fight for the son’s life. Various mundane elements of the hospital are cap-
tured in the game’s graphics as the player tries to help Ryan and Amy’s
son, who eventually dies, just as he did in RL. The purpose of this game,
however, is not to help Ryan live longer or outsmart death but to help
people see that they are not alone in their feelings of isolation and des-
peration as they watch their loved ones die. Justin Clark, in his review of
That Dragon, Cancer, writes, “The existential terror and disorientation of
the experience has no real satisfaction, just the hope that expressing it
can let its creators lift the burden. There are no achievements, no points
to be gained. There is only the ability to weave and work abstractly
through the pain of its creators as they did, the interactivity of the medium
allowing them the freedom to craft often virtual cathedrals to stand in
monument of it.”30
Part of the appeal of the game is the fact that it allows for people to care
for the dead in a virtual realm. While Ryan no longer lives in the Real Life
world, he can still be cared for and thought about in the virtual realm,
which brings comfort not only to the creators but gamers as well. Knowing
that your loved one can live on through thought and virtual care can be
comforting to those who can no longer relate in person to the deceased.
For those for whom a spiritual afterlife does not seem real, a virtual gaming
afterlife gives hope in a new way. It is extremely difficult to garner success
in the indie game world, so the fact that this game was so favorably received
suggests that Real Life experiences are viable gaming models.
Another really interesting game in this realm is titled Where Thoughts
Go,31 an interactive VR game that records random, anonymous thoughts
of its participants and archives them in multisensory alien worlds. While
not developed explicitly as grief technology, many users utilize it as a way
to share their more difficult experiences and feelings in an environment
that feels safe and allows them to connect with other anonymous users
who share and validate their experiences. Additionally, the game is
intended to document life experiences and provide them a place to reside.
Designed by Lucas Rizotto in 2017, Oculus markets Where Thoughts Go as
a game that “thematically explores the course of a lifetime through five
simple questions written to dig deep. The voice recordings you hear are
unique and unidentifiable, left by individuals from every walk of life,
every age, and every background. Participants have no way to discern
who they are hearing from, only how considerate and sensitive each and
every person is.”32 Both That Dragon, Cancer and Where Thoughts Go are
important because they demonstrate a new horizon for gaming. No longer
the exclusive realm of action hero games or fun interactive puzzles,
188 The Future of the Corpse

gaming can be recruited to sort out complex and emotional issues.

Whether examining situations or sharing difficult emotions regarding
grief and dying with strangers, gaming provides an alternate space in
which to grapple with Real Life issues and will continue to occupy an
important and valuable place in thanatechnological development.

Griefbots and Transhumanism

Griefbots and transhumanist experiments of uploaded consciousness
are another category in virtual afterlife offerings. Multiple companies are
experimenting with algorithms that can generate text messages mimick-
ing the word phrasing and speech cadence of the deceased based on pre-
viously written texts, emails, messages, voicemails, likes, retweets, and
the like. These companies then take the online corpus of a person’s com-
munication and claim to be able to upload consciousness that people can
interact with after a loved one’s death. As Ananda Mitra writes, “The iden-
tity of an individual is eventually constructed by the combination of narbs
[bite-sized bits of information that by themselves are meaningless, but
constructed together as a whole, convey meaning] that are available on a
social networking site where different kinds of narbs work together to
produce the composite narrative of a person at any moment in time.”33
Thus a composite digital person emerges from their digital bits left online.
In the first episode of the second season of the British science fiction
TV series Black Mirror, the wife orders a griefbot of her dead husband but
then realizes the ways in which this griefbot falls short.34 In this episode,
the wife, mourning the death of her spouse, starts by listening to old
voicemails and reading emails and texts from her dead husband. Subse-
quently, she orders a griefbot that gives her a text-based response system
she can interact with to replicate her husband. She then “upgrades” her
bot to a voice system, based on his old voicemails, before moving on to a
fully upgraded robot version of her husband. I won’t give the ending away,
but this technology is being developed now, and the text-based systems
are already in place, with the other forms of technology not far behind. It
seems that this type of thanatechnology moves into a realm defined by
Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, with the barrier between life and
death too hazy or, perhaps, too close for comfort. In his famous article,
“The Uncanny Valley,” Mori hypothesizes that the closer a robot resem-
bles a human, the more revulsion a person feels—because the robot is
similar but somehow not alike enough to inspire sympathy.35 In other
words, technology should feel strange if it is to be accepted, as robots that
are too similar to human beings make many individuals uncomfortable.
Digital Tools 189

This would explain why people are comfortable with R2D2, the Star Wars
droid, but not with griefbots that look and act like humans and yet are not
fully human, as in the Black Mirror episode.
One of the more successful and prolific drivers of this technology is a
company called Lifenaut.36 Lifenaut has a website that allows users to
develop a profile for free and then “Build an Avatar.” By interacting with
the constructed avatar online on a regular basis, the users “upload”
aspects of themselves for their loved ones to access after the death of the
original user. Martine Rothblatt, the founder of Lifenaut, and author of
Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality, writes,

We cannot ignore the fact that thanks to strides in software and digital
technology and the development of ever more sophisticated forms of artifi-
cial intelligence, you and I will be able to have an ongoing relationship
with our families: exchange memories with them, talk about their hopes
and dreams, and share in the delights of holidays, vacations, changing
seasons, and everything else that goes with family life—both the good and
bad—long after our flesh and bones have turned to dust. This blessing of
emotional and intellectual continuity or immortality is being made possi-
ble through the development of digital clones, or mindclones: software
versions of our minds, software-based alter egos, doppelgangers, mental
twins.37

Essentially, Rothblatt believes that the digital “narbs” that Mitra dis-
cusses (earlier in this section) will function as digital bread crumbs that,
when placed in the right software, will be able to re-create a digital self.38
As Margaret Gibson explains, “Before people die they are always already
distributing themselves into the digital and electronic lives and archives
of others—family, friends, acquaintances and even strangers.”39 It is only
one step further to re-create an electronic self from these digital bits
and pieces.
Lifenaut has nonprofit status as a religious organization, and the com-
pany claims that it is doing its work to reach spiritual and religious goals.
While we might suspect that Lifenaut’s 501(c) 3 status was acquired for
tax purposes, the scholar Tirosh-Samuelson justifies such a designation.
She argues that “transhumanism expresses deep religious impulses in a
secularised idiom of science and technology that previously has been
taken to be in contrast to religion.”40 Echoing Tirosh-Samuelson, Jenny
Huberman argues that “the transhumanist strategy is better conceptual-
ized as a quasi-modern attempt to reconstruct immortality through tech-
nological means.”41 In his groundbreaking study of artificial intelligence,
Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and
190 The Future of the Corpse

Virtual Reality, Robert M. Geraci takes these religious claims one step fur-
ther, arguing that though seemingly anti-religious in their attitudes,
transhumanists in fact borrow heavily from the apocalyptic visions of
Christianity and Judaism. He writes, “Ultimately, the promises of Apoca-
lyptic AI are almost identical to those of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic
traditions. . . . Apocalyptic AI promises to resolve the problems of dual-
ism and alienation in a radically transcendent future where we forsake
our biological bodies in favor of virtual bodies that will inhabit an omni-
present and morally meaningful cyberspace.”42 For Geraci, transhuman-
ism offers an alternate possibility to our anxieties on death, mortality, and
grief and, in so doing, bypasses any religious issues of dualism. Essen-
tially, as Tirosh-Samuelson’s statement about the parallels between the
avatars created by technology and their resemblance to deceased indi-
viduals and the religious notions of a surviving soul makes clear, digital
afterlives can be viewed as more than mere legacy but as parts of our-
selves living online after death. Tirosh-Samuelson expands on these
thoughts:

Even a superficial look at transhumanism indicates that it shares several

features with traditional religions: the pursuit of perfection and the focus
on human improvement; the concern for the betterment of society by
eliminating social ills such as poverty, sickness, and suffering; the pro-
gressive understanding of human history that sees the future as necessar-
ily better than the past; and the preoccupation with transcendence.
Furthermore, transhumanism shares with Western monotheistic religions
a strong eschatological impulse, even though transhumanism speculates
about the eschatological end of the world as a goal that can be accom-
plished by human efforts alone rather than with divine intervention.43

In short, transhumanism operates like a religion because it provides

“ultimate answers to ultimate questions,” and also offers a system of belief
that governs how communities (largely, currently, virtual) govern and
behave. Regardless of whether one takes the religious claims of transhu-
manism seriously, one cannot help but notice the irony that one of the
main functions of transhumanist bots is to help the living work through
their grief over the dead. Those who have died help care for the grieving,
aiding them in processing death by means of a virtual afterlife. One of
Lifenaut’s maxims is that this (transhumanist) technology can operate as
a way for the dead to digitally return to help the living cope with death
and grief by offering advice and comforting the living from the digital
realm.44 In this way, technology is optimistically viewed as a way to ame-
liorate the harsh realities of death.
Digital Tools 191

Death, Grief, and Technology in the COVID-19 Era

While many unexpected changes are occurring in the COVID-19 era,
one of the more surprising outcomes of the pandemic has been the forced
utilization of new and existing technologies surrounding dying, death,
and grief. In hospices, memory-care homes, and nursing homes, staff
have come up with creative solutions to facilitate communication between
residents and their loved ones as lockdowns have forced families to com-
municate virtually rather than in person. Some long-term-care facilities
installed smart speakers (such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa),
allowing families to communicate directly with each other through voice
directives rather than relying on staff to help make phone calls.45 This
level of immersive virtual communication rarely occurred in hospitals,
where COVID-19 kept patients in isolation, with staff often too busy to
facilitate communication between the dying and their families. However,
many overworked doctors and nurses have struggled to provide patients
with the ability to connect with their families, knowing that a virtual con-
versation may be their last probable communication. Though hospital
staff facilitate connection between patients and family as well as between
family and the medical team by means of FaceTime as well as with spe-
cialized, HIPAA-approved software added to their hospital smartphones,
the availability of these resources has not made them universally utilized.
Because of the constant rotation of patients and HIPAA concerns centered
on privacy, hospitals have not been able to utilize smart speaker technol-
ogy in the same way as longer-term residential centers in order to enable
communication between the dying and their families. Hopefully, moving
forward, hospitals will be able to offer communication tools that do not
necessitate intermediary access, while also complying with HIPPA rules,
so that patients in isolation can better maintain connection with their
loved ones.
The most noticeable area of rapid transformation in thanatechnologies
of the COVID-19 era has been in the realm of virtual funerals. When the
pandemic began, a group of approximately eighty scholars, doctors,
funeral directors, death doulas, and grief specialists formed a cohort to
quickly offer solution-focused suggestions for mourning and grieving in
the pandemic era. Their work resulted in a paper for best practices in the
COVID-19 era, titled the “COVID Paper,”46 and a website where all
resources could be quickly and widely shared. Hospices, chaplains,
funeral directors, and others have turned to the site’s technological
options to help people hold funerals and mourn together while physically
apart. The most noticeable shortcoming in the funeral industry has been
192 The Future of the Corpse

among small funeral homes without access to the large web platforms
that global funeral homes utilize and offer to their clientele. COVID-19
has heavily impacted these smaller funeral homes lacking the financial
resources and technological know-how of larger, corporate funeral homes
outfitted with livestreaming and memorialization capabilities. Under
quarantine orders, many people were unable to attend funerals in person
or to fly and gather to mourn a death. This has meant that many smaller
funeral homes have had to quickly learn new (to them) technologies and
figure out ways to hold funerals online for families. The experience of the
virtual pandemic funeral is well documented,47 and while some people
have found with surprise that they prefer the virtual funeral to the in-
person one, others have been lamenting the inability to mourn together in
person. The “COVID Paper” collective consists of many members offering
guidance and free webinars to funeral directors and religious clergy to
train them to provide services with broader appeal and more effective
applications. As a result, many funeral directors who previously did not
have digital or online services have now added digital services and
livestreaming to their more traditional in-person funeral offerings. The
collaboration between those in the technological industry and those in
the funeral industry has exploded in this era. While some technology
companies have donated their services for free and helped to conduct
GoFundMe campaigns to help funeral homes in this area, others have
expanded their digital offerings, filling a void that was present even before
COVID-19. Companies such as GatheringUs charge as much as $1,400 to
$3,500 for a 1.5-hour to 2.5-hour virtual ceremony and reception.48
Regardless, the resulting intersection between the death sector and tech-
nologies as a result of COVID-19 seems as though it will be permanent,
and funeral homes that previously had managed to stay in business with-
out a strong online presence have adapted and quickly modernized in the
face of these demands. New technologies are emerging more rapidly now
than in pre-pandemic times; those who were reluctantly moving into the
digital age before are now doing so at full speed. The COVID-19 era has
wrought a significant transformation in the value of digital technologies
and forced a digital literacy that otherwise might have taken another gen-
eration to achieve.

Technology and Diversity

Technology presents the potential of an alternative afterlife by provid-
ing a platform for people who want to leave an intentional digital foot-
print after their corporeal death. This digital afterlife gives people options
Digital Tools 193

in a postsecular world where religious notions of the afterlife are chal-

lenged or no longer sufficient. Additionally, technology often eschews tra-
ditional hierarchies and allows people access to platforms that circumvent
status and power. Technology enables people to acknowledge the many
intersections of grief—with gender, race, class, and the like—for which
most common grief theories have not accounted. Bruns and Burgess argue
that “each social media platform comes to have its own unique combina-
tion of styles, grammars and logics, which can be considered as constitut-
ing a ‘platform vernacular,’ or a popular (as in ‘of the people’) genre of
communication. These genres of communication emerge from the affor-
dances of particular social media platforms and the ways they are appro-
priated and performed in practice.”49 In other words, technology, as much
as its grammar and expressions, is shaped by software capabilities and
limitations and is also driven by vernacular (popular) expression. While
software may have top-down application, its utilization and eventual
workarounds within that software are driven from the ground up.50 The
implications are dynamic: class, race, gender, and other identities can
impact not only software platforms and their utilization but also everyday
language and grammar.

Conclusion
Technology is increasingly impactful in the area of dying, disposal,
and bereavement as well as death education. It provides ways to carry
the dead with us in multiple forms while also giving us access to spaces
where we can meaningfully talk about death—and its disruptions and
absences—gather community, and reject traditional hierarchies. But just
as humans are complex beings, the technologies they create can also be
utilized in ways that are both constructive and destructive. Technologies
are helping many people to better confront the dying process, but in med-
ical settings, technologies are also often complicit in extending the dying
process beyond the best interest of the patient. Whether augmented real-
ity, virtual reality, gaming, phone apps, or webpages and portals, technol-
ogy expands the discussion centered on dying, death, and grief. Its
portability and easy accessibility allow experiences to be shared, but it
can also be disruptive and surprising. Whether scrolling through unex-
pected posts on social media or finding a tweet documenting the death of
someone we did not know, technology can document the need for social
justice while simultaneously making us feel our lives are more fraught
and precarious than we realized. Technology is not value neutral. It helps
us to care for the dead and to reinsert them in the world of the living,
194 The Future of the Corpse

giving the dead virtual afterlives no longer belonging exclusively to the

religious realm but to a digital world of bits and bytes.

Notes
1. Carla Sofka is credited with creating the term “thanatechnology” to
describe the intersection of death and technology in her 1997 article “Social
Support ‘Internetworks,’ Caskets for Sale, and More: Thanatology and the Infor-
mation Superhighway,” Death Studies 21 (1997): 553–74.
2. For more on this, see my book: Candi K. Cann, Virtual Afterlives:
Mourning the Dead in the Twenty-First Century (Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2014).
3. Commonly used in the computing world, the term Real Life (RL) refers to
the off-line world and habits of everyday life away from computers. However, as
Don Slater points out in his seminal 2002 article, “Social Relationships and Iden-
tity Online and Offline,” in reality, offline and online worlds are commonly collid-
ing and are more frequently mixing—influencing and affecting each other in ways
that make it harder (and perhaps, unnecessary) to distinguish between the two, in
Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs, edited by Sonia
Livingstone and Leah A. Lievrouw (London: Sage Publications, 2002), 533–46.
4. For more on this, see my article: C. K. Cann. “Tombstone Technology:
Deathscapes in Asia, the UK and the US,” in Digital Legacy and Interaction, edited
by Maciel Cristiano and V. Peirera (New York, NY: Springer, 2013), 101–13,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01631-3_6.
5. Conversation with Adelle Archer, CEO of Eterneva, December 18, 2019.
For more on Eterneva, see its website, accessed March 30, 2021, https://eterneva​
.com.
6. In-text citation is found in Alexandra Sherlock’s article, “Larger than Life:
Digital Resurrection and the Re-Enchantment of Society,” Information Society 29,
no. 3 (2013): 164–76, esp. 164.
7. Debra J. Bassett, “Who Wants to Live Forever? Living, Dying and Grieving
in Our Digital Society,” Social Sciences, 4, no. 4 (2015): 1127–39, https://doi.org​
/10.3390/socsci4041127, esp. 1134.
8. Ming Lim, “The Digital Consumption of Death: Reflections on Virtual
Mourning Practices on Social Networking Sites,” in The Routledge Companion to
Digital Consumption, edited by Russell W. Belk and Rosa Llamas (London: Rout-
ledge, 2013), 401.
9. Martin Gibbs, James Meese, Michael Arnold, Bjorn Nansen, and Marcus
Carter. “#Funeral and Instagram: Death, Social Media, and Platform Vernacu-
lar,” Information, Communication & Society 18, no. 3 (March 4, 2015): 255–68,
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.987152.
10. I also discuss this migration of social media customs from the world of
the living to the memorialization of the dead in chapter 4 of Virtual Afterlives.
Digital Tools 195

11. In Front Runner Professional, a marketing news service for funeral homes,
Jesse Davis first noted the need for funeral homes to utilize apps in their busi-
ness in 2015; five years later, that need is truer than ever. See Jesse Davis, “4
Ways a Funeral Home App Can Provide Value to Families While Growing Your
Calls,” Front Runner Professional, October 15, 2015, accessed June 20, 2020,
https://blog.frontrunnerpro.com/4-ways-a-funeral-home-app-can-provide​
-value-to-families-while-growing-your-calls/.
12. Email communication, Jeremy Cohen, December 3, 2019.
13. See Keeper Memorials, accessed December 19, 2020, https://www.my​
keeper.com/.
14. Grief Support Network App is an iOs-based app.
15. http://www.mygriefangels.org, accessed December 31, 2019.
16. Pokémon Go, accessed January 1, 2020, https://www.pokemongo.com​
/en-us. Pokémon Go is an augmented-reality game in which the goal is to “cap-
ture” various Pokémon found throughout the landscape but only visible using
the app. It is an expansion of the Japanese television series Pokémon popular in
the late 1990s and early 2000s.
17. Jeff S. Simpson writes, “There are few statistics on the average cost of human
cadavers in the United States. However, the State of Virginia Anatomical Board put
their cost per cadaver at $1500 in 2011–2012 (Virginia Department of Health,
2012). The national average is most likely closer to $2000 per cadaver. Stainless
steel humidors for cadaver storage range in price nationally from $4000 to $8000.
Six to eight cadavers per class in the traditional setting equates to $12,000–$16,000
in cadaver costs alone, and humidor startup costs could reach $50,000 or more.”
Jeff S. Simpson, “An Economical Approach to Teaching Cadaver Anatomy: A
10-Year Retrospective.” American Biology Teacher 76, no. 1 (2014): 42–46.
18. See, for example, Jose Weber Vieira de Faria, Manoel Jacobsen Teixeira,
Leonardo de Moura Sousa Júnior, Jose Pinhata Otoch, and Eberval Gadelha
Figueiredo, “Virtual and Stereoscopic Anatomy: When Virtual Reality Meets
Medical Education,” Journal of Neurosurgery 125, no. 5 (2016): 1105–11. Other
interesting uses are in immersive technologies for gaming.
19. Meta Medical VR has virtual-reality applications for treating addiction,
dementia, and other issues, in addition to palliative care options. See http://
www.metamedicalvr.com for more, accessed May 25, 2020.
20. Colleen Jones, “Augmented Reality Helps Pay Tribute to Deceased Veter-
ans,” Government Technology, November 30, 2018, accessed May 25, 2020, https://
www.govtech.com/products/Augmented-Reality-Helps-Pay-Tribute-to-Deceased​
-Veterans.html.
21. Jones, “Augmented Reality Helps Pay Tribute to Deceased Veterans.”
22. Trace Augmented Reality Critiques, accessed December 22, 2020, http://
trace-arcs.english.ufl.edu.
23. Madison Jones and Jacob Greene have created an ARC on Ghost Bikes,
titled “Death Drive(r)s: Ghost Bike (Monu)mentality,” that can be found here:
http://trace-arcs.english.ufl.edu/projects/ghost-bike.html.
196 The Future of the Corpse

24. The show, Missing You, MBC Life, can be found with English captions on
YouTube here: MBCLife, “[VR Human Documentary] Mother Meets Her
Deceased Daughter through VR Technology,” February 6, 2020, video, 9.38 min-
utes, accessed December 22, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uflTK8c
4w0c&feature=youtu.be.
25. Minwoo Park, “South Korean Mother Given Tearful VR Reunion with
Deceased Daughter,” Reuters, February 14, 2020, accessed May 27, 2020, https://
www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-virtualreality-reunion/south-korean​
-mother-given-tearful-vr-reunion-with-deceased-daughter-idUSKBN2081D6.
26. Hutchings describes several instances where people have had in-game
funerals, and the various responses to these. See Tim Hutchings, “Wiring Death:
Dying, Grieving and Remembering on the Internet,” in Emotion, Identity and
Death: Mortality across Disciplines, edited by Douglas J. Davies and Chang-Won
Park (London: Routledge, 2016), 55–70.
27. For more on That Dragon, Cancer, see the website http://www.thatdragon​
cancer.com, accessed December 21, 2020.
28. In the video game industry, most games are created by large gaming cor-
porations; indie games are usually games created by individuals or smaller teams
that don’t have the financial backing from large corporations.
29. That Dragon Cancer, accessed December 21, 2020, http://www.thatdragon​
cancer.com.
30. Justin Clark, “That Dragon, Cancer Review,” Gamespot, February 5, 2016,
accessed January 1, 2020, https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/that-dragon-cancer​
-review/1900-6416330.
31. Watch the launch video for Where Thoughts Go to get a better sense of how
the game functions: “Where Thoughts Go: Prologue (Launch Trailer) Rift,” Ocu-
lus, November 10, 2018, 1:43, accessed May 27, 2020, https://www.youtube.com​
/watch?v=1-rwlQRhP9o.
32. Harry Baker, “Where Thoughts Go Is an Intimate Social VR Experience
on Oculus Quest,” Upload VR, December 14, 2019, accessed May 27, 2020,
https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/14/where-thoughts-go-is-an-intimate-social-vr​
-experience-on-oculus-quest.
33. Ananda Mitra. “Creating a Presence on Social Networks via Narbs,” Global
Media Journal 9, no. 16 (2010): 1–18.
34. Charlie Brooker, “Be Right Back,” Black Mirror (television series), 2013.
35. Masahiro Mori. “Bukimi no Tani [The Uncanny Valley],” trans. by Karl F.
MacDorman and Takashi Minato, Energy 7 (1970): 33–35.
36. Lifenaut, accessed December 31, 2019, https://www.lifenaut.com.
37. Martine Rothblatt, Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital
Immortality (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2014), 9–10.
38. “Digital bread crumbs,” or the more commonly used “data trail,” is the
term used to describe the trace one leaves when using any kind of technology
with a chip or tracking abilities—such as the browsing history on one’s computer
or smartphone. It is possible to create a composite snapshot of who you are
Digital Tools 197

through your data trail. Not discussed here, but important to note, nonetheless,
Lifenaut also has an option for people to create “Bio Files” of themselves, in which
their DNA is cryo-preserved in the hopes that they can one day be resurrected as
a biological body to reunite with their digital selves. All of this, however, assumes
that the digital selves will continue to be viable, and many believe that the cur-
rent iteration of the internet as we know it will be obsolete in a matter of time.
39. Margaret Gibson, “Digital Objects of the Dead: Negotiating Electronic
Remains,” in The Social Construction of Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by
Leen Van Brussel and Nico Carpentier (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 223.
40. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, “Transhumanism as Secularist Faith,” Zygon®
47, no. 4 (2012): 729.
41. Italics in original, Jenny Huberman, “Immortality Transformed: Mind
Cloning, Transhumanism and the Quest for Digital Immortality,” Mortality 23,
no. 1 (2018): 50.
42. Robert M. Geraci, Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial
Intelligence, and Virtual Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 9.
43. Tirosh-Samuelson, “Transhumanism as Secularist Faith,” 710–34.
44. This strikes me as similarly ironic to the earlier observance of death denial
being an important aspect of some thanatologists’ identity.
45. See, for example, this article: Sarah Mitroff and Molly Price, “6 Ways Seniors
Can Use Google Home to Make the COVID-19 Quarantine Easier,” CNET, March
28, 2020, accessed on December 21, 2020, https://www.cnet.com/how​-to/6-ways​
-seniors-can-use-google-home-to-make-the-covid-19-quarantine​-easier.
46. Candi Cann et al., eds., “COVID Paper,” accessed December 21, 2020,
https://www.covidpaper.org.
47. My favorite is a funeral service documented in a podcast from the New York
Times called The Daily. Michael Barbaro, “A New Way to Mourn,” New York Times,
The Daily podcast audio, April 24, 2020, accessed May 28, 2020, https://www​
.nytimes.com/2020/04/24/podcasts/the-daily/coronavirus-deaths-grief​.html.
48. GatheringUs, accessed July 16, 2020, https://events.gatheringus.com​/pages​
/price-for-virtual-funerals-and-memorials. Rates vary depending on whether one
wants to hold a weekday ceremony or a weekend one, the length of the ceremony
(1.5 hours for a short one to 2.5 hours including interactive reception with three
rooms), the number of guests, media content, and the number of locations for
presenters.
49. Axel Bruns and Jean E. Burgess, “The Use of Twitter Hashtags in the For-
mation of Ad Hoc Publics,” in Proceedings of the 6th European Consortium for Politi-
cal Research (ECPR) General Conference 2011 (paper presented in the ECPR
General Conference, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 25–27,
2011), accessed December 21, 2020, https://eprints.qut.edu.au/46515/1/The​
_Use_of_Twitter_Hashtags_in_the_Formation_of_Ad_Hoc_Publics_(final).pdf.
50. While Bruns and Burgess argue for the emergence of the hashtag as one
such example, another such example would be the emoji, or more recently the
utilization of gifs to relay one’s emotions through visual rhetoric.
 CHAPTER NINE

A Covenant among
Generations: Keeping Trust in
the Republic and the Law
Bruce Jennings and Catherine M. Hammack-Aviran

Humans bury not simply to achieve closure and effect a separation

from the dead but also and above all to humanize the ground on
which they build their worlds and found their histories. . . . As Homo
sapiens we are born of our biological parents. As human beings we
are born of the dead—of the regional ground they occupy, of the
languages they inhabited, of the worlds they brought into being, of
the many institutional, legal, cultural and psychological legacies
that, through us, connect them to the unborn.
—Robert Pogge Harrison1

In the 18th century, the English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked that
“all argument is against it, but all belief is for it,” concerning the idea that
the dead continue to traffic with the living.2 This chapter is an argument
in defense of belief.
Political thought is a dialogue between a set of questions concerning
the predicaments of the present and the possibilities for the future, and a
remembered archive of wisdom gained in the past. Likewise, membership
A Covenant among Generations 199

in a political community and active engagement in political life tradition-

ally has been viewed as a relationship among the living, the dead, and the
not yet born. For an individual or a larger community, a political and
moral imagination contains many substantive principles and values, but it
is usually informed by a small number of root ideas about human possi-
bility and flourishing. Historically in the West, at least, two modes of
bonding and binding connections between individuals and among peo-
ples have power and resonance as root ideas. The older of the two is
covenant; the more historically recent and currently predominant is
contract.
Both covenant and contract emphasize commitments, relationships,
and bonds that are entered into voluntarily; they underscore the impor-
tance of human agency and parity of recognition within relationships
that are mutually beneficial. In many other respects, however, the two
ideas diverged over time, especially with the rise of commerce and capi-
talism, and today may be said to represent distinct assumptions about
sociality. The idea of contract reinforces individuation, deracination, and
autonomy. By contrast, a less atomistic participant figures in covenant,
one whose ongoing social embeddedness and interdependence are
embraced and enhanced through the assumption and avowal of a perdur-
ing commitment.3 A contract has primarily instrumental value to the
members of a political community (citizens) and creates among them
only transactional possibilities of mutual self-interest and advantage.
Entering into a covenant has a more transformative significance; a cove-
nant has the power to provide new meaning for the lives of those allow-
ing it to inform them. The covenantal commitment is a new significance
in one’s life, an end in itself—not something that is delimited by its util-
ity-producing consequences alone. A contract is a tool of successful doing;
a covenant is constitutive of enhanced being. For this reason, an empha-
sis on the intergenerational connections and duties between the living,
the dead, and the not yet living brings the transformational emphasis of
covenant to the fore more than the transactional emphasis of contract.
Living citizens in the present are not merely less successful but are
fundamentally incomplete without those who came before and will come
after. An exemplar of this from the classical tradition is Aeneas, who car-
ried with him the ashes and relics that were tokens of the memory of the
fallen political community of Troy. Bearing this memory, he is eventually
able to found what will become the future political community of Rome,
the culminating point of Virgil’s epic. In this regard, Aeneas is one of the
figures in the Western canon most burdened with the weight of political
200 The Future of the Corpse

responsibility. He must journey into the domain of the nonliving to even-

tually serve the living, and in the underworld, he encounters both the
spirits of the dead and shades headed toward birth.4
Speaking of ghosts, while making a point about the work of James
Joyce, literary critic Michael Wood notes that they are not “a figure who is
entirely unreal, just one who has become a little faint, lacking in physical
immediacy. Perhaps someone who lives in the memory only, not an
inconsiderable form of life after all. Or in possibility, a spirit from the
future.” A bit later Wood continues, “The point perhaps concerns not so
much the questioned reality of ghosts, or their undoubted persistence in
the imagination, as the trouble they cause for reason. It is because they
don’t exist in several important senses that they do exist in others. The
distinction between the living and the dead matters; we can’t do without
it. And yet there are so many ways of crossing the gap that the mythologi-
cal migrations, the metaphors that are more than metaphors, are not
likely to go away.”5
The tradition of Western political theory has been perennially con-
cerned with metaphors that are more than metaphors. Plato in the Repub-
lic (375 BCE) seeks to understand justice writ large in the polis in order to
understand justice writ small in the soul; Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan
(1651) imagines the state as a crowned giant whose body is composed of
multitudes of subjects, from whose willing obedience its great power
flows; Edmund Burke, appalled by the radical break with the past made
by the French Revolution in the 1790s, sees society as a partnership of
those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born;
Abraham Lincoln, no slouch as a political theorist in his own right, in his
funeral oration at Gettysburg (1863), defines the task of preserving the
best form of government for the sake of the future as keeping faith with
the past sacrifices of the dead.
Among the master tropes of political thought, few have been more
evocative than the notion of covenant, fundamental to ancient Judaism
and pressed into service since the 17th century to authorize and validate
the popular sovereignty of the civic republic. The American Revolution
was one of several in this period that rejected monarchy in favor of a
republic. The preservation and the future perfection of the union of the
American republic were Lincoln’s overriding aspirations. Other republi-
can thinkers have said much the same about the perfection of union in
their own countries. In the generational covenant of the republic, the
dead are no longer biologically embodied, but they are embodied, pres-
ent, agentic, in other ways: in archives, in ideas, in architectures and ritu-
als of remembering, in the duties of memory and trust. The members of
A Covenant among Generations 201

an ongoing political community, to whom the future lives and flourishing

of unborn members-to-be are entrusted, must strive toward a common
good that can endure. As members already but not yet, the unborn exer-
cise a pull of duty and concern that is symbiotically linked with the
entrusted duties and care owed to dead members and duties that living
members owe one another in their current generation. In other words,
what we call the “subjunctive covenant”—a notion discussed further
below—binds together the still living, biologically embodied members of
the political community, the no longer living but extracorporeally active
members, who form the foundational genealogy of the political commu-
nity, and the not yet living members, who exist as possibility or promise
and are therefore present already in the activity of citizenship before their
biological birth.
The subjunctive covenant of “as if” and “could be” justice and equality
is not eternal but is something that each generation must avow anew and
restore. Its eternity, or longevity at any rate, lies in its repetition. Cove-
nants found and bind communities within which membership becomes
fundamental and transformative. They mark us as relational, civic beings.
And as humans are mortal, so is their relationality dynamic and mobile.
Political communities—like other aspects of human life, such as the fam-
ily, the household, and the personal life cycle of each individual—involve
passages of entry, sojourning, and departure. But these passages are to be
seen less in terms of external estrangement versus internal belonging and
more as transitions among various ways in which an enduring member-
ship manifests itself naturally and culturally.6
As we write in 2020, we are witnessing the disproportionate burden
the COVID-19 global pandemic imposed on communities of color and the
grassroots outrage and protest at the seemingly reflexive serial killings of
individuals of color at the hands of the police. This protest has focused
primarily within the United States but has found resonance and solidar-
ity in countries around the world.
Before moving on, we would like to suggest one example of the way
these present concerns can be seen in a historical, intergenerational per-
spective and explore the subjunctive covenant as it emerges today in the
health of the republic. It is our thesis that public health was transformed
by a new covenant forty years ago by its encounter with the AIDS pan-
demic of the 1980s and is now undergoing a similar transformative period
ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The significance of these
events resides in the surprising and influential connections that were
made four decades ago and are beginning to take new shape today. We
refer to the connections between public-health leadership to society, in a
202 The Future of the Corpse

time of peril and social movements demanding that societies close the
gap between social justice and human equality ideals, and the realities of
economic inequality, structural and institutionalized racial discrimina-
tion, and psychological prejudice.
AIDS hit already stigmatized and vulnerable groups the hardest and
immediately raised new kinds of ethical questions about access to health
care, patient privacy, and research efforts to find effective treatment.
Energized by AIDS activism, many in public health have worked actively
to reduce racial disparities in health and have demonstrated how social
inequality and social determinants can contribute to poor health and
reduced longevity. Once again, the burden of COVID-19 has fallen on
poor and minority communities, as has the economic hardship caused by
the widespread shutdown of the economy and ensuing unemployment.
Data reported by the Centers for Disease Control on August 18, 2020,
shows that the COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is 2.1 times
higher than the mortality rate for whites, while the hospitalization rates
for Blacks and Latinx are nearly 5 times higher.7
Another parallel is the tragic but catalyzing incidents of violence and
murder. Gay and transgender persons and Black men and women are all
targets of violent hatred in our society. In the 1980s, under the shadow of
AIDS, violent attacks on gay men were commonplace, as were assaults on
others linked to public fears of AIDS, such as those with hemophilia. In
recent years, many incidents leading to the deaths of Black men in con-
frontations with police have been caught on video and widely circulated.
These cases have led to protest demonstrations and public grief. The kill-
ing of George Floyd in May of 2020 while in police custody in Minneapo-
lis seemed to be a tipping point. It led to an outpouring of protest and
rage over the deaths of Black people due to overly aggressive actions by
police amounting to a reckless disregard for human life. The tragic over-
lap of present deeds with the legacy of past atrocities bespeaks a serious
and enduring moral and political blindness in the United States of pre-
cisely the kind that saps the vitality of an intergenerational democracy
and covenantal republic.
Hence calls for greater justice and equality regarding the social deter-
minants of health are now being augmented by the recognition that struc-
tural racism is itself a significant public-health issue in that it contributes
both to racial injustice and a disproportional burden of ill health among
people of color. In the wake of the pandemic, a converging of health and
social justice may ensue in our political culture. A new form of civic
thinking, a new ethic of health citizenship, may emerge. To bring about
meaningful institutional and behavioral change will require a just and
A Covenant among Generations 203

inclusive solidarity—an understanding that health equity and equality

under the law are aspirations that involve us all as a common good, and
that the quality of our collective and individual health and freedom
depend upon an intricate web of cooperation and interdependence.

The Shared Subjunctive: Politics as if the Dead Still Belonged

This conventional viewpoint—this social and political vision of shared
hypothetical and aspirational community living in time—captures sev-
eral important dimensions of our humanness, including its political
dimension. Living or enacting this covenant is closely tied to a distinctive
notion of ritual, in which the emphasis is not on deciphering the meaning
behind ritual enactment but on seeing the enactment itself as the mean-
ing. Ritual and gestural practices are widespread ways of framing
the intergenerational relationality with which we are concerned in this
chapter. And, of course, ritual and gesture are no strangers to the polit-
ical arena.
In Ritual and Its Consequences, Adam Seligman and colleagues argue
that ritual is not exclusively a religious practice but also has secular cul-
tural importance. They introduce an important conceptual distinction
between ritual and what they call “sincerity.” They argue that “ritual and
sincerity shape group and individual boundaries to create very different
modes of empathy and interaction.”8 These concepts designate forms of
framing experience, action, and understanding, and they exist in all soci-
eties, where they vie for predominance in the ways human beings cope
with ambiguity. They make essentially the same point about ritual that we
have made about covenant as a particular root metaphor of a kind of rela-
tional sociality and political community. Ritual creates an “as if” or “could
be” world of shared aspirations and possibilities, in other words, a “shared
subjunctive.”9 This is analogous to what a covenantal relationality pro-
duces as the ground, the founding moment, of a political community in
pursuit of the common good. It is not that the good itself is subjunctive. It
is rather that the pursuit of the good (the goal of achieving political asso-
ciation together) requires a shared subjunctive (a shared sense that things
could be otherwise and better) in order to create a common ground where
people live as if the good were achievable. The current stress of economic
dislocation and social isolation brought on by the pandemic and the sense
dawning on people of goodwill that enough is enough when it comes to
structural violence against Black people in the United States—these social
phenomena are showing us that indeed a shared subjunctive can be latent
in a political culture and then abruptly break out into the open.
204 The Future of the Corpse

A democratic demand for structural justice might be akin to what cli-

mate scientists call “an emergent property” of a complex system. No sin-
gle cause in the system taken in isolation can account for that property; it
comes from an assemblage of many factors working in synergy. The emer-
gent is unpredictable, and once formed, it may well be irreversible.
By contrast, sincerity is an approach to the world, including the politi-
cal world, based on a declarative “as is” vision rather than a subjunctive
“as if” vision. This shared declarative tends to be totalizing and
absolutist—an unambiguous vision of reality “as it really is.” According to
Seligman et al., the sincerity framing of the world is dominant today and
reinforces “contemporary, liberal autonomous versions of a self-created
universe of individual choice and of an ideal of autonomy freed from any
traditional referents. . . . The tropes of sincerity are pervasively with us, in
both our personal and our shared social world. . . . They are present in
our overwhelming concern with ‘authenticity,’ with individual choice, . . .
if only we can get at . . . what we ‘really’ feel or ‘really think’ then all will
be well.”10
Framing ritual in contradistinction to sincerity (the “could be” versus
the “as is”) in this way, the approach taken by Seligman can broaden and
temper our sense of relationship between past, present, and future in our
lives and give new support for taking seriously the link between the way
we think about and treat the dead and the way we think about and treat
ourselves. Seligman et al. move toward the following conclusions:

We are often too concerned with exploring the different forms of self-
expression and of individual authenticity to appreciate the rhythmic struc-
ture of the shared subjunctive that is the deepest work of ritual. Our social
vision of a world of market utilizers and contracting agents engaged, in the
best of times, in the mutually advantageous pursuit of private goods has
deafened us somewhat to the cadences of ritual, to its work, to the spaces
of its presence, and to the price of its absence. . . . Only through a reen-
gagement with ritual as a constitutive aspect of the human project will it
be possible to negotiate the emergent realities of our present century. . . .
[R]itual creates and re-creates a world of social convention and authority
beyond the inner will of any individual.11

Indispensable belief versus argument, covenant versus contract, shared

subjunctives versus sincere certainty, the dead still among us as fellow
citizens in a disembodied form versus reason—these are the antinomies
of attempts to demarcate the boundaries of the domain of the living and
the dominion of the dead. When sincerity (as is) has become dominant
over ritual (as if), when we frame places of burial as secular places called
A Covenant among Generations 205

cemeteries rather than sacred places called graveyards, these are signs
that covenant is giving way to contract in the cultural meanings readily
available in a society.12 Yet the fact remains that both sustaining, rela-
tional being among humans and intergenerational moral responsibility
require us as citizens to acknowledge what the dead have done to make
us possible—to learn from it, to draw strength from it, to atone for it:
Acknowledge the covenant with gratitude if the work of the past has been
constructive; with humility and correction if it has been unjust and
destructive. Further, to be kept psychologically and meaningfully vivid
and vital, such covenantal responsibility requires ritual enactment as well
as moral imagination. In the global capitalist world of commodification
and monetization, the “as-is” mentality—the transactional individualism
of contractual connections, or “market friendships,” as Thomas Hobbes
aptly put it—is ascendant. How might the covenant of life and death be
sustained so that a persistent yearning by the living to honor the dead
and to fulfill their covenantal trust can be fulfilled?
The subjunctive covenant gives essential norms of place and purpose
to social and individual life, and there is reason to think, from evidence of
burial practices in early sites of the genus Homo, that a sensibility and
imagination named by this covenant are etched in the deep time of human
relationality. The strengths of modern democracy bear this imprint; the
shortcomings of modern democracy bear its effacement. If our generation
or the next fails to recover and carry forward the covenant between the
living and the dead, we may risk undermining our own ability to sustain
legitimacy and voluntary cooperation and compliance within political
systems that aspire to some measure of popular consent, relational soli-
darity, and mutual care and concern as aspirational facets of political life.
That would be a profound civilizational and human loss. It would under-
mine our sense of rootedness and continuity. It would hobble our capabil-
ity to interpret and reinterpret authority, freedom, and duty. We say both
“interpret and reinterpret” deliberately here, because the subjunctive cov-
enant does not require a dogmatic, uncritical traditionalism—far from it.

Renewing Authority from the Past

In the United States today, and in many other political democracies
around the world, the work of justice begun by the dead of previous gen-
erations is not being held in trust, nor are the better angels that could
improve upon past understandings of what justice requires being faith-
fully pursued. The very idea of the civic—associational membership,
equal dignity and respect, and reciprocal rights and obligations—has been
206 The Future of the Corpse

disrupted in several serious ways at home and around the globe: first, by
growing political polarization and violence; second, by deep social, eco-
nomic, religious, and ethnic divides; and third, by the sometimes nefari-
ous use of social media and internet communications that fracture the
citizenry into subgroups according to exclusionary, rather than inclusive,
identities, interests, and values. There can be little doubt that powerful
factors in American political culture are threatening traditional civic ideals
and making it almost impossible to think in seriously intergenerational
terms. The outcroppings of these underlying factors are readily apparent:
partisan political paralysis, loss of trust and confidence, and an extreme
ideological indifference, widespread among officials and citizens alike, to
the public interest when it comes to law or policy. For some time now, the
sense of public purpose in our politics, our governance, and our public
discourse has been eroding. Strength and resilience, as Hannah Arendt
once remarked, are “leaking” from our institutions, drop by drop.13 One
might say the same thing about authority, civility, mutual respect, and
trust. As authority leaks out, alienation seeps in.
In the West, the classical understanding of political action has been
strongly marked by its insistence that only through activity in the public
realm are human beings able to bridge the gap between their past and
their future.14 Political action involves acting effectively in a present,
toward a future of imagined possibilities, and through the medium of
ideas and language inherited from the past: in short, prudence, aspira-
tion, and memory or tradition. This viewpoint on membership, commu-
nity, and time has persisted in part because its origins in ancient Greek
and Roman ideas have been revived periodically in the course of political
theory’s historical development. Our concept of tradition comes from
ancient Roman political thought, as does the word itself: “tradition” (tradi-
tio), a passing along, a handing down, or perhaps a handing back. Tradi-
tion provides bearings and an orientation in which actions can be
identified as unprecedented or innovative, or as providing continuity with
variations on recognizable conventions. Although tradition does not pre-
scribe what should be done (and is being misunderstood when used nor-
matively in that way), it provides us with a way of making sense of what
we are doing.
Armed with this notion of the nature and importance of tradition, the
ancient Romans constructed their understanding of law and political
authority. To act politically, in their understanding, was to receive an
authority vested in the past, to preserve it in the present while coping
with new circumstances, and to transmit it to the hands of future genera-
tions. Thus, for the Romans of the period of the republic, political action
A Covenant among Generations 207

without political memory was inconceivable. For them, politics was liter-
ally the activity of re-membering: the reaffirmation of one’s membership
in a temporal and moral structure that transcends our immediate present
and particularistic self-interest.15
It is crucial to recognize that this notion of passing down from one
generation to the next need not be understood as a kind of value-neutral
conduit. The mere fact that some practice, chattel slavery for example,
was authorized and culturally sanctioned or “vested” by some govern-
ments, economic systems, or social and cultural status groups in the past
does not mean that subsequent generations must venerate it or refrain
from abolishing it simply for the sake of continuity, let alone for the sake
of paying homage to the laws and customs of the past. The idea of tradi-
tion may have come from the ancient Romans, but it did not end with
them. Similarly, with concepts such as authority or liberty, the meaning
of tradition is not itself purely traditional; it is a living idea and practice
that changes and develops over time. It needs a normative compass to
assess and guide this development. Moreover, that normative compass
need not itself be timeless, and moral learning can be developmental. To
paraphrase Martin Luther King’s often quoted remark, the arc of the
moral universe, one might say, can be bent by outside forces but also by
influences acting within an understanding of tradition itself. The duty it
imposes is not perseverance for its own sake but perseverance in pursuit
of the good. If we move from ancient Roman political thought to that of
Renaissance Florence, we take a new step along this path in the political
thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), who puts a new twist on
political action and civic virtue and adds a new dimension to the politics
of the generational covenant. Writing not in favor of an autocratic prince
but a democratic republic, Machiavelli says, “Those [republics] are best
organized and have longest life that through their institutions can often
renew themselves or that by some accident outside their organization
come to such renewal. And it is clearer than light that if these bodies are
not renewed they do not last. The way to renew them . . . is to carry them
back to their beginnings; because all the beginnings of religions and of
republics and of kingdoms must possess some goodness by means of
which they gain their first reputation and their first growth.”16
Despite his later sinister reputation, Machiavelli was a proponent of
republicanism and the subjunctive covenant, secularized by the revival of
civic humanism in his day. When he speaks of a “return” to the founding
goodness of a republic, he means something closer to a renewal or revital-
ization of ideals and aspirations than to a literal going back to past condi-
tions. Yet those who want to return and those who want to renew have a
208 The Future of the Corpse

common understanding of political danger: it is the corruption inherent

in temporality itself. Republics—like their citizens—become complacent,
indifferent, and politically indolent. Their prosperity undoes them as they
become more attached to comfort than to liberty. How to keep the moral
spirit of the founding alive? No doubt this involves many factors, but
among them are ritual practices and other occasions that foster subjunc-
tive thinking on the part of influential elites and among the people at
large, such as public funerals honoring those who died in the service of
the polis (mainly in time of war) and accompanying religious ceremonies,
dramatic performances, and the virtuous use of rhetoric or persuasive
speech. The subjunctive in ritual is the meeting space of present, past,
and future.
And the notion of originary or germinal goodness that lies at the
founding of a political community has two features that are especially
noteworthy here. First, this “origin” resists a single temporal location: it
was, but no more than it is or will be. To carry the republic back to its
beginnings, as Machiavelli counsels, is not to go back to the past but to
rediscover it, to carry it forward to us. The founding goodness is like a
fund in reserve, always waiting to be tapped, perhaps embodying the
dead and sustaining their continuing importance and citizenship. Sec-
ond, the corruption of the body politic is not simply an inevitable process
of decline and decay but is incidental to a loss of contact with the found-
ing goodness, the animating vision of the republic. Therein lies the cor-
ruption, the turn away from civic virtue, liberty, and the common good.
Thus the proper naming of the founding meaning, and even its accu-
rate historical placement, is not of merely antiquarian interest. Consider,
for instance, the 1619 Project, which asks what it would mean to reframe
the history of the United States in reference to the arrival at Point Com-
fort, Virginia, of the first ship carrying a cargo of enslaved Africans.17 The
question is not unique, for Lincoln himself displaced 1787 (the Constitu-
tion) or 1791 (the Bill of Rights) in favor of 1776 (the Declaration of Inde-
pendence) as America’s republican moment, and one reason perhaps is
that the Declaration is a much more unequivocal challenge to slavery
than was the Constitution (before the ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment). Many consider 1619 as the year of America’s original sin; to
see it as the year of our origin would be to see the 250-year history of
chattel slavery and the plantation economy as a fundamental facet of our
founding, what the dead have bequeathed to the living, and in this
instance, a patrimony the republic still must fundamentally and yet more
thoroughly reject. As noted above, the subjunctive covenant requires of us
that we understand and attend to the past thoughts and deeds of the dead,
A Covenant among Generations 209

but it does not require an uncritical embrace of them. The present keeps
faith with the past by correcting its mistakes.18
Hence the work of return has nothing to do with nostalgia or a rejec-
tion of change per se but instead is the work of reconnection and even
re-founding anew. It is a renewal of the avowal of being entrusted in the
present to keep faith with the past and to keep the ground fertile for those
to come.
This mode of thought runs through the entire history of Western epic
literature and political history: in the Oresteia of Aeschylus, which con-
cludes with the founding of Athens through reconciliation between the
force of reason and the opposing force of primal familial duty; in Pericles’s
funeral oration recounted by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian
War, where the aspirational notions of an open society and individual
freedom are held up as possible achievements; in Virgil’s Aeneid, where
the dead city and people of Troy are reborn in the founding of Rome. Yet
perhaps nowhere has the subjunctive covenant been more powerfully
expressed than in Abraham Lincoln’s funeral oration on the battlefield at
Gettysburg.
In just a few words, Lincoln reforges the signature of America as a
people. Begun in 1776, the American republic has been an experiment
with world historical significance because it was founded on the moral
goodness of its conception (“in liberty”) and its dedication to a proposi-
tion (“that all men are created equal”). In 1863, that experiment is being
put to the ultimate test of violence and destruction that will determine
the fate of democracy (government of, by, and for the people) now and for
the future. The founders of the past had an idea and a dedication, a cause
for which the sons of Lincoln’s generation have fought, died, and have
“nobly advanced.”
The duty now falls to those presently living to rescue the republic by
renewing the covenantal idea and proposition, thereby resolving that free-
dom and equality, born in the past and incompletely achieved yet fought
for in the present, will be reborn and will not perish in the future. “It is for
us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
here gave the last full measure of devotion.” Over 150 years after Lincoln
said this, the work is still unfinished and wrenchingly urgent.
Lincoln insists that the living cannot consecrate or hallow the ground
into which the dead have been planted; only the dead can claim their
own continued reverence in the memory of the living. But it falls to the
210 The Future of the Corpse

living to keep faith with the dead by continuing the great work of the
political goodness and moral experiment that those once alive began. The
dead call upon the living to return to the republic’s founding and to reviv-
ify it through the struggle still ahead. This call is answered, can only be
answered, by a resolution now, echoing the dedication of the founders,
then. “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in
vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . .
[and] shall not perish from the earth.”19
The dedication of the dead will be carried on by the resolve of the liv-
ing. This covenant will not die but will be reborn as a source of renewal
and aspiration to those who are yet to be born. It is this with which the
republic and its citizens have been entrusted. Where is that trust located,
and when? In his wide-ranging work on the intergenerational covenant,
Robert Pogge Harrison argues that Lincoln’s main accomplishment is to
ground, to “in-place,” the abstract conception of the nation’s founders in
the soil of place and time:

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Experience” opens with a question to his

countrymen: “Where do we find ourselves?” To this haunting, deeply
American query, Lincoln at the Gettysburg cemetery replies: hic [here].
The word here occurs a full eight times in his brief address. In each case it
points to the ground—“this ground”—to which the martyrs and victims
of the nation’s contradiction, its civil war, have been consigned. A discrete
grammatical breakthrough—from “that nation” at the beginning of the
address to “this nation” at the end—indicated that the securement of
the nation’s hic has taken place, precisely through the sepulchering act
of the address itself. . . . Yet the most important place secured in Lincoln’s
address is perhaps that of the nation’s time. Its hic does not only mark a
geographical “here” but also a historical “now.” . . . America, in short,
needs a place to take place historically. . . . That place is not only upon the
earth . . . but also in the hearts of those who would assure . . . that the idea
of America shall endure.20

Citizenship and Trust

Citizenship, especially in a democracy, is a practice of complex and
reciprocal recognition of fellow citizens as bearers and avowers of civic
trust. Practices of democratic citizenship foster a sense of trusteeship on
the part of all individual members for the well-being of the association as
a whole and its exemplification of justice.
How are we to achieve and motivate such keeping faith, care, and con-
cern with the dead and for the yet to be born? How are we to keep the
A Covenant among Generations 211

intergenerational civic covenant? Trusteeship of the subjunctive covenant

is a demanding practice, but when neglected it can only run on its own
steam for so long. “Keeping” the civic covenant is not static but progres-
sive and depends upon a supportive political, social, and cultural envi-
ronment. The social conscience of citizenship and trusteeship either shut
down or go into hiding during the breakdown of social and political
systems—under conditions of excessive fear, anxiety, widespread and
reasonable suspicion and mistrust, criminal or military violence, and the
arbitrary exercise of state power. Citizenship also falters in the face of
economic destitution, social marginalization, and under the weight of
widespread discrimination, oppression, and exploitation. Supportive
conditions, on the other hand, include hope and progress toward human
rights, civil liberties, impartial justice, and equality under the law. These
conditions, in turn, are sustained by well-functioning democratic repre-
sentative and participatory institutions and practices.
Citizenship is fundamentally self-reflexive in a way many other offices
and roles are not. It is not limited to a job description comprised of a dis-
crete set of roles and responsibilities. Its responsibility is to define respon-
sibility and set its bounds. To be a citizen is to be entrusted in time but
also, in a sense, to be entrusted with time. To be a citizen is to face up to
or recognize one’s own trusteeship and to avow it in a dynamic and recur-
ring way. Power is structural and institutional, while citizens principally
deliberate and vote; so citizens do not exercise power directly, but they do
exercise authority, by which we mean the legitimation of particular uses
of power so that the people are the rightful authors of that power.
Thoughtful citizens therefore recognize themselves in a temporal line
in which authority is handed down to them and must be passed along
from them to those awaiting it, tomorrow, in the next decade, at the end of
the current century. Different political issues have different temporalities
and geophysical rhythms. To be a citizen is to be entrusted in many times:
time present, past, and to come. Bloggers, voters, and ecosystems all react
to the use of political power and authority but at different speeds. Return-
ing to the distinction that Seligman and colleagues make between as-if
thinking (ritual) and as-is thinking (sincerity), citizenship as trusteeship
requires as-if and could-be thinking. As-is or one-right-answer thinking
may be compatible with citizenship as brokerage but not with citizenship
as trusteeship. Ways of seeing—that is, subjunctive and declarative—set
different boundaries between people, living and dead, that permit differ-
ent modes of empathy or solidarity in a political community.
Taking on a public trust is not only demanding and difficult but is also
multifaceted. Three of those facets are germane to the politics of the
212 The Future of the Corpse

subjunctive covenant and should be mentioned here. To be a citizen is to

be entrusted by someone or something, entrusted to attempt or accom-
plish some worthy end, and entrusted with authority over the institution
and practice of trust itself.
Entrusted by. What, precisely, gives one the opportunity to adopt the
posture of avowal and join in the practice of citizenship? Is it what has
come before that has entrusted one with citizenship responsibility? Is it
mere humanity or the natural right of democratic membership? Or the
geographical location of one’s birth or one’s residence and workplace? Per-
haps citizens are entrusted in part by belonging to a civic lineage that
membered them once and still remembers them now. We think remem-
bering might be key here. The tasks of being entrusted to and for require
the building, sustaining, and improving of association. They are funda-
mentally about remembering, by which we mean not so much recall of
what has happened in the past, nor a biological or cultural ethnic or
national heritage, but sustaining associational ties and holding people
together through the intergenerational rhythms of conflict and reconcilia-
tion, fracture and unity, experienced by all of those engaged in the work
of civic associational membership. Re-membering is a reweaving of the
fabric of commonality among members from time to time.
Entrusted to. To do what? What does the practice of citizenship require;
what do the demos (the people) need and expect? What do the dead wait
on the living for? How can the living complete the unfinished meaning of
their lives? Justice, the flourishing of individuals and institutions, and the
common good arise as the principal answer to these questions; they are
the intentions and lineaments of trust in the present.
Entrusted with. Practices of citizenship that keep faith with the trust
bestowed upon them are dynamic, developmental, aspirational, and cir-
cumstantial. Being entrusted with the well-being of the present alone is
not a full specification of this burden and expectation, for the endowment
of trust extends to the realization of a better future as well. Recognizing
that one has been entrusted with present flourishing and future fulfill-
ment of potential does not entail civic hubris and a will to power but
rather opens citizenship to radical hope.

The Dance of the Living and Dead: Entrances and Exits

Recall Michael Wood’s observation about ghosts: it is because they do
not exist in many important senses that they do exist in others. The gen-
erational covenant involves being in some ways and not being in others;
being welcoming of diversity and equality, not being discriminatory and
A Covenant among Generations 213

exploitative. Thus far we have focused politically on the subjunctive, “as

if” senses in which those no longer alive and the not yet alive are still
present. We now turn to the complementary senses in which how the
dead take their leave and how they are respected in their absence are also
important.
We begin with an observation by sociologist Michael C. Kearl: “For
there to be life there must be death.”21 Indeed, not only death, but death
as passing away, is essential to a living society and the individuals in it for
biological, social, and psychological reasons.
Biologically, death is necessary for the evolutionary development of our
species, ensuring a continuous replenishing of the gene pool while effec-
tuating both biological stability and modification. Aside from the ways in
which death facilitates evolution, it also serves to guard against unlimited
population growth that is ecologically unsustainable and may exacerbate
or mitigate gridlock in social positions and roles.22
Sociologically, individuals’ exiting the political community through
dying can facilitate social mobility, movement into and out of roles and
inherited positions, and the redistribution of wealth and power23 —
though, importantly, systemic oppression and discrimination hinder and
restrict these processes for some and reinforce inequities and injustice.
Just as some genetic attributes disappear when their carriers die, so do
some social values fade, recede, or vanish with their adherents. In this
way, political and moral change occurs when older generations pass the
torch to younger outlooks, orientations, and senses of what is desirable
and possible. “For both society and the individual,” Kearl notes, “death is
the proverbial double-edged sword, bringing disruption and yet enhanc-
ing social solidarities, cutting short personal aspirations but also allowing
the upward mobility of younger cohorts.”24 And elsewhere he writes,
“Death commands human attention and its associated rituals . . . [which]
harness death’s power to increase social solidarities and promote
change.”25 As we mentioned earlier, the activism of the Black Lives Matter
movement in 2020 is one illustration of this. Brutal and heinous murders
of people of color at the hands of law enforcement officers are flash points.
But perhaps what has become an intolerable burden is the quieter, every-
day awareness of Black parents that their young adult children have a
target on their backs in a racist society. Amid all the other disparities, the
opposite sides of the color line in the United States are given to different
views of the past because they are allowed to have quite different senses
of security about the future. A sense of mortality is one thing; unremitting
anxiety about an impending phone call informing a parent or spouse of
the death of a loved one is another.
214 The Future of the Corpse

Psychologically, death provides a key function for both individuals and

groups, forcing contemplation and self-reflection. For the living, in Kearl’s
view, it “poses the ultimate of ‘deadlines’ and thereby forces prioritization
and the setting of personal and collective goals”26 and often effectuates an
appreciation of life. Indeed, an awareness of the inevitability and proximity
of death affects the ethical outlook of individuals by increasing their loyal-
ties and allegiances to social norms, values, and codes.27 Researchers have
found that “mortality salience leads to more negative reactions toward
those who undermine the cultural worldview and more positive reactions
toward those who uphold it.”28 Specifically, “when awareness of death is
increased, in-group solidarity is intensified, out-groups become more
despised, and prejudice and religious extremism are increased.”29 Death
“allows a collective forgetting” as well as “collective remembering, thereby
contributing a continuity between a society’s past, present, and future.”30
In sum, the dead and their remains always matter to the living, but
how they matter—the beliefs, behaviors, and rituals constituting respect
and reverence—vary; there are many historical and cultural ways to show
respect and reverence to a corpse and to the dead. What is thought to be
achieved thereby, the motivations and interests underlying respect, vary
as well.

The Laws of the Dead: Respect and Interests

Let us turn now to how the law and many cultural norms structure the
treatment and disposition of the material remains of one who has died. In
keeping with the metaphor of exit or passing out from the republic, this
question pertains to no longer living biological material that remains
behind, that is, corpses (although some nonhuman biological processes
persist through decomposition). How might the treatment and handling
of that material by the living affect the memory of the dead person? What
psycho-social-ethical effects might it have on the living? We argue that
society as a whole is affected by what the law permits and prohibits
regarding the biological residue of a once-alive member of the commu-
nity. The status, treatment, and disposition of human remains is governed
by “the law of the dead,” by which we mean a collection of state and fed-
eral statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions (the “common law”) as
well as local ordinances—all of which lack any consensus on even the
most basic questions regarding decedents and their remains.31 This law of
the dead (and lack thereof) raises questions about respect, memory, and
the value of fulfilling a decedent’s pre-mortem wishes. To the extent
A Covenant among Generations 215

that the law takes cognizance of those considerations, it is an important

part of the covenant among generations.
Myriad legal issues surrounding the dead in the United States are
rooted in 17th- and 18th-century Europe,32 where the church, rather than
civil authority, controlled graveyards and burials, and the bodily remains
of the dead fell under its sole power and jurisdiction.33 This exclusive
ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the dead stemmed from Judaic and Chris-
tian beliefs about the importance of providing funeral rites and preserv-
ing bodily remains for the purposes of eternal salvation or final
resurrection, ge’ullah (Hebrew: ‫)הלואג‬,34 a theological justification that was
further supported by a practical rationale: the church took possession of
(but not a legal property interest in) the bodies buried in the graveyards it
owned, holding the remains in a “trust,” protected in consecrated ground,
until the purported literal resurrection.35
Colonial America lacked a common official church, preventing the
adoption of the English tradition of granting exclusive ecclesiastical juris-
diction over corpses and creating a gap that remains in the law of the
dead today. Despite the general social consensus that the government has
some interest in regulating the disposition of human remains due to its
duties to maintain common decency and public health and safety,36
American common law has generally denied the civil government juris-
diction over the dead, citing lack of precedent.37 Still, some states have
enacted legislation requiring local authorities to fund or manage the dis-
position of unclaimed remains (including donation for medical and other
research regardless of the decedent’s wishes or permissions).38
Another fundamental issue is the legal status of human remains. Half of
the judicial jurisdictions in the United States follow the “no property rule”
of the English common law, which deems a corpse as nullius in bonis, “in
the legal ownership of nobody” or the “goods of no one.”39 American com-
mon law and modern statutory law in the other half of jurisdictions grant
a quasi-property right—or, put another way, impose a duty to the dead
based on social relationships and values—to the decedent’s next of kin.40
A final key issue in the law of the dead is the pervasive challenge of
determining who is subject to harm, who is able to receive protection, and
whose potential rights and interests can be represented in court and mat-
ter in society. It is evident throughout the law of the dead that living per-
sons may hold rights and interests in another’s dead body as well as in
their own future dead bodies. Some scholars have argued further that the
dead may have enduring rights and interests in their own corpse.41 To the
extent that we as a political community value rights and interests and
216 The Future of the Corpse

strive to protect them, we must recognize and consider the specific rights
and interests at stake and to whom they belong.
The covenant between the living and the dead is evidenced in the
respect and honor accorded the dead. In 17th- and 18th-century Europe,
the right to a decent burial—which has been consistently recognized
throughout American common law—was based upon a Judaic and Chris-
tian duty of the living to care for the dead.42 As noted earlier, this duty
was based upon the concept that one’s fate in a literal resurrection and
eternal salvation was directly dependent upon the disposition of one’s
remains.43 A tangential modern theory is that certain legal and/or ethical
interests possessed by a living person survive death and, accordingly, are
subject to harm by postmortem events.44
Instead of (or in addition to) thinking about our covenantal duty as
protecting the physical remains or incorporeal essence of the dead from
harm or suffering, our respect for human remains can be seen as prompted
by an effort to protect the sacred symbol of the once-living person. By
respecting their decedents’ interests, the living honor their ancestors’ lives
as well as their wishes.45
Still, perhaps our paying respect to the deceased is not only an act of
serving the dead but also a way to serve the living. Humans revere the
dead’s remains often with intent to protect the emotional and psychologi-
cal welfare of the decedents’ loved ones, insofar as survivors generally
care (at least to some extent) about the treatment of their decedents’
remains. Notably, the law does acknowledge the interests of family survi-
vors by incorporating “ordinary family sensibilities” into the common
statutory standard prohibiting abuse/desecration of a corpse.46 Further,
families generally have responsibility to oversee the disposition of
remains, and they likely have an interest in avoiding shock, trauma, or
other emotional harm caused by an ignoble posthumous treatment of a
relative. Indeed, legal commentators have argued that families may “have
a legitimate interest in knowing what will be done to a deceased loved
one, and . . . this interest also warrants protection,” though such protec-
tion is not absolute (for example, the limits on family veto of a deceased’s
pre-mortem decision).47
People routinely treat the remains of their loved ones with great respect,
and they also often treat the remains of notable and even anonymous
strangers with great reverence: traffic stops for funeral processions, funer-
als for celebrities and public figures draw large crowds throughout the
country, donations are collected for the burial of anonymous corpses,
sympathetic strangers organize fundraisers to help defray funeral expenses,
candlelight vigils and protests are formed to honor and remember the
A Covenant among Generations 217

recently and long-since deceased. Moreover, discovery (or even suspicion)

of perceived mistreatment of human remains—including, but not limited
to, alleged violations of laws prohibiting abuse of a corpse or other actions
offending “ordinary family sensibilities”—sparks public outrage. A notable
example occurred in New Orleans in 2020 at the site of a collapsed build-
ing, which caused the death of three people. Two of the corpses could not
easily be recovered and became visible to passers-by on the street, causing
a public outcry against plans to demolish the structure before recovering
the remains.48
Indeed, what happens when we die is not a problem for the dead;
rather, it is a problem for the living. In our bioethical relationship with
the dead, our self-perception is at stake—not only as individuals but also
as a society as a whole:

Ultimately, how we view and understand ourselves is at stake. Many of our

core values overlie the questions and answers we ask about how we treat
our body parts [and entire dead bodies]. Most fundamentally, our auton-
omy, dignity, human liberty, and self-determination are at issue, but bal-
anced against these are our sense of ourselves as part of a larger community
and our concomitant duties to help others. . . . The questions are complex
and hard to answer. Yet, given our nature as conscious beings with ethical
sensibilities, we are compelled to ask questions and to attempt to develop
some answers.49

For many purposes in law and morality, prevention of direct injury or

harm to a living person is enough to prohibit maltreatment. Can that
standard be extended to corpses? Rather than harm, concepts such as the
violation of a trust or a promise, or the notion of perceived universal feel-
ings of decency and humanity, may be more pertinent.50

The Law of the Dead: Living Remains

Beyond the material bodily remains of a person, something else
remains after death, something that retains social significance and ethical
weight and is legally “alive.” In addition to rights, control, and standards
of decency discussed above, careful attention should be accorded to how
we deal with the nonphysical presence of the dead, in memory, meaning,
ritual, and culture.
By our very nature as human beings, we have a deep emotional con-
nection to bodies while alive and dead: “We care about our corpses,”
observes legal scholar Hilary Young, “because they are closely linked to
our living bodies, which are central to our concepts of ourselves and to
218 The Future of the Corpse

our autonomy while alive.”51 The law acknowledges this sentiment insofar
as it provides for the living to direct certain posthumous actions or events.
In addition to the long-standing, widely recognized interest in controlling
the disposition of one’s property via wills, estates, and trusts, various
laws and judicial decisions “have almost always recognized the right of a
person to make a testamentary disposition of his dead body.”52 Though
just as the posthumous power over one’s assets is subject to certain limita-
tions, “[i]n the absence of specific statutory authority, a person has, at
best, a very qualified assurance that the testamentary disposition that he
makes of his own body will be fulfilled.”53
However, there are several other justifications for recognizing legal,
ethical, and social interests of the dead, beyond the right to make pre-
mortem binding directions and decisions with respect to postmortem
events. Such recognition mitigates harm to the dead, insofar as a living
person’s right to bodily or reputational integrity may survive death under
an interest theory of rights. Unlike a so-called will theory of rights, which
requires the ability to enforce one’s rights oneself, an interest theory rec-
ognizes a potential for the interests of a living individual to survive
death.54 That is, the legal and ethical interests that we possess as living
members of a political community may remain present in our society
regardless of our biological presence, and those interests deserve some
level of acknowledgment and protection by the surviving members.55
Notably, there is extensive philosophical, ethical, and legal debate regard-
ing issues of whether the dead can have rights or interests, whether they
can be harmed, and how the potential rights-holder is to be identified.56
Further, the law recognizes that living survivors of a particular dece-
dent have an interest in protecting their own personal feelings and emo-
tional well-being surrounding the dead, though this interest may not
always prevail, for instance, as previously mentioned, with regard to lim-
its on next-of-kin veto of a decedent’s pre-mortem directions for disposi-
tion.57 Recognition of some right or interest in the dead also serves to
mitigate harm to individuals within the living community insofar as the
living care about what will happen after their death and, thus, may ben-
efit while alive from knowing (or believing) that they will be respected and
remembered, thereby retaining their membership in a community so that
their identity lives on. This prospect alone may be meaningful and valu-
able to people regardless of actual posthumous events or actions.58 As
Hilary Young points out, “Living people care about what happens to their
bodies after death and we want to give them confidence that their wishes
will be respected after death.”59 This sentiment has long persisted in our
social and legal frameworks, with one New York court opining as early as
A Covenant among Generations 219

1880 that “the dead themselves . . . have rights, which are committed to
the living to protect, and in doing which [the living] obtain security for
the undisturbed rest of their own remains.”60 Still, the issues of whether
or not the dead have legal or ethical rights or interests, and the extent to
which the dead can suffer a harm, are irrelevant in this view.61 This also
goes beyond the community’s interest in disposition of corpses related to
public health and safety.62
We respect and remember the dead as members of our political com-
munity because by doing so, we reassure ourselves that our agency will
continue and our wishes and values will be respected after our own
deaths.63 This agency is not purely metaphorical. The dead can be active
not only in the way they are remembered by the living, but also through
oral histories, written texts of history and literature, art, music, tradition
and ritual, artifacts, and in the way we figuratively and literally construct
our communal spaces, e.g., monuments, architecture, political and legal
systems, and places and systems of interment and memorial. New urban
plans must combine a diversity of memorial spaces with commercial, res-
idential, and transportation spaces as population increases and available
burial space decreases. The political society and the physical environ-
ment in which it operates emblematize the dead—in thought, word, and
deed, as it were, and embody the dead in works of art, architecture, music,
and objects that carry meaning such as monuments, plaques, and
replanned and reconfigured public spaces. The emblems and the embodi-
ment work because they are done with a generational covenant in mind,
alongside whatever private significances they may have for those who
hear, read, gaze on, or walk through them. Moreover, the integration and
re-membering of past generations into our contemporary society through
emblem and embodiment reinforce who we are as individuals as well as a
community and how we function as a metropolis.

Boundaries: How to Respect and Cross Them

Part of the work of re-membering the dead is recognizing actual and
potential boundaries between the living and the dead. These boundaries—
the orderly crossing of them—are essential to a stable political society.
Religious, spiritual, sociocultural, and other beliefs acknowledge such
boundaries. Some perspectives have a particular emphasis on maintaining
boundaries, positing that boundary crossing is impure, contaminating, or
otherwise dangerous or risky for the living.64 According to other perspec-
tives, however, softening these boundaries, commingling the living and
dead (at least for some limited amount of time), is a way to respect and
220 The Future of the Corpse

honor the once-alive members of the community.65 In any case, the

acknowledgment of a boundary, however permeable, retains the dead as
part of the community and culture through remembrance and ritual.
Given these differing perspectives regarding separation and reintegra-
tion, how should we best handle boundaries between the living and the
dead in a pluralistic, secular society? If we do not realize the potential influ-
ence of the dead, and of past (and future) generations, and the rootedness
of our own political community, we do not do justice to solidarity, inclu-
siveness, participation, and other basic democratic and republican values.

Solidarity with the Dead

Lincoln grounded and placed the ideal republic, as he and the Ameri-
can founders understood its moral foundations, in liberty and equality.
Had postwar reconstruction been pursued and completed differently, per-
haps the Thirteenth and subsequent constitutional amendments would
have genuinely offered and re-constructed liberty and equality for all. As
things are, Lincoln’s short speech at Gettysburg is still being written and
uttered. Unfinished civic work must continue. The attempt, against strong
counterpressures, to sustain the fund of founding goodness and the
invested capital of citizen responsibility and avowal goes on. However,
the restoration of authority on behalf of liberty and equality cannot be
accomplished by civic trust and trusteeship alone. To strengthen citizen-
ship in our own time from within and below, an ethos of solidarity needs
also to be generated and sustained. Consider the following formulation by
political scientists Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka: “Solidarity refers to
attitudes of mutual acceptance, cooperation and support in time of need.
In the contemporary context of increasingly diverse societies, we are
interested in a solidarity that transcends ethno-religious differences,
operates at a societal scale, and has civic, democratic, and redistributive
dimensions. Such an inclusive solidarity, we contend, is needed to sustain
just institutions. Although considerable political conflict attended the
emergence of the welfare state historically, just institutions cannot be
built or sustained solely through strategic behavior and partisan contesta-
tion, or through unbounded humanitarianism.”66
To add to this, we would stress that solidarity involves a public recog-
nition of the moral membership and ethical standing of individuals
because they display differences in cultural orientations and modes of life,
rather than despite such differences. Solidarity entails affirmation through
standing up for and with those unjustly treated (and standing up against
those committing the injustice). Solidarity demands that exploitative
A Covenant among Generations 221

relationality and unjust exclusion be displaced by just relationality, recog-

nition, and equal standing.67 Solidarity binds the living in a state of
mutual well-being among all members of the association—as Lincoln
grounded the dead, by locating and naming freedom from oppression as
a common good. This is a state the now-dead furthered while they were
alive and continue to support as their political membership and existence
continue in new manifestations after death. This is the point of tangency
between solidarity and the common good considered from an intergen-
erational standpoint. It is the political psychology and the moral ethos of
each in all and all in each. It seemingly requires more than simply the
words of the living; it also requires the words of the dead and the ritual
recognitions by the living keeping faith with the dead and receiving the
authority the dead pass down.
At its heart, solidarity involves a recognition of and an acceptance of
membership in a web of obligations to affirm, attend to, and deal fairly
with others, buttressed by the expectation that they will fulfill their obli-
gations of membership toward you in the same way. Extending such
expectations across generations, both backward and forward, helps to
strengthen and reassure contemporaneous expectation among the cur-
rent generation. If the lives of the dead—those who fall in battle or are the
victims of terror, violence, or hate—do not matter, then the worth of the
lives of the living is not truly secure either. Solidarity thus contains a rec-
ognition that individual well-being and rights do not exist in a state of
isolation but inhabit an ecology of common flourishing that can neither
be achieved nor fully enjoyed by individuals acting on their own. Solidar-
ity builds on historical memory and tradition and looks to the future. It
feeds on the gratitude we feel when we remember the services and contri-
butions by those who have lived before us or when we have the moral
imagination to foresee the contributions that subsequent generations will
make and the necessary changes that future generations will demand.
Solidarity begins with the recognition of reciprocal and symbiotic inter-
dependence among members of a moral community; it intervenes in—
interrupts—an ongoing community, which is unjustly exclusionary and
refuses to recognize the moral standing of some individuals and groups
within it. Solidarity inherently leads us to view our own lives and agency
as bound together with the rights, well-being, health, and dignity of oth-
ers here and now, there and then, already, but not yet.
At Gettysburg, Lincoln planted ancestors to put the republic in place
on the solid ground of a political morality still unfinished, on footings—
in words that are also deeds—that will stand firm. The work of citizens
entrusted with a covenant, not the labor of gravediggers and their
222 The Future of the Corpse

shovels, is what mattered to Lincoln then, and it is also what matters—or

should matter—to us now. Memorable moments occur from time to time
in our civic life, such as Thurgood Marshall’s Bicentennial Speech in 1987
reminding us that the Constitution of 1787 was still unfinished, Barack
Obama’s address in Chicago on the evening of his election as the first
Black president of the United States, or Greta Thunberg speaking at the
United Nations and calling the current generation in power to account for
its betrayal of the earth and of her generations’ future.68 It is important,
however, to bear in mind that more private memorial moments, how we
take our leave from and remember the dead, are also part and parcel of a
culture’s fabric of re-membering backward with the past and forward
toward the future. That fabric is an important component of how we can
renew and revitalize our communal present.
The question we have been exploring in this chapter is how far in time
well-being and justice extend. Do they reach a notion of keeping faith
with the dead, with who they were, what they have built or destroyed,
and how they have made the world of the living possible? Do they reach a
notion of care and stewardship of the present so that those who are to be
born will enter a world of well-being and justice that is fully and equita-
bly accessible to them, even if it had not been to all their predecessors and
progenitors? The answer to these questions must be yes.

Notes
1. R. P. Harrison, The Dominion of the Dead (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2003), xi.
2. J. Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (London: Penguin, 2008), 648.
3. D. Elazar, Covenant and Civil Society: The Constitutional Matrix of Modern
Democracy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998).
4. Virgil, The Aeneid, 6.880ff., trans. Robert Fagles (New York, NY: Viking
Press, 2006): 207–12.
5. M. Wood, “Icicles by Cynthia,” London Review of Books, January 2, 2020, 13.
6. For an interesting interpretation of the Declaration of Independence that
develops this perspective, see D. Allen, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declara-
tion of Independence in Defense of Equality (New York, NY: Liveright Publishing,
2014).
7. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “COVID-19 Hospitalization
and Death by Race/Ethnicity,” accessed September 9, 2020, https://www.cdc​
.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization​
-death-by-race-ethnicity.html.
8. A. B. Seligman, R. P. Weller, M. J. Puett, and B. Simon, Ritual and Its Con-
sequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity (New York, NY: Oxford University
Press, 2008), 6.
A Covenant among Generations 223

9. Seligman et al., Ritual and Its Consequences, 7–8.

10. Seligman et al., Ritual and Its Consequences, 8.
11. Seligman et al., Ritual and Its Consequences, 10–11.
12. Terms such as “graveyard” and “cemetery” may be used synonymously by
most people now, but the shift in terminology is historically significant as a
move away from a spiritual and religious worldview to a commercial one. See T.
W. Laqueur, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains (Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015).
13. H. Arendt, On Violence (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1970), 84.
14. This may be true of other cultural traditions as well, and we suspect that
in Chinese Confucianism, for example, something analogous about intergenera-
tional continuity is strong. But our focus here is Western. On Confucianism see
R. N. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011): 399–480.
15. H. Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1977),
17–40; 91–141.
16. N. Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy, 3.1, in Machi-
avelli, The Chief Works and Others, 3 vols., trans. Allan Gilbert (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1965), I:419.
17. See “The 1619 Project,” New York Times Magazine, August 18, 2019.
18. Another work by a distinguished American historian that develops these
notions and explores these themes is E. Foner, The Second Founding: How the Civil
War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution (New York, NY: W. W. Norton,
2019).
19. We have consulted the text reprinted in G. Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg:
The Words that Remade America (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 263
and passim.
20. Harrison, Dominion of the Dead, 28–29.
21. Michael C. Kearl, Endings: A Sociology of Death and Dying (New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, 1989), 206.
22. Kearl, Endings, 67–111.
23. Kearl, Endings.
24. Kearl, Endings, 111.
25. Michael C. Kearl, “Social Functions of Death,” in Macmillan Encyclopedia of
Death and Dying, accessed February 2, 2020, https://www.encyclopedia.com​
/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/social-functions​
-death.
26. Kearl, “Social Functions of Death.”
27. Kearl, “Social Functions of Death.”
28. Abram Rosenblatt, Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski,
and Deborah Lyon, “Evidence for Terror Management Theory: I. The Effects of
Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Violate or Uphold Cultural Val-
ues,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 4 (1989): 681–90, 688.
29. Kearl, “Social Functions of Death.”
224 The Future of the Corpse

30. Kearl, Endings, 86.

31. Tanya D. Marsh, The Law of Human Remains (Tucson, AZ: Lawyers &
Judges Publishing Co, 2016), 3–15.
32. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
33. See Tanya D. Marsh and Daniel Gibson, Cemetery Law: The Common Law
of Burying Grounds in the United States (n.p.: God’s Acre Publishing, 2015); and
Mark Pawlowski, “Property in Body Parts and Products of the Human Body,”
Liverpool Law Review 30 (2009): 36.
34. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. 7 vols., eds. Fred Skolnik and Michael
Berenbaum (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale; Jerusalem, Israel: Keter Pub-
lishing House Ltd., 2008) s.v. “Ge’ullah.”
35. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
36. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
37. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
38. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
39. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
40. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
41. Hilary Young, “The Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implica-
tions of Whose Right It Is,” Marquette Elder’s Advisor 14, no. 2 (2013): 197–267.
42. Marsh, Law of Human Remains, 3–15.
43. Marsh, Law of Human Remains.
44. See Joel Feinberg, “Harm and Self-Interest,” in Law, Morality and Society:
Essays in Honour of H. L. A. Hart, eds. J. Raz and P. Hacker (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1977), 285–308; Joel Feinberg, “The Rights of Animals and Unborn Gen-
erations,” in Philosophy & Environmental Crisis, ed. William T. Blackstone (Ath-
ens: University of Georgia Press, 1974), 43–68.
45. Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose
Right It Is,” 197–267.
46. Mark R. Wicclair and Michael DeVita, “Oversight of Research Involving
the Dead,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14, no. 2 (2004): 143–64.
47. Wicclair and DeVita, “Oversight of Research Involving the Dead.”
48. Katy Reckdahl and Richard Fausset, “Firefighters Shield Body Trapped in
Rubble of New Orleans Hotel,” New York Times, January 22, 2020, accessed March
30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/us/new-orleans-hard-rock​-hotel​
-collapse.html.
49. E. E. Appel Blue, “Redefining Stewardship over Body Parts,” Journal of Law
and Health 21, no. 1 (2008): 75–82, 87.
50. Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose
Right It Is,” 211–14.
51. Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose
Right It Is,” 214.
52. B. C. Ricketts, “Annotation, Validity and Effect of Testamentary Direction
as to Disposition of Testator’s Body,” American Law Reports 7, 3rd § 1(a) (1966).
53. Ricketts, “Annotation, Validity and Effect of Testamentary Direction as to
Disposition of Testator’s Body,” 749.
A Covenant among Generations 225

54. Matthew H. Kramer, “Do Animals and Dead People Have Legal Rights?,”
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 14, no. 1 (2001): 29–54; Kirsten Rabe
Smolensky, “Rights of the Dead,” Hofstra Law Review 37, no. 3 (2009): 763–803;
Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose Right
It Is,” 197–267.
55. Catherine M. Hammack-Aviran, “Research on the Newly Dead,” in Oxford
Handbook of Research Ethics, eds. Ana Iltis and Douglas Mackay (New York, NY:
Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
56. Barbara Baum Levenbook, “Harming Someone after His Death,” Ethics 94,
no. 3 (1984): 407–19; Ernest Partridge, “Posthumous Interests and Posthumous
Respect,” Ethics 91, no. 2 (1981): 243–64; Feinberg, “Harm and Self-Interest”;
Joel Feinberg, “The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations,” in Philosophy &
Environmental Crisis, ed. William T. Blackstone (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1974), 43–68.
57. Wicclair and DeVita, “Oversight of Research Involving the Dead”; Marsh,
Law of Human Remains, 41–56.
58. Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose
Right It Is,” 207–211.
59. Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose
Right It Is,” 201.
60. Thompson v. Hickey, 8 Abb. N. Cas. 159, 167, 59 How. Pr. 434, 438 (N.Y.
Sup. Ct. 1880).
61. Thompson v. Hickey.
62. Marsh, Law of Human Remains, 41–44 and passim.
63. Young, “Right to Posthumous Bodily Integrity and Implications of Whose
Right It Is,” 200–201 and passim.
64. See, e.g., Shulhan Arukh (Orach Chaim 4:18).
65. See, e.g., Día de Muertos.
66. K. Banting and W. Kymlicka, “Introduction,” in The Strains of Commitment:
The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies, eds. by K. Banting and W.
Kymlicka (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 10.
67. B. Jennings and A. Dawson, “Solidarity in the Moral Imagination of Bio-
ethics,” Hastings Center Report 45 (2015): 31–38; and B. Jennings, “Solidarity and
Care as Relational Practices,” Bioethics 32 (2018): 553–61.
68. Justice Thurgood Marshall, Bicentennial Speech, Maui, Hawaii, May 6,
1987, accessed March 30, 2021, http://thurgoodmarshall.com/the-bicentennial​
-speech; President-elect Barack Obama, Victory Speech, Grant Park, Chicago,
Illinois, November 4, 2008, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.washington​
post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110500013_pf.html; and
Greta Thunberg, Address to United Nations Climate Action Summit, New York,
September 23, 2019, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com​/news​
/world /read-greta-thunberg-s-full-speech-united-nations-climate-action​
-n1057861.
 CHAPTER TEN

New Mortuary Technologies

and Memorial Designs
1

Caitlin Campbell and Karla Rothstein

As more people become aware of the environmental harms of both cre-

mation and chemically embalmed burial within a decomposition-resistant
casket and concrete grave liner or vault, demand for sustainable disposi-
tion methods grows, especially in dense urban areas where widespread
green burial is likely infeasible. Several recent and now-emerging tech-
nologies adapt practices as old as civilization to the climate and resource
challenges we face today. Some, such as alkaline hydrolysis and cryoma-
tion/promession, mimic elements of industrial cremation, with the body
placed in a machine and reduced to particles within a matter of hours.
Others, such as recomposition and anaerobic bioconversion, effect accel-
erated biological decomposition in reusable vessels. These technologies
provide new disposition options that better serve modern societies,
inspire reflection on what is necessary, respectful, and desirable after
death, and lay the groundwork for new spaces of memorialization.
DeathLAB, a research and design initiative affiliated with the Colum-
bia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preserva-
tion, unites strategic design with science that is simultaneously
cutting-edge and grounded in naturally occurring biological processes to
address evolving cultural beliefs and escalating environmental pressures.
Together with its interdisciplinary partners, DeathLAB has developed the
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 227

AfterLight design proposals as an elegant, resourceful solution to a com-

plex yet ubiquitous reality. By changing the spatial and experiential land-
scape of death, such proposals can shift our collective relationship to this
fundamental aspect of life, building a legacy of substantive cultural regen-
eration and laying the groundwork for extensive environmental reform.

New Mortuary Technologies

Alkaline Hydrolysis
Alkaline hydrolysis is at present the most widely available alternative
disposition technology in the United States. It is variously marketed as
resomation, aquamation, and flameless-, bio-, green-, or water-cremation.
Like industrial cremation, it reduces consumption of land, as well as
materials for caskets, grave liners, and vaults, but without combusting
mercury dental amalgams and with a fraction of the carbon footprint and
energy use. One study found that the net environmental impact of this
process is not just less than that of burial or cremation but that the recy-
cling of metal from implants that it facilitates may fully offset its contribu-
tions to climate change.2
In commercial funerary alkaline hydrolysis, the role of the crematory
retort is taken by a stainless-steel cylinder in which the body is placed
along with a solution of water and a caustic chemical. The solution is then
heated. Machines that operate at higher temperatures, which complete
the process more quickly than their “low-temperature” counterparts,
employ pressure to prevent boiling.3 Over the course of three to twelve
hours, depending on temperature, the body is reduced to a sterile liquid,
which, once treated, can be poured down the drain (or used as fertilizer,
although this is rarely practiced with human remains), and soft, brittle
bone matter that can be crushed into a powder resembling “cremains.”
Implants and pacemakers can be sorted out afterward for recycling, rather
than extracted in advance, as pacemakers must be to prevent explosions
during flame cremation. The process is believed to be effective at break-
ing down DNA, RNA, and embalming solutions and other toxins, includ-
ing those used in chemical and biological warfare. Its facility at unraveling
transmissible prions has led to applications for both animal and human
remains infected with pernicious diseases such as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (mad cow) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.4
Alkaline hydrolysis was patented in the late-19th century for disposing
of farm animal carcasses and generating fertilizer.5 Modern use of this
228 The Future of the Corpse

technology began in the early 1990s at the Albany Medical College to dis-
pose of the carcasses of animals used in experiments involving radioiso-
topes. It was subsequently applied in laboratories and veterinary clinics
and then for human cadavers at medical teaching institutions such as the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The groundwork laid by the Mayo
Clinic led to Minnesota becoming the first state to allow the commercial
funerary use of alkaline hydrolysis in 2003.6 While states such as Min-
nesota and Washington have altered their laws to expressly include alka-
line hydrolysis, others have expanded their definition of “cremation” to
permit it. In Kansas, for instance, “cremation” is now defined as a
“mechanical and/or other dissolution process that reduces human remains
to bone fragments.”7 The question of whether alkaline hydrolysis consti-
tutes a form of cremation and is therefore permissible under existing state
law, which in turn often depends on whether that law defines cremation
in terms of combustion, has been crucial in legalization. The Cremation
Association of North America has ruled that alkaline hydrolysis is indeed
a form of cremation, while the National Funeral Directors Association
maintains that it is not. As Tanya D. Marsh discusses in chapter 5, “Mod-
ernizing the Law of Human Remains: Challenges and Opportunities,”
interpretation of funerary law has resulted at times in controversy. Nota-
bly, a funeral director who understood Ohio law to permit alkaline hydro-
lysis used this disposition method on nineteen bodies before being halted
by the state’s Department of Health and rebuked by the Ohio Board of
Embalmers and Funeral Directors.8
While some members of the funeral industry see in alkaline hydrolysis
the opportunity to better serve their customers, others, especially casket
producers, have lobbied against its legalization. Compounding these
efforts, certain Catholic officials and groups have deemed the process dis-
respectful and undignified. Despite the fact that embalmers routinely
pour blood down the drain, lurid suggestions have been made that sterile
effluent disposed of via the same route will return to be consumed as
drinking water in unwitting, de facto cannibalism, drawing connections
to grisly pop culture creations such as Soylent Green and Hannibal Lecter.
While such objections have defeated proposed legislation in states includ-
ing New York (2012), New Hampshire (2013 and 2014), and Indiana (2015),
demand for sustainable options is eroding opposition.9 As of 2020, alkaline
hydrolysis is permitted in twenty U.S. states although available in fewer
than half of those states, due in part to the costs for funeral homes of acquir-
ing the necessary machinery.10 It is legal in three Canadian provinces, as
well as the Northwest Territories, and under consideration in a fourth;11 the
Bereavement Authority of Ontario, where the process is permitted, has
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 229

urged further research to ensure that low-temperature alkaline hydrolysis

is as effective as its high-temperature counterpart at destroying prions.12
Alkaline hydrolysis is also permitted in Mexico, Costa Rica, and South
Africa.13 The Dutch are on track for legalization in 2021.14 It is allowed in
parts of Australia, although the government-owned corporation Sydney
Water has withheld approval for disposal of the effluent via the municipal
sewer system; it is used instead to fertilize forests.15 While alkaline hydro-
lysis is not illegal in the United Kingdom, funeral home operators will
likely forebear on offering it until the government issues guidance to
ensure compliance with public decency and health laws.16

Human Composting
In some parts of the world, cremation has long been the dominant
method of disposition. In others, such as the United States, United King-
dom, and Canada, it is quickly supplanting burial as the most commonly
elected option. Given the growing understanding of the extent to which
humans are destabilizing the climate, it is unsurprising that a small
industry has sprung up targeting consumer demand for ecologically
responsible ways of dealing with cremated remains. Seeds with biode-
gradable urns are marketed on the premise of “turn[ing]” oneself or a
loved one “into a tree.”17 Such promises are dubious, as flora does not
thrive in cremated remains. Plant growth depends on eighteen nutrients,
seventeen of which can be found in the human corpse and made available
via decomposition. “Cremains,” which are largely pulverized bone, con-
sist mostly of phosphate, calcium, and sulfate. Anecdotal evidence indi-
cates that cremated remains can harm plant life (with a possible exception
in contexts hostile to growth due to highly acidic soil, as the calcium may
boost the surrounding pH) and provide little to no actual nourishment.
The phosphorus in cremated remains is insoluble, making it difficult for
plants to access.18
Some companies attempt to address these issues and cultivate growth
from—or at least amid—cremated remains. Let Your Love Grow begins
with the assertion that “cremated remains are toxic to plant life” to mar-
ket an additive intended to facilitate the successful incorporation of ashes
into soil by balancing pH and sodium levels.19 To protect plant life, Caro-
lina Memorial Sanctuary, a conservation cemetery, forbids the scattering
or burial of untreated cremated remains. It has partnered with The Living
Urn, which, like Let Your Love Grow, attempts to render cremated
remains ecologically innocuous using a proprietary additive.20 While such
products may allow growth alongside and in spite of cremated remains, it
230 The Future of the Corpse

is unclear whether the supplemented cremated remains provide signifi-

cant nourishment to plants, or contribute in meaningful ways to natural
cycles. And any nutrients that could be salvaged from ash and bone would
be insufficient to counter the environmental harms of the cremation pro-
cess, as discussed in chapter 2. No amount of greenwashing can trans-
form cremation into an ecologically beneficial option.
Examined earlier in both “Corpse Preservation and Final Disposition
Methods: Impact on Urban Centers and the Environment” and “Rethink-
ing the Role of the Funeral Director,” conservation burial is an environ-
mentally responsible form of disposition that meaningfully supports
plant life. Where conservation burial is not possible and for those to
whom in-ground burial does not appeal, human composting technologies
are emerging as a sustainable option. In cryomation or promession, the
corpse is frozen in liquid nitrogen and then reduced to particles through
vibration. After freeze drying, metals are removed using magnets and the
remaining matter, an odorless powder around 30 percent of the original
body weight, can be returned in a biodegradable vessel and buried to
serve as fertilizer.21 These remains take up less space than an intact corpse
and break down within six months to a year of interment. UK-based Cry-
omation claims that the carbon footprint of its process is 30 percent that
of cremation. It has received grants from organizations including Inno-
vate UK and is currently seeking funding to build a Cryomator.22 Its com-
petitor Promessa, founded by Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak in
2001, has undertaken outreach around the world and been licensed in
the UK, South Africa, and South Korea, but its technology appears to
have been applied only to livestock so far. In 2019, Promessa attempted to
introduce its method in Kansas. After the attorney general determined
that promession did not constitute cremation even under the state’s rela-
tively permissive laws, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives
raised the possibility of introducing legislation to legalize it.23 Following
Wiigh-Mäsak’s death in September 2020, the organization has indicated
its intent to continue working to realize her vision.24
A distinct approach to human composting has recently emerged and
gained noteworthy ground in the United States: recomposition, which
involves accelerated, oxygenated decomposition in a reusable vessel.
Recompose began as the Urban Death Project in 2014. Through this non-
profit, architect Katrina Spade sought to explore the feasibility of human
composting and to make it available and appealing to the public. Grants
as well as crowdfunding from over 1,200 backers on Kickstarter sup-
ported early research. In 2017, the Urban Death Project became Recom-
pose, a public benefit corporation, and began to raise seed funding. It
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 231

Figure 10.1 Recompose, natural organic reduction vessel with door open.
(Image courtesy of Recompose and Olson Kundig)

sponsored a 2018 Washington State University study demonstrating the

efficacy and safety of its process on donated human cadavers.25 In 2019,
due in large part to the advocacy of Recompose, Washington state law
was revised to permit the disposition of human remains via “natural
232 The Future of the Corpse

organic reduction,” the “contained, accelerated conversion of human

remains to soil.”26 In December 2020, Recompose opened the Green-
house, a former warehouse in the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area that
can accommodate up to ten corpses at a time.27 It markets a “Precompose”
prepayment plan in monthly installments or a lump sum of $5,500 and
has begun fundraising for new locations.28 Capitalizing on Washington’s
new law, the Herland Forest Natural Burial Cemetery quickly built a com-
posting container, and Return Home began marketing its own take on
natural organic reduction, terramation.29 In the first half of 2021, legisla-
tion to allow natural organic reduction was introduced in California and
New York, and signed into law in Colorado and Oregon.30
To expedite legalization, Spade’s design evolved from a silo housing a
“collective core” that would contain multiple bodies in various stages of
decomposition to vessels more akin to individualized private graves (see
figure 10.1). After the removal of pacemakers to prevent electrical interfer-
ence with the system, the corpse is placed in an eight- by four-foot steel
cylinder with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. The cylinder is slowly rotated
to enable oxygenation and mixing. Facilitated by carbon, nitrogen, and
moisture, microbes decompose the entire body, including bones and teeth,
over the course of around a month. Temperatures within the vessel reach
at least 131 degrees Fahrenheit for several days, destroying most pathogens
(Recompose does not accept bodies with Ebola, prion diseases, or tubercu-
losis, or those that had radiation seed implants within thirty days prior to
death). The vessel is then cleared and prepared for reuse. During a two- to
four-week curing period, the resultant material is dried and checked for
artificial joints, metal dental fillings, and other nonorganic materials. With
a volume nearly sufficient to fill the bed of a pickup truck, this “soil amend-
ment” can be returned to the family or donated to Bells Mountain, a land
trust in southern Washington.31 According to Recompose, the process
offers the chance for “tangible and personal action in the fight against cli-
mate change,” preventing emissions relative to conventional burial or cre-
mation of a metric ton of carbon dioxide per individual.32

Anaerobic Bioconversion
A newly emerging potential option, like the other disposition technolo-
gies discussed in this chapter, seeks to apply techniques already in use for
other purposes to human remains. The cultivation and calibration of
microorganism colonies to wield anaerobic or aerobic digestion in service
of human health and the environment is a recognized and growing field.
Engineered biological systems sanitize and recover resources such as
energy, chemicals, and nutrients from food waste, industrial waste, and
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 233

sewage. Drawing on the energy latent in the materials they process, some
bioreactors essentially fuel themselves.33
The corpse is a contradiction, simultaneously dead and energetic.
Death triggers new biological and chemical processes; some of the esti-
mated thirty-nine trillion bacterial cells that live on and in us shift into an
active ecosystem of decomposition to begin the work of dismantling the
body and redistributing its building blocks.34 The Columbia University
DeathLAB is exploring the potential of anaerobic bioconversion to effect
accelerated decomposition and capture and transform the energy intrin-
sic to the corpse. To undergo anaerobic bioconversion, the corpse would
be placed in a reusable vessel with a carefully calibrated microbial bath
designed to transform it over the course of several months into organic
and inorganic remains and a functional biogas. The nutrient-rich remains
could nourish plant life, and metal implants would be reused or recycled.
The biogas could have various applications. DeathLAB is seeking to
instrumentalize this gas, and by extension the interdependent cycles of
growth, decay, and renewal that produce it, to fuel an ethereal memorial
light. The glow, waxing during decomposition, would eventually dim as
the process concluded, indicating a reassertion of life and readiness of the
system to accept and acknowledge another loss. Some of DeathLAB’s
designs call for aggregation of these AfterLight vessels to generate per-
petual landscapes honoring the deceased (see figure 10.2 and discussion
below). In these projects, continuous fluctuations in the constellation of
light echo the waves and rhythms of life on both an individual and collec-
tive scale.
DeathLAB has partnered with Dr. Kartik Chandran, Columbia profes-
sor of earth and environmental engineering and MacArthur Foundation
Fellow, to develop anaerobic bioconversion as a natural and carbon-
neutral means of human disposition. Initial laboratory research has
demonstrated the potential of this process using scaled-down proxies for
the human body. Lengthier systematic studies under controlled and
repeatable conditions will assess variables of temperature and body com-
position and the effects of pharmaceuticals, other inorganics, and existing
microbes in the corpse. These studies will pinpoint the optimal balance
of bacterial species to address all constituents of the human body, deter-
mine process parameters to control the speed of disaggregation, and ana-
lyze gaseous bioproducts. DeathLAB and Chandran’s lab are working
with the university’s Clinical Gross Anatomy and Anatomical Gift pro-
grams to advance their research to human cadaver testing. Drawing on its
collaboration with Chandran and Columbia Technology Ventures, as well
as a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
(NYSERDA) climate technology business-mentoring program, DeathLAB
234 The Future of the Corpse

Figure 10.2 DeathLAB: Democratizing Death, at the 21st Century Museum of

Contemporary Art, in Kanazawa, Japan. (Design and image: DeathLAB and
LATENT Productions Architecture)

intends to prototype and develop the bioconversion vessels and memorial

installations through the commercial spinoff, AfterLight, in partnership
with cemeteries and municipalities. Fundraising, outreach, and legal
advocacy are underway to make available to the public a new disposition
option with minimal energy requirements, near-zero emissions, reusable
infrastructure, and no dangerous waste by-products.

AfterLight: New Rituals and Spaces of Remembrance35

The technologies described in this chapter have emerged from and
reinforce an increasing concern regarding the ecological consequences of
individual actions. Although adding to the two standard options available
after death is necessary in itself, it is also the catalyst for another crucial
development: spaces that recalibrate relationships with death at the scale
of individuals, communities, and the city. The interdisciplinary team at
Columbia’s DeathLAB is responding to a design challenge that is cultural
and environmental, technical and emotional, intimate and impactful,
humanist and urgent. In this final section, we share just two of several
innovative and practical proposals for new spaces of disposition and
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 235

memorialization that engage anaerobic bioconversion as a viable urban

funerary paradigm, enabling dense global cities to responsibly attend to
the mortal remains of their citizens for centuries to come. The emphasis
is on urban areas because cities are where the majority of the population
lives and where the lack of burial space is most critical, but the concepts
underlying these projects can be translated for broader application.
The AfterLight projects eschew permanent monuments that claim pos-
session in perpetuity, instead defining physical sites that invite return.
Continuity arises from a shared place rather than a private tomb. Accu-
mulating palimpsests of lives and memories, these civic-sacred parks
endure, while each body is allowed to dissipate. The dead transform and
pass through, nourishing evolving commemorative landscapes. Friends
and loved ones have a place to return to that is a tribute to the deceased,
a space for both sorrow and the celebration of life, and a reflection of the
vibrant communities to which they belong. Although nondenominational
in nature, these proposals reassert spiritual concern for honor and civility
and embody an intergenerational accountability for environmental, spa-
tial, and emotional resources.

Sylvan Constellation
In 2016, the University of Bath Centre for Death and Society and the
historic, forty-two-acre Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol, England, selected
Sylvan Constellation as the winner of the Future Cemetery competition.36
The proposal, jointly designed by DeathLAB and LATENT Productions,
envisions anaerobic bioconversion fueling a shifting constellation of trib-
ute lights that evoke fluid intersections of contemporary life and unsteady
states of memory. In addition to generating extensive media coverage and
fostering local collaborations, the award reflects support for the cultural
evolution that Sylvan Constellation encourages and would require.37
Designed in response to the challenges of respectfully increasing the
capacity of a Victorian-era heritage cemetery and the specificities of place
and community, Sylvan Constellation imagines AfterLight vessels embed-
ded in the forest floor where space allows. But the majority of the 150-
vessel network is raised on slender steel pylons into the woodland canopy
to form a cyclical framework of vitality and remembrance in dialogue
with the trees (see figure 10.3). The site topography remains largely
unmodified yet perforated by new precincts activated by and available to
the public. If fully realized, Sylvan Constellation would double the capacity
of the equivalent area of earthen burial within six years and preserve far
more vegetation.
236 The Future of the Corpse

Figure 10.3 Sylvan Constellation, at the Victorian Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol,
England. (Design and image: DeathLAB and LATENT Productions Architecture)

With its business model of serial occupancy, the project would provide
a practically endless burial ecosystem, generate long-term revenue, and
sustain lasting engagement between cemetery and city while minimizing
impact upon the plant and animal life so crucial to Arnos Vale’s educa-
tional programming. Arnos Vale is already interwoven in the life of its
community as a site for wedding celebrations and a shortcut for local chil-
dren walking to and from school. Sylvan Constellation embraces Arnos
Vale’s spirit of reinvention and social involvement. The proposal reinforces
the cemetery’s parallel roles as nature conservatory, classroom, and venue
for performances, fitness, and private events, while mediating between
historic monuments and the cosmopolitan life just beyond the gates.
Sylvan Constellation establishes a model that could be adapted to aug-
ment the capacity of cemeteries around the world, especially in crowded
urban areas such as New York City. As discussed in chapter 2, earthen
burial has been illegal in most of Manhattan for over 150 years, and New
York City is quickly running out of plots. Due to this shortage and associ-
ated increases in burial costs (along with some amount of repatriation of
corpses overseas), around two-thirds of all New York City residents who
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 237

elect interment are buried outside of the five boroughs.38 This ostracizing
of the dead from the city perpetuates a physical and psychological mar-
ginalization of death and atrophies our appreciation of life’s finitude and
sense of connection to generations past and future. While New York City
cemeteries constitute an aggregate gated area more than five times the
size of Central Park, providing valuable ecological habitat and serving as
cultural repositories, they are lightly utilized as civic amenities. Cemeter-
ies have always resided in a complex intersection of private and public,
sacred and political, but as these spaces have receded from quotidian life,
their influence has waned. AfterLight installations could help cemeteries
remain relevant and continue to serve their constituencies indefinitely,
reaffirming the cemetery as a locus of contemplation and expanding
access to new public realms. While the potential of AfterLight vessels to
augment the capacity of existing cemeteries is clear, their adaptability and
scalability suit them to other sites and infrastructures as well.

Constellation Park
One breath declaring to one another: I see you. I need you. I am you.
—Richard Blanco, “Declaration of Inter-Dependence”39

In their collaborations since 2009, DeathLAB and LATENT have pro-

duced, in addition to pragmatic designs such as Sylvan Constellation, ambi-
tious provocations. These bold proposals are intended to instigate
consideration of an underexplored territory to catalyze future possibility.
The DeathLAB and LATENT architects believe that change begins with
imagination. Cultural imagination, shaped by what people see, feel, and
discuss, can foster responsive ideological exploration. Critical visual imag-
ination can instigate the scientific and social changes necessary to advance
potentials toward reality and open fresh space to meet urgent needs.
One such provocation, Constellation Park, transcends the bounds of the
cemetery and the social, medical, and logistical constraints that distance
the living from the corporality of death. Constellation Park envisions
a public memorial tethered to the diverse vitality of urbanity. This
civic-sacred realm parallels the Manhattan Bridge deck with a three-
dimensional network of vessels in which a corpse undergoes biological
conversion and its energy fuels a glowing tribute (see figure 10.4). In a
network grafted to the underbelly of the bridge, 10,000 lives could be
memorialized each year, producing an elegant constellation to illuminate
a new humanist terrain. Over the course of a century, Constellation Park
could honor over a million lives, in addition to hosting three miles of bike
238 The Future of the Corpse

Figure 10.4 A network of AfterLight vessels grafted onto the Manhattan Bridge
interweaves new public space into the New York City skyline. (Design and
image: DeathLAB and LATENT Productions Architecture)

paths and five miles of pedestrian trails beneath the bridge’s seven lanes
of roadway and four subway lines (see figure 10.5).
In Constellation Park, grief is respected but not cloistered. Semiprivate,
sheltered zones coexist with larger ones hosting funerals as well as wed-
dings, concerts, and other gatherings that allow us to see and support one
another. Pathways knit the multilevel territory into the city. These inter-
connected loci of death, remembrance, and daily activity are fortified by
the cycles and energies of urban life, accommodating grieving and con-
templation alongside recreation and rejuvenation. In this context, grief of
diverse definitions, scales, and durations is supported. The necessity of
such places became particularly apparent in 2020, a year of heightened
polarization and alienation in the United States coupled with the physical
isolation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the United States and
the rest of the world eventually emerge from these traumas, civic and
social suffering will need and deserve spaces of repair and healing that
celebrate our mutuality and fundamental interdependence.
Constellation Park could augment the city with a site for intimate
remembrance, democratic participation, and care. By establishing places
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 239

Figure 10.5 Plan of Constellation Park, with AfterLight vessels, public pathways,
and gathering spaces. (Design and image: DeathLAB and LATENT Productions
Architecture)

Figure 10.6 Civic-sacred space supporting the coexistence of diverse celebra-

tions of life amid AfterLight vessels. (Design and image: DeathLAB and LATENT
Productions Architecture)

to be vulnerable in public and to cultivate an awareness of our imperma-

nence, DeathLAB seeks to (re)build solidarity and compassion. This proj-
ect aims to uplift the dignity of human attendance, catalyzing empathy,
civility, and healing (see figure 10.6). To be present in this space is to
walk among strangers and those no longer with us, aware that their strug-
gles and resiliency impact us all and that collective well-being merits the
work necessary to attain it. Death is seen not as an absence of life but
rather an integral aspect of our intertwined humanity and a potent
reminder of our stewardship responsibilities for the future of the planet
and for one another.
240 The Future of the Corpse

Conclusion
Crisis is a crucible of change.
—Susan Herman, constitutional scholar and
president of the American Civil Liberties Union40

The corpse bears weighty religious, psychological, and cultural associa-

tions. Ideas about how the corpse should and should not be treated may
seem immutable and deeply ingrained. However, the eclipsing of burial by
cremation as the dominant disposition method in the United States illus-
trates just how rapidly forces such as economic pressure, changing reli-
gious views, and geographic transience can reshape expectations,
especially in a relatively young country. Many Americans have become
concerned about the environment, dissatisfied with traditional disposi-
tion practices, and eager for alternatives. The need for new options will
only grow more acute as burial plots are exhausted in cities. As evinced by
the enthusiastic crowdfunding support of the Urban Death Project, ven-
ture capital raised by Recompose, over 1.7 million views of a TED Talk in
which Jae Rhim Lee presented a mushroom burial suit designed to break
down toxins and expedite decomposition, New York Times best sellers by
“death positive” funeral director Caitlin Doughty, and selection by New
York Magazine of Constellation Park as a “reason to love New York,” there is
a fresh curiosity surrounding death and a willingness to explore questions
that have too often been dismissed as off-putting, inappropriate, or grim:
What transformations does the corpse naturally undergo?41 How do
chemical embalming and burial or cremation suspend or circumvent
these transformations, and are such interventions desirable? What are the
realities of embalmed burial and cremation, and what are their implica-
tions for land use, the environment, and the future?
The desire for more ecologically responsible disposition methods and
frank discussions of death has certainly grown over recent decades.
Although awareness of the burial plot shortage may increase quickly with
media coverage, it is a crisis centuries in the making. But in 2020, change
came abruptly when the pandemic forced radical adjustments in expecta-
tions surrounding death, and many trappings and familiar rituals had to
be given up. These changes have been profound enough that, even when
large, in-person funerals are once again possible, the industry will con-
tinue to transform, adapting to new realities and renewed priorities. The
interlinked crises of 2020 have laid bare a pressing need for structural
change to address evolving values and social and environmental
precarity.
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 241

By both drawing on and transforming accepted practices, environmen-

tally respectful disposition technologies are increasingly meeting the
needs of modern global citizens in ways that can provide solace and
meaningful ritual to the living and honor the dead. These new methods
foster further innovation as we contemplate the spaces in which they
should occur. Visionary and pragmatic design has the potential to address
the communal and infrastructural shortcomings of existing memorializa-
tion. Collective civic-sacred places of death and remembrance validate
grief and promote the attentiveness that a consciousness of mortality can
evoke. With its AfterLight proposals, DeathLAB seeks to reweave the
ubiquity of death into the fabric of cities, reminding us of humanity’s
interdependence with all life and the responsibility the living share to
fortify the future. By enshrining space for death in the everyday, these
illuminated networks will foster healthier relationships with the planet
and accountability across generations.

Notes
1. Elements of this chapter were adapted from Karla Rothstein, “The New
Civic-Sacred: Designing for Life and Death in the Modern Metropolis,” MIT
Design Issues 34, no. 1 (Winter 2018): 29–41, https://doi.org/10.1162/
DESI_a_00474; Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt, Post-Mortem: Sustainable
Disposition and Innovative Spaces of Remembrance (Columbia University Press,
forthcoming); and Rothstein, “Reconfiguring Urban Spaces of Disposal, Sanctu-
ary and Remembrance,” in Our Changing Journey to the End: Reshaping Death,
Dying and Grief in America, eds. Christina Staudt and Harold J. Ellens, vol. 1.,
New Paths of Engagement (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014), 253–76.
2. E. E. Keijzer and H. J. G. Kok, Environmental Impact of Different Funeral
Technologies (Utrecht, Netherlands: TNO, 2011), 5, 38.
3. Gerald A. Denys, “Validation of the Bio-Response Solutions Human-28
Low-Temperature Alkaline Hydrolysis System,” Applied Biosafety 24, no. 4
(December 2019), https://doi.org/10.1177/1535676019871389.
4. Philip R. Olson, “Flush and Bone: Funeralizing Alkaline Hydrolysis in the
United States,” Science, Technology, and Human Values 39, no. 5 (September 2014):
667–68, 677, 686, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0162243914530475; see WHO
Guidelines on Tissue Infectivity Distribution in Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopa-
thies (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2006), 11, accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.who.int/bloodproducts/cs/TSEPUB​ LISHEDREPORT.pdf; R. G. L.
Murphy, J. A. Scanga, B. E. Powers, J. L. Pilon, K. C. VerCauteren, P. B. Nash, G.
C. Smith, and K. E. Belk, “Alkaline Hydrolysis of Mouse-Adapted Scrapie for
Inactivation and Disposal of Prion-Positive Material,” Journal of Animal Science
87, no. 5 (May 2009), https://doi.org/10.2527/jas​.2008-1492.
242 The Future of the Corpse

5. Cremation Association of North America, “Alkaline Hydrolysis,” accessed

August 2, 2020, https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/alkalinehydrolysis.
6. Olson, “Flush and Bone,” 672.
7. See 32-S.F. No. 1071, Sess. of 2003 (Minn. 2003), accessed March 30,
2021, https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/2003/0/Session+Law/Chapter/32; “Con-
cerning Human Remains,” SB 5001 (Wash. 2019), accessed March 30, 2021,
http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2019-20/Pdf/Bills/Session%20Laws​
/Senate/5001-S.SL.pdf; K.S.A. 65-1760 (Kan. 2010), accessed March 30, 2021,
https://www.ksrevisor.org/statutes/chapters/ch65/065_017_0060.html.
8. Olson, “Flush and Bone,” 673–74.
9. See Olson, “Flush and Bone,” 681.
10. Adina Solomon, “More States Legalize Dissolving Bodies in Water,” U.S.
News and World Report, March 12, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www​
.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-03-12/more-states-legalize-alkaline​
-hydrolysis-dissolving-dead-bodies-in-water.
11. Belle Puri, “Funeral Director among Those Pushing for Cremation Alter-
native that Dissolves Bodies in Water,” CBC News, February 12, 2020, accessed
March 30, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/aquamation​
-cremation-alternative-bc-1.5458716.
12. Bereavement Authority of Ontario, “Straight Forward—Alkaline Hydro-
lysis,” February 12, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://thebao.ca/straight​
-forward​-alkaline-hydrolysis.
13. “FAQ: Aquamation,” Aquamation, accessed August 2, 2020, https://
aquamationinfo.com/faq.
14. “Dutch Set to Approve of ‘Cremation by Water,’ New Legislation Next
Year,” DutchNews.nl, November 17, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/11/dutch-set-to-approve-of-cremation-by-water​
-new​-legislation-next-year.
15. Nick Kilvert, “Natural Burials, ‘Water Cremation’ and More — Here’s your
Guide to a Sustainable Funeral,” ABC News, April 26, 2019, accessed March
30, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-04-27/green-death-funeral​
-environment/10994330.
16. Hannah Rumble, John Troyer, Tony Walter, and Kate Woodthorpe, “Dis-
posal or Dispersal? Environmentalism and Final Treatment of the British Dead,”
Mortality 19, no. 3 (July 2014), https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2014.920315.
17. See, e.g., Bios, accessed October 18, 2020, https://urnabios.com.
18. J. Niziolomski, J. Rickson, N. Marquez-Grant, and M. Pawlett, “Soil Sci-
ence Related to the Human Body after Death,” Literature Review Produced for
the Corpse Project, March 2016, 1–3, accessed March 30, 2021, http://www​
.thecorpseproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Corpse-and-Soils-literature​
-review-March-2016.pdf.
19. Let Your Love Grow, accessed October 16, 2020, https://letyourlovegrow​
.com/pages/about.
20. Cassie Barrett, “Cremated Remains: Options for Green Burial and Scatter-
ing,” Carolina Memorial Sanctuary, October 25, 2017, accessed March 30, 2021,
New Mortuary Technologies and Memorial Designs 243

https://carolinamemorialsanctuary.org/cremated-remains-options-green-burial​
-scattering.
21. See “How it Works,” Promessa, accessed October 18, 2020, http://www​
.promessa.se/about-life-death.
22. “Research and Development,” Cryomation, accessed October 18, 2020,
http://cryomation.co.uk/research-development.
23. Jonathan Shorman, “Can You Get Your Body Vibrated into Particles When
You Die? Debate Unfolds in Kansas,” Wichita Eagle, November 30, 2019, accessed
March 30, 2021, https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article​
237888864.html; Isabel Conway, “A Blooming Good Idea for Organic Burials,”
Irish Times, May 31, 2011, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.irishtimes​
.com/news/health/a-blooming-good-idea-for-organic-burials-1.587262.
24. “In Memory of Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak,” Promessa, accessed December 4,
2020, http://www.promessa.se/about-susanne-wiigh-masaak-founder-of-promessa.
25. “Who We Are,” Recompose, accessed October 18, 2020, https://recompose
.life/who-we-are/.
26. “Concerning Human Remains,” SB 5001, 2.
27. See Brendan Kiley, “COVID Moves Recompose, the Human-Composting
Alternative to Burial and Cremation, into Smaller Space, Accelerated Timeline,”
Seattle Times, August 7, 2020, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.seattle​
times.com/life/covid-moves-recompose-the-human-composting-alternative​
-to-burial-and-cremation-into-smaller-space-accelerated-timeline.
28. “Plan Ahead,” Recompose, accessed October 18, 2020, https://recompose​
.life/planning-ahead/.
29. Brendan Kiley, “Competition Emerges in the Seattle-Area Human-
Composting Funeral Business,” Seattle Times, September 30, 2020, accessed
March 30, 2021, https://www.seattletimes.com/life/competition-emerges-for​
-recompose​-the-human-composting-funeral-home; see Return Home, accessed
April 30, 2021, https://www.returnhome.com/.
30. Bryan Pietsch, “The Departed Could Soon Become Compost in Colorado,”
New York Times, April 29, 2021, Recompose, accessed July 19, 2021, https://
recompose.life/2021/.
31. “Our Model,” Recompose, accessed October 18, 2020, https://recompose​
.life/our-model; Anna Swenson, customer and communications manager, Recom-
pose, email to Karla Rothstein, December 16, 2020.
32. “Plan Ahead,” Recompose.
33. “More Efficient Models for Environmental Sustainability,” Interview with
Kartik Chandran, SciTech Now, May 21, 2018, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www.pbs.org /video/more-efficient-models-environmental-sustainability​
-wwt0eh.
34. Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes within Us and a Grander View of
Life (New York, NY: Contain Multitudes: The Microbes within Us and, 2016), 10.
35. These projects were included as part of the exhibition DeathLAB: Democ-
ratizing Death, exhibited at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in
Kanazawa, Japan, and Onsite: Karla Rothstein at Art OMI in 2018.
244 The Future of the Corpse

36. “Winner of the 2016 Design Competition: Future Dead,” Arnos Vale,
accessed December 11, 2020, https://arnosvale.org.uk/winner-2016-design​
-competition-future-dead; “Researchers Reimagine the Future Cemetery at
Arnos Vale,” University of Bath, March 1, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://
www​.bath.ac.uk/announcements/researchers-reimagine-the-future-cemetery​
-at-arnos-vale.
37. See, e.g., Emily Matchar, “Cemeteries of the Future,” Smithsonian Magazine,
April 7, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com​
/innovation/cemeteries-future-180958674; Sarah Griffiths, “An Enlightened
Idea! Cemeteries of the Future Could Power Lights Using Human Remains,”
Daily Mail, March 21, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.dailymail​
.co​.uk/sciencetech/article-3502683/An-enlightened-idea-Cemeteries-future​
-power​ -lights-using-human-remains.html; Lacy Cooke, “Here’s what the
Environmentally-Friendly Cemetery of the Future could Look Like,” Inhabit,
March 10, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://inhabitat.com/heres-what-the​
-environmentally​-friendly-cemetery-of-the-future-could-look-like.
38. Wenhui Li, director, Statistical Analysis and Reporting, Bureau of Vital
Statistics, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, email to B.
O’Brien, March 11, 2016. From 2010 to 2013, 52% of burials of New York City
residents occurred outside of New York City but within New York, New Jersey, or
Connecticut; 4% in the remainder of the continental United States; and 9%
outside of the United States.
39. Richard Blanco, How to Love a Country (Boston: Beacon Press, 2019), 1–2.
40. “2020 Kahn Humanities Lecture: Covid and the Constitution,” Brooklyn
Public Library, Zoom event, October 13, 2020.
41. See Jae Rhim Lee, “My Mushroom Burial Suit,” TEDGlobal 2011, July
2011, accessed March 30, 2021, https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee_my​
_mushroom_burial_suit; Caitlin Doughty, “About,” accessed October 18, 2020,
http://caitlindoughty.com/about; “Reasons to Love New York,” New York
Magazine, December 12, 2016, accessed March 30, 2021, https://nymag.com​
/intelligencer/2016/12/reasons-to-love-new-york-2016.html.
 Onward
Karla Rothstein and Christina Staudt

Paradigm shifts are underway. During the turbulent year of 2020, a deadly
pandemic, social unrest, and harsh political divisions exposed the United
States’ raw inequities and disgrace in perpetuating national narratives
born out of dominance and subjugation. Amid the fray and layers of grief,
the fibers of technology and the sacrifices of essential workers held the
fabric of our lives together. Along with heartbreak and chaos, certain emo-
tions seemed to surface more frequently than in the recent past—among
them, compassion, empathy, hope, desire for justice and truth. Historically
in the West, these values are religious tenets that connote deeply held—
sacred—convictions, but they have roots in many cultures and philosoph-
ical systems. Eternal, social, and relational pillars, necessary for individual
survival and community,1 they provide common ground to reimagine inte-
gration across difference, joining past and present, life and death.
Moral deliberations begin with noticing. We envision a culture brave
enough to unshield and recognize the grief and joys of strangers. Out of
diverse and fluctuating societies, new narratives and structures of support
will be constructed on foundations coordinating practices to the zeitgeist,
illuminating what deserves our attention and care. Physical spaces of
public convening play a pivotal role and can transcend dogmas and
accommodate both material and transmundane purposes. Enmeshing
intimate and communal life, these places integrate the sacred with the
quotidian to reflect shared and humane sensibilities, and a commitment
to a more respectful future.

Note
1. Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh, and Jeremy Adam Smith, eds., The Compas-
sionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010).
 Essential References

Ariès, Philippe. The Hour of Our Death. Translated by Helen Weaver. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981. (Orig. L’homme devant la mort. Paris: Edi-
tions du Seuil, 1977.)
Barrett, Char. “I’m a Funeral Director. The Pandemic Has Made Saying Goodbye
Painfully Lonely.” Washington Post, April 1, 2020.
Basmajian, Carlton and Christopher Coutts. Planning for the Disposal of the Dead.
Florida State University Libraries Faculty Publications, 2010. http://
diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:207217/datastream/PDF/view.
Bassett, D. “Who Wants to Live Forever? Living, Dying and grieving in Our Digi-
tal Society.” Social Sciences 4, no. 4 (2015): 1127–1139. https://doi​
.org/10.3390/socsci4041127.
Bassett, Debra J. “Ctrl+Alt+Delete: The Changing Landscape of the Uncanny Val-
ley and the Fear of Second Loss.” Current Psychology (2018): 1–9. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-0006-5.
Beard, Virginia R. and William C. Burger. “Change and Innovation in the Funeral
Industry: A Typology of Motivations.” Omega: Journal of Death and Dying
75, no. 1 (May 2017): 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815612605.
Bernstein, Andrew. “Fire and Earth: The Forging of Modern Cremation in Meiji
Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 3–4 (November 2000):
297–334. https://doi.org/10.18874/jjrs.27.3-4.2000.297-178.
Bigelow, Jacob. A History of the Cemetery of Mount Auburn. Boston and Cambridge,
MA: James Munroe & Co., 1860.
Botton, Alain de. Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion.
New York: Random House, 2012.
Callahan, Daniel. The Tyranny of Survival—And Other Pathologies of Civilized Life.
New York: Macmillan, 1973.
Cann, Candi K. Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-First Century.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2014.
Clayton, Andrew, Trish Green, Jenny Hockey, and Mark Powell. Natural Burial:
Landscape, Practice and Experience. London: Routledge, 2015.
248 Essential References

Cleaveland, Nehemiah. Green-Wood Cemetery. A History of the Institution from

1838 to 1864. New York: Anderson & Archer, 1866.
Cobb, John Storer. A Quartercentury of Cremation in North America. Boston:
Knight and Millet, 1901.
Conservation Burial Alliance. http://www.conservationburialalliance.org.
Corless, Inge B. “Future Trends in Dying, Death and Bereavement: A Call to
Action, International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement.” Ill-
ness, Crisis & Loss 13, no. 4 (2005): 377–85. https://www.iwgddb.com/wp​
-content/uploads/2016/08/Illness-Crisis-Loss-2005-Corless-377-85.pdf.
Cremation Association of North America. “Industry Statistical Information.”
https://www.cremationassociation.org/page/IndustryStatistics.
Cummins, Eleanor. “Why Millennials Are the ‘Death Positive’ Generation.” Vox,
January 22, 2020. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/1/15/2105​
9189/death-millennials-funeral-planning-cremation​-green-positive.
Della Dora, Veronica. “Infrasecular Geographies: Making, Unmaking and
Remaking Sacred Space.” Progress in Human Geography 42, no. 1 (2018):
44–71.
Dickinson, George E. and Heath C. Hoffmann. “Roadside Memorial Policies in
the United States.” Mortality 15 (2011): 154–67.
Farrell, James J. Inventing the American Way of Death, 1830–1920. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1980.
Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
New York: Vintage, 2009.
Galea, Sandro, Melissa Tracy, Katherine J. Hoggatt, Charles DiMaggio, and
Adam Karpati. “Estimated Deaths Attributable to Social Factors in the
United States.” American Journal of Public Health 101, no. 8 (August 2011):
1456–65.
Gebhart, John. Funeral Costs. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.
Geraci, Robert M. Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelli-
gence, and Virtual Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Geraci, Robert M. “Video Games and the Transhuman Inclination.” Zygon® 47,
no. 4 (2012): 735–56.
Gibson, Margaret. “Digital Objects of the Dead: Negotiating Electronic Remains.”
In The Social Construction of Death, edited by Leen Van Brussel and Nico
Carpentiee, 221–38. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Glosson, Eva M. and Kat Gregersen. “Mortal Exposures: Industrial Hygiene in
the Death Care Industry.” Synergist, March 2019. https://synergist.aiha​
.org/201903-mortal-exposures.
Green Burial Council. https://www.greenburialcouncil.org.
Habenstein, Robert W. and William M. Lamers. The History of American Funeral
Directing. Brookfield, WI: National Funeral Directors Association, 2014.
Harris, Mark. Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a
Natural Way of Burial. New York: Scribner, 2007.
Harrison, Robert Pogue. The Dominion of the Dead. Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 2003.
Essential References 249

Herring, Lucinda. Reimagining Death: Stories and Practical Wisdom for Home
Funerals and Green Burials, Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. 2019.
Hoy, William G. Do Funerals Matter? The Purposes and Practices of Death Rituals in
Global Perspective. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2013.
Hutchings, Tim. “Wiring Death: Dying, Grieving and Remembering on the
Internet.” In Emotion, Identity and Death, edited by Douglas J. Davies and
Chang-Won Park, 55–70. London: Routledge, 2016.
Jackson, Percival E. The Law of Cadavers and Burial and Burial Places. 2nd ed. New
York: Prentice-Hall, 1950.
Jennings, Bruce. “Solidarity and Care as Relational Practices.” Bioethics 32 (2018):
553–61.
Kearl, Michael C. Endings: A Sociology of Death and Dying. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1989.
Keijzer, E. E. and H. J. G. Kok. Environmental Impact of Different Funeral Technolo-
gies. Utrecht, Netherlands: TNO, 2011.
Kelly, Suzanne. Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring Our Tie to
the Earth. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Klass, Dennis, Phyllis R. Silverman, and Steven L. Nickman, eds. Continuing
Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1996.
Klaufus, Christien. “Deathscape Politics in Colombian Metropolises: Conserva-
tion, Grave Recycling and the Position of the Bereaved.” Urban Studies 53,
no. 12 (September 2016): 2453–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980​
15593012.Kong, Lily. “No Place, New Places: Death and its Rituals in
Urban Asia.” Urban Studies 49, no. 2 (February 2012): 415–33. https://
www.jstor.org/stable/26150849.
Laderman, Gary. Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and Funeral Home in
Twentieth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Laqueur, Thomas W. The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.
Linden, Blanche M.G. Spring Grove. Celebrating 150 Years. Cincinnati, OH: Cin-
cinnati Historical Society, 1995.
Linden-Ward, Blanche. Silent City on a Hill: Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s
Mount Auburn Cemetery. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989.
Marovich, Beatrice. “Religion, Secularity, Gender, Violence, & Death.” Journal for
Cultural and Religious Theory 16, no. 2 (Spring 2017): 179–95.
Marsh, Tanya D. The Law of Human Remains. Tucson, AZ: Lawyers & Judges Pub-
lishing Co, 2016.
Marsh, Tanya D. “Regulated to Death: Occupational Licensing and the Demise of
the U.S. Funeral Services Industry.” Wake Forest Journal of Law and Policy
8, no. 1 (2018): 5–27.
Meier, Emily A., Jarred V. Gallegos, Lori P. Montross Thomas, Colin A. Depp, Scott
A. Irwin, and Dilip V. Jeste. “Defining a Good Death (Successful Dying):
Literature Review and a Call for Research and Public Dialogue.” American
Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 24, no. 4 (2016): 261–71. https://doi.org/10​
.1016/j.jagp.2016.01.135.
250 Essential References

Mitford, Jessica. The American Way of Death. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1963.
Mitford, Jessica. The American Way of Death Revisited. New York: Vintage Books,
1998.
Mitra, Ananda. “Creating a Presence on Social Networks via Narbs.” Global
Media Journal 9 (2010): 20–40.
Mori, M. “The Uncanny Valley.” Translated by Karl F. MacDorman and Takashi
Minato. Energy 7, no. 4 (1970): 33–35.
Murphy, R. G. L., J. A. Scanga, B. E. Powers, J. L. Pilon, K. C. VerCauteren, P. B.
Nash, G. C. Smith, and K. E. Belk. “Alkaline Hydrolysis of Mouse-
Adapted Scrapie for Inactivation and Disposal of Prion-Positive Material.”
Journal of Animal Science 87, no. 5 (May 2009). https://doi.org/10.2527
/jas.2008-1492.
Niziolomski, J., J. Rickson, N. Marquez-Grant, and M. Pawlett. “Soil Science
Related to the Human Body After Death.” Literature Review Produced for
The Corpse Project, March 2016. http://www.thecorpseproject.net/wp​
-content/uploads/2016/06/Corpse-and-Soils-literature-review-March​
-2016.pdf.
Nuland, Sherwin B. How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter. New York:
Random House, 1993.
Olson, Philip R. “Flush and Bone: Funeralizing Alkaline Hydrolysis in the United
States.” Science, Technology, and Human Values 39, no. 5 (September 2014):
666–93. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0162243914530475.
O’Neill, Kevin Lewis. “There Is No More Room: Cemeteries, Personhood, and
Bare Death.” Ethnography 13, no. 4 (2012): 510–24. https://www.jstor.org​
/stable/43497511.
Partridge, Ernest. “Posthumous Interests and Posthumous Respect,” Ethics 91,
no.2 (1981): 243–64.
Perley, Sidney. Mortuary Law. Boston: George B. Reed, 1896.
Quirk, Vanessa. “The Urban Death Project: Bringing Death Back into the Urban
Realm.” Metropolis (2017). https://www.metropolismag.com/cities/the-urban​
-death-project-bringing-death-back-into-the-urban-realm.
Richman, Jeffrey I. Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery: New York’s Buried Treasure.
Brooklyn, NY: Green Wood Cemetery, 1998.
Rothstein, Karla. “The New Civic-Sacred: Designing for Life and Death in the
Modern Metropolis.” DesignIssues 34, no.1 (Winter 2018): 29–41.
Rothstein, Karla. “Reconfiguring Urban Spaces of Disposal, Sanctuary, and
Remembrance.” In Our Changing Journey to the End: Reshaping Death,
Dying, and Grief in America, edited by Christina Staudt and J. Harold
Ellens, 1:253–76. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014.
Rothstein, Karla and Christina Staudt. Post-Mortem: Sustainable Disposition and
Innovative Spaces of Remembrance. Columbia University Press, forthcoming.
Rumble, Hannah, John Troyer, Tony Walter, and Kate Woodthorpe. “Disposal or
Dispersal? Environmentalism and Final Treatment of the British Dead.”
Essential References 251

Mortality 19, no. 3 (July 2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2014​

.920315.
Ruggles, Samuel B. Law of Burial: Report to the Supreme Court of the State of New-
York in 1856. Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons & Company, 1858.
Sanders, Pastor Cody J. “How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently
Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative,” Religion Dispatches, April 2,
2020.
Schut, Henk and Margaret Stroebe. “The Dual Process Model of Coping with
Bereavement: Rationale and Description.” Death Studies 23, no. 3 (1999):
197–224.
SciTech Now. “More Efficient Models for Environmental Sustainability.” Inter-
view with Kartik Chandran, May 21, 2018. https://www.pbs.org/video
/more-efficient-models-environmental-sustainability-wwt0eh.
Seligman, Adam B., Robert P. Weller, Michael J. Puett, and Bennett Simon. Ritual
and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008.
Shanken, Andrew. “Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States
during World War II.” The Art Bulletin 84, no. 1 (2002): 130–47.
Sherlock, Alexandra. “Larger than Life: Digital Resurrection and the Re-
Enchantment of Society.” Information Society 29, no. 3 (2013): 164–76.
Singer, Peter. “How Death Was Redefined.” In Rethinking Life and Death: The
Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, 20–37. New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1994.
Sloane, David C. Is the Cemetery Dead? Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2018.
Sloane, David Charles. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Slocum, Josh and Lisa Carlson. Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death.
Hinesburg, VT: Upper Access, Inc., 2011.
Slocum, Josh and Lee Webster. Restoring Families Rights to Choose: The Call for
Funeral Legislation Change in America. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace
Publishing, 2016.
Slominski, Elena Michele. “The Life and Death of Funeral Practices: Persistence
and Change in the Death System and the Rise of Eco-Funerals in the
United States.” Master’s thesis, University of Oslo, June 2020.
Smillie, James and Cornelia W. Walter. Mount Auburn Illustrated. In Highly Fin-
ished Line Engraving, from Drawings Taken on the Spot, by James Smillie, with
Descriptive Notices, by Cornelia W. Walter. New York: R. Martin, 1847.
https://archive.org/details/mountauburnillu00walt/page/n17/mode/2up.
Sofka, Carla J. “Social Support ‘Internetworks,’ Caskets for Sale, and More:
Thanatology and the Information Superhighway.” Death Studies 21
(1997): 553–74.
Speyer, Josefine and Stephani Wienrich, eds. The Natural Death Handbook.
London: ANBG, 2003.
252 Essential References

Spongberg, Alison L. and Paul M. Becks. “Inorganic Soil Contamination from

Cemetery Leachate.” Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 117 (January 2000):
313–27. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005186919370.
State of New York. Report of the Attorney General on the Subject of Cemeteries.
Albany, NY: Williams Press, 1949.
Staudt, Christina. “From Concealment to Recognition.” In Speaking of Death:
America’s New Sense of Mortality, edited by Michael K. Bartalos, 3–41.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009.
Staudt, Christina and Marcelline Block, eds. Unequal before Death. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge Scholars Publication, 2012.
Staudt, Christina and J. Harold Ellens, eds. Our Changing Journey to the End:
Reshaping Death, Dying and Grief in America. Vols. 1 and 2. Santa Barbara,
CA: Praeger, 2014.
Strauch, Adolphus. Spring Grove Cemetery: Its History and Improvements, with
Observations on Ancient and Modern Places of Sepulture. Cincinnati, OH: R.
Clarke & Co., 1869.
Thomas, E. Lewis. Baker’s Law Relating to Burials. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1901.
Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava. “Transhumanism as Secularist Faith.” Zygon® 47 (2012):
710–34.
Tisdale, Sallie. Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Practical
Perspective on Death and Dying. New York: Touchstone, 2018.
Verdery, Ashton M., Emily Smith-Greenaway, Rachel Margolis, and Jonathan
Daw. “Tracking the Reach of COVID-19 Kin Loss with a Bereavement
Multiplier Applied to the United States.” Proceedings of the National Acad-
emy of Sciences of the United States of America 117, no. 30 (July 2020):
17695–17701.
Warren, Charles D., Andrew Scott Dolkart, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Cyn-
thia Mills, Carole Ann Fabian, and Janet Parks, eds. Sylvan Cemetery:
Architecture, Art and Landscape at Woodlawn. New York: Avery Architec-
tural & Fine Arts Library and the Woodlawn Conservancy, 2014.
Webster, Lee. Changing Landscapes: Exploring the Growth of Ethical, Compassionate,
and Environmentally Sustainable Green Funeral Practices. Scotts Valley, CA:
CreateSpace, 2017.
Williams, David. “Detroit Turned a Park into a Memorial for the City’s 1,500
COVID-19 Victims.” CNN, September 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020​
/09/01/us/detroit-coronavirus-memorial-trnd/index.html.
 About the Editors and Contributors

Editors
Karla Rothstein is the founder and director of Columbia University’s
DeathLAB, an interdisciplinary research and design initiative invigorat-
ing thinking around the infrastructures and operational logistics of urban
cemeteries and memorialization. This work, engaging sustainable prac-
tices and amplified civic purpose, is at the forefront of creative solutions
to transform the ways in which we may commemorate and place the
dead. Rothstein and DeathLAB have received support from Columbia’s
Earth Institute, The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, the 21st Century
Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, a MacDowell Fellow-
ship, Art Omi, the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, New
York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and Columbia’s
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where Roth-
stein is associate professor and has taught graduate architectural research
and design studios for over twenty years. Rothstein is also a practicing
architect, cofounder, and design director at LATENT Productions in New
York City, a distinguished architectural practice with deep expertise in
the adaptive reuse of industrial campuses and original ground-up design
that thoughtfully integrates material innovation with contemporary build-
ing techniques and the specific characteristics of place.

Christina Staudt (PhD, art history, Columbia University) is chair of

Columbia University Seminar on Death, an interdisciplinary, interinstitu-
tional forum that critically engages with all aspects of death and mortality
from academic and clinical perspectives, contextualizing the inquiry
around present and emerging cultural and social trends and advances in
science. A co-founder and past president of the Westchester End-of-Life
Coalition, Staudt has spent almost two decades developing and offering
254 About the Editors and Contributors

educational programming, guidance, and resources to support individu-

als with serious illness or at the end of life, and their families. She is a
member of several advisory boards with similar focus. The co-editor of
three volumes addressing different facets of death, dying, disposition, and
grief, she has also contributed individual chapters and articles to several
other publications on these topics. An active hospice patient volunteer for
over twenty years and a trained doula, she sits by the bedside of those at
the end of life and interacts closely with their families. She is an advocate
for looking at the dying experience as a holistic, human event that inte-
grates family and community.

Contributors
Caitlin Campbell is a writer and editor and a research associate with the
Columbia University DeathLAB. Recognition for her writing, which has
appeared in various literary magazines, includes the Stella Kupferberg
Memorial Short Story Prize, honorable mention in Best American Short
Stories, and winning the Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging
Writers. She received her MFA from Brooklyn College and her BA from
Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.

Candi K. Cann holds a PhD in comparative religions from Harvard and

is currently an associate professor at Baylor University. The author of four
books and countless articles, Cann seeks to foster conversations sur-
rounding death and grief and is deeply interested in technological inno-
vations in thanatology.

Joseph W. Dauben, PhD, Harvard, is Distinguished Professor of history

and history of science at Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY) and a mem-
ber of the PhD program in history at the Graduate Center of the City Uni-
versity of New York. He is a member of the German Academy of Sciences
Leopoldina and Clare Hall (Cambridge, United Kingdom) and a recipient
of Guggenheim and Senior ACLS Fellowships; he is currently writing an
institutional history of the Woodlawn Cemetery, New York City.

Catherine M. Hammack-Aviran, MA, JD, is a lawyer, professor, and

empirical bioethicist who investigates and teaches a wide range of ethical,
legal, regulatory, policy, and sociocultural issues in health, medicine,
research, and health care. Her scholarship and research interests focus
heavily on the myriad ethical, legal, and social issues relating to end of
About the Editors and Contributors 255

life, dying, death, and the dead, particularly relating to property interests
in and moral status of human remains.

Bruce Jennings is associate professor at Vanderbilt University and senior

advisor at the Hastings Center, where he served from 1991 through 1999
as executive director. Before moving to Vanderbilt, he taught at the Yale
School of Public Health. His most recent book is Ecological Governance:
Toward a New Social Contract with the Earth (2016).

Tanya D. Marsh is a professor of law at Wake Forest University where she

teaches Property, Decedents’ Estates and Trusts, and the only course in
funeral and cemetery law in a U.S. law school. Marsh is the author of The
Law of Human Remains (2015), the first treatise on the subject in more
than fifty years, and the co-author of Cemetery Law: The Common Law of
Burying Grounds in the United States (2015).

David Charles Sloane is a professor in the Sol Price School of Public

Policy at the University of Southern California. He is widely recognized as
an expert on the history and contemporary issues in mourning, com-
memoration, and public space. His The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in
American History (1991) has been called a classic in the field. Is the Ceme-
tery Dead? (2018) is an exploration of current innovations and conflicts
around commemoration privately, publicly, and online.

Lee Webster is an author and national speaker on funeral reform, spe-

cializing in home funerals and green burial. She has led several after-
death and funeral-focused nonprofits, including the Green Burial Council
and the National Home Funeral Alliance. She has written several home-
funeral and green-burial books, and edited Changing Landscapes: Explor-
ing the Growth of Ethical, Compassionate, and Environmentally Sustainable
Green Funeral Practices (2016), from her home in the foothills of the White
Mountains of New Hampshire.
 Index

Note: Page numbers in italic type indicate images; note numbers refer to the
discussion on the page the superscript appears on.
ABFSE. See American Board of Appel, Allan, 8n4
Funeral Services Education Applications (apps), 182
Accelerated biological decomposition, Aquamation, 229n13
35, 100, 226, 230–231, 233 Arbery, Ahmaud, 180, 185
Adath Jeshurun Congregation, 111 Archer, Adelle, 180n5
Aeneas, 199 Arendt, Hannah, 206, 206n13,
Aeschylus, 209 207n15
Aftercare, xviin6 Arias, Elizabeth, 30n5
AfterLight, 234–235, 237, 238, Ariès, Philippe, xvi, xvin3,
239, 239, 241 47n1, 77n5
Agamemnon, 3 Arnold, David, 102n27
Ahmad, Farida B., 30n5 Arnold, Michael, 182n9
AIDS, 201–202 Arnos Vale Cemetery (Bristol,
Albom, Mitch, 169n102, 169n103 England), 235–236, 235n36, 236
Alkaline hydrolysis, 99–100, 227–229 Asian cemeteries, 37
Allen, D., 201n6 Association of American Cemetery
Allis, Ellary, 152n43 Superintendents, 20–21
Almond, Kyle, 138n49 Association of Natural Burial Grounds
American Board of Funeral Services (ANBG), 128
Education (ABFSE), 109 Atkin, Emily, 100n14
Anaerobic bioconversion, 231–234 Augmented-reality critiques
Anatomical donation, 66–67, 72n38 (ARCs), 185
ANBG. See Association of Natural Austin, Henry, 8
Burial Grounds Australian cemeteries, 37
Ancient world cemeteries, 1–4, 3, 4
Anderson, Robert N., 30n5 Baby-boom generation and death, 52,
Andreola, Christina, 159–160 98, 148–149
Apocalyptic artificial intelligence, 190 Baker, Harry, 187n32
258Index

Balk, David E., 89n28 Boston, Massachusetts, cemeteries, 35

Banting, Keith, 220, 220n66 Boswell, J., 198n2
Barbaro, Michael, 192n47 Bottomore, Tom, 49n6
Barrett, Cassie, 229n20 Botton, Alain de, 91n36
Barrett, Char, 149, 151, 151n34, 162, Boundaries between living and dead,
162n77, 163n79, 165n85, 166–167, 219–220
166n90, 167n92, 167n94, 170n106 Bowles, Nellie, 114n94
Barron, James, 34n31 Bowman, LeRoy, 25, 25n43
Barry, John M., 137n44, 137n46 Brain death, 67–68, 73n45
Bartalos, Michael K., xvin4 Briggs, Bill, 31n16
Basmajian, Carlton, 35n39 Brongniart, Alexandre-Théodore, 6
Bassett, Debra J., 180–181, 181n7 Brooker, Charlie, 188n34
Beard, Virginia R., 84n18 Brooks, Jon, 35n36
Becker, Ernest, xvn1 Brookwood Cemetery (Surrey, UK), 7
Becker, Kent, 88n26 Brown, Henry Kirke, 14
Becks, Paul M., 30n8 Brunetti, Ludovico, 122
Beecher (IL) Mausoleum, 21 Bruns, Axel, 193, 193nn49–50
Belk, Donna, 155n53 Bryan, Cecil E., 20, 21
Belk, K. E., 227n4 Bryant, Kobe, 87–88, 135
Belk, Russell W., 181n8 Buchanan, Robert, 16
Bellah, R. N., 206n14 Buddhism, 81
Benner, Abigail, 74n2 Burger, William C., 84n18
Bennett, Amanda, 102n28 Burgess, Jean E., 193, 193nn49–50
Bereavement Authority of Ontario, Burial vaults, 125
229n12 Burke, Edmund, 200
Berenbaum, Michael, 215n34 Burks, Gary, 37n47
Bernstein, Andrew, 31n12
Bernstein, Shayna Fae, 58n30 Cadaver storage, 184n17
Berrin, Danielle, 131n33 Caffrey, Thomas A., 58n26
Better Place Forests, 134 Cagle, John G., 54n19, 55n20
Bialik, Kristen, 82n15 Callahan, Daniel, 63n36
Bigelow, Jacob, 10, 10n9 Campbell, Billy, 144
Black funerals, 156 Campbell, Caitlin, 35n41
Black Mirror, 188–189 Campbell, Kimberley, 144
Blacks and violence and murder, Camposanto (Pisa), 5
88, 202, 213 Canadian cemeteries, 36
Blackstone, William T., 216n44 Cann, Candi K., 87n20, 178n2,
Blake, Henry T., 8n5 180n4, 191n46
Blanco, Richard, 237, 237n39 Caplan-Bricker, Nora, 35n37
Blended funerals, 158 Carlson, Lisa, 149, 149n24
Block, Marcelline, 49n5 Carolina Memorial Sanctuary,
Block, Susan, 64 33n27, 229
Blue, E. E. Appel, 217n49 Carpentier, Nico, 189n39
Bonanno, George, 90n31 Carson, Rachel, 127–128, 127n23
Index 259

Carter, Elizabeth A., 110nn67–68 Cemetery (Boston, MA), 35; natural

Carter, Howard, 2 burying grounds, 127–133; nature
Carter, Marcus, 182n9 versus culture, 119–122; New
Casketed burial, 30–31 Haven, CT, 7–8; New York City,
CBA. See Conservation Burial Alliance 8–10, 33–35, 236–237;
Cebrowski, John, 100 19th-century rural movement,
Cemeteries: ancient world, 1–4, 3, 4; 10–19; Père Lachaise cemetery
Arnos Vale Cemetery (Bristol, (Paris, France), 6, 6–7; Ramsey
England), 235–236, 236; Asian, 37; Creek Preserve (Westminster, SC),
augmented and virtual reality, 131–132, 133, 144; rural garden,
184–185; Australian, 37; Boston, 10–19; San Francisco and Colma,
MA, 35; Brookwood Cemetery CA, 35; shift away from
(Surrey, UK), 7; burial vaults, 125; monuments and stones, 133–135;
Canadian, 36; Carolina Memorial Spring Grove Cemetery (Cincinnati,
Sanctuary, 229; Central and South OH), 17–19; St. Augustine (FL)
American, 37–38; chemical weed National Cemetery, 184; Staglieno
control, 126; Chinese, 17, 37; cemetery (Genoa), 7; terminology,
cremation versus, 122–123; 205n12; transformation to
definition, 3n1; 18th- and memorial parks and memory
19th-century European, 5–7, 6; gardens, 123–127; United
European, 36–37; Forest Lawn Kingdom, 36–37; Ur cemetery
Memorial Park (Glendale, CA), 123; (Babylonia), 1; Urnfield cemetery, 2;
French, 36; garden, 5–6; U.S., 7–19; Wards Island cemetery
Gettysburg (PA) battlefield/ (New York, NY), 9; Woodlawn
cemetery, 200, 209–210, 220, Cemetery (Bronx, NY), 18–19, 23;
221–222; government regulation, zoning ordinances, 112–114
22–26, 33; Greek, 2–3, 3; Green- Cemeteries and Crematoria New
Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, NY), South Wales, 37n50
12–15, 15, 22, 34, 120; Hart Island Centers for Disease Control and
Cemetery (Brooklyn, NY), 9, 34; Prevention, 47n3, 150n28, 152n41,
Herland Forest Natural Burial 202n7
Cemetery (Wahkiacus, WA), 231; Central American cemeteries, 37–38
Hillside Memorial Park (Los Chaise, Père François de la, 6
Angeles, CA), 130, 131; King’s Chandran, Kartik, 233, 233n33
Chapel Cemetery (Boston, MA), 7; Cherelus, Gina, 151n35
Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia, Chevra Kadisha (Sacred Society), 111
PA), 11, 11–12; law of human Chevra Kevod Hamet (Society to
remains, 97; Maple Grove Cemetery Honor the Dead), 111
and Memorial Park (Brooklyn, NY), Chicago, Illinois, funeral home
23; Marble Cemeteries (New York, restrictions, 113
NY), 9–10; marketing, 24; Chinese cemeteries, 17, 37
medieval, 4–5; Mount Auburn Chinese tombs, 2
Cemetery (Boston, MA), 10, 35, Choron, Jacques, xvn1
120, 130–131; Mount Hope Christian burial practices, 129–130
260Index

Christianity, 81 Coutts, Christopher, 35n39

Church burials, 5 Covenant, 199, 200, 204–205, 211.
CIA, xvn2 See also Subjunctive covenant
Cisewski, Jodi A., 30n5 COVID-19 pandemic: aftercare
Citizenship, 210–212 compromise, xvi–xvii; final
City of New York, Bureau of Vital goodbyes during, 62, 78; funeral
Statistics, New York City industry, 150–152, 153–154,
Department of Health and Mental 159–160, 163; memorialization,
Hygiene, 34n33 136–139, 166–168; public health
Civic-sacred space, xix, 237, 239, 241 transformation, 201–202; urban
Civil War, 121 mortuary logistics crises, 38–39;
Clark, Justin, 187, 187n30 use of digital tools, 90, 164–165,
Clayden, Andrew, 126n21, 128n25, 178, 191–192
128n27, 132–133, 133n35 Crane, Frank, 20n31
Cleaveland, Nehemiah, 13n12, 13n14 Cremation: alkaline hydrolysis,
Clift, William Avery, 18 227–228; in alternative
Clinton, De Witt, 13–14 conservation areas, 134; cemeteries
Cobb, John Storer, 99n8 versus, 122–123; as dominant form
Cochrane, Joe, 38n64 of disposition, 31–32; during
Coffin, Margaret, 108n58 COVID-19 pandemic, 151, 167;
Cohen, Jeremy, 182n12 early history of, 129–131;
Columbia University DeathLAB. See environmental impact of, 122–123;
DeathLAB (Columbia University) and funeral homes, 113; General
Community mausoleums, 19–21, 21 Price List, 148n18; green practices,
Condon, Thomas, 103 169–171; laws on, 98–101, 102,
Conservation burial, 33, 230 104; Roman Catholics, xvi; in
Conservation Burial Alliance (CBA), urban centers, 33–39
33, 33n26, 170, 170n107 Cremation Association of North
Conspiracy of silence, 48, 70n4 America, 31n11, 99nn9–10, 123n9,
Constellation Park, 237–239, 239 227n5
Contract, 199, 204–205 Criminal statutes concerning human
Conway, Isabel, 230n23 remains, 96, 101–105
Cook, John, 30n8 Cristiano, Maciel, 180n4
Cook, Tony, 100n13 Croome, William, 11
Cooke, Lacy, 235n37 Cruger, Chris, 152
Cooperative funerals, 168–169 Cryogenics, 69
Corless, Inge B., 91n35 Cryomation, 226, 230, 230n22
Coronavirus pandemic. See Cryonics Institute, 69n49
COVID-19 pandemic Cultural evolution, 86, 98, 112, 119,
Corpse preservation and final 123, 136, 162, 226, 235
disposition methods, 29; impact on Cultural imagination, 237
human health and environment, Cummins, Eleanor, 60n34, 82n14
30–33; impact on urban centers, Cunningham, Amy, 148n21,
33–39 149nn22–23, 150, 154, 154n52,
Index 261

162–163, 162n75, 163nn78–79, Dickinson, George E., 87n21

165n85, 166–167, 166n90, 167n91, Diering, Henry J., 18–19
167nn93–95, 169n101 Dietz, John B., 126n19
Curwen, Thomas, 137n47 Digital bread crumbs, 189, 189n38
Curzan, Nancy, 63 Digital tools: augmented reality,
183–185; better use of, 163–165;
Daily Hearse, 83n17 capturing death and dying on film,
Daniels, Howard, 16 179–180; COVID-19, 178, 191–192;
Data trail, 189n38 gaming, 186–188; griefbots and
Davenport, John, 7 transhumanism, 188–190;
Davies, Douglas J., 31n20, 186n26 overview, 178–179, 192–194;
Davis, Jesse, 182n11 portable devices and digital
Daw, Jonathan, 139n52 afterlives, 180–181; smartphone
Dawson, A., 221n67 memorialization, 181–183; virtual
DDT, 127–128 reality, 183–186
Deahl, Jessica, 163n80 Disposition, 67, 73n40
Dearborn, Henry A. S., 16 Dixon, Katie, 128n25, 128n27
Death Cafe, 159n65 Donovan, Andrika, 153, 153n46
Death care, xviin6 Dorra, Veronica della, 91n38
Death care services entrepreneur, Doughty, Caitlin, 102n30, 240,
110–111 240n41
Death certificate, 58n24, 63 Douglass, David Bates, 12, 16
Death doulas, 54 Doulas, 54
DeathLAB (Columbia University), Downing, Andrew Jackson, 10–11
234n35; AfterLight, 226–227, 241; DPOAH. See Durable Power of
anaerobic bioconversion, 233–234, Attorney for Health Care
234; Constellation Park, 135, 237, Dra’ Abu-el-Naga- burial site
238, 239, 239; Sylvan Constellation, (Egypt), 1–2
235, 236 Drake, Daniel, 15n20, 15–16, 16n21
Defort, Edward J., 98n5, 112n78 Drake, Harriet Sisson, 16
Denys, Gerald A., 227n3 Drive-by funerals/viewings,
Designation of Agent laws, 158–159 138–139, 167
Designs: cemeteries, 6–8, 13, 15, Durable Power of Attorney for Health
16–20, 38, 120–123, 126, 131, 137; Care (DPOAH), 158–159
DeathLAB, 135, 226–227, 233–239, Dying process, 57–60, 67–70
236, 238, 239; funerals, 78–79;
gathering spaces, 163; General Easton, Hubert, 21
Price List, 167–168; rituals, 82 EDRS. See Electronic Death
Detroit, Michigan, COVID-19 funeral Registration System
drive-by, 138–139 Egyptian tombs, 1–2
DeVita, Michael, 216nn46–47, El-Assasif burial site (Egypt), 1–2
218n57 Elazar, D., 199n3
Dewey, Thomas, 23 Electronic Death Registration System
Diana, Princess, 135 (EDRS), 157
262Index

Ellens, J. Harold, 29n1, 226n1 Floyd, George, 88, 90, 138, 156,
Elvidge, Christopher D., 126n19 180, 202
Embalming: and alkaline hydrolysis, Foner, E., 209n18
227, 228; burial, 226, 240; desire to Forbes, Tom, 37n51
elongate life of body, 124; health Ford, Emily, 20n32
and environment, 29–33; Foresight Company, 151n38, 152n39,
requirements of 108, 109–110, 164n84
117n61; toxicity of chemicals, Forest Lawn (Burbank, CA), 21
147, 152 Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Emergent property, 204 (Glendale, CA), 123
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 210 Formaldehyde, 30–31
Engelke, Matthew, 77n7 Franklin, Aretha, 156
Ennis, Jzyk, 110n69 French, Daniel Chester, 133
Environmental impact: of alkaline French cemeteries, 36
hydrolysis, 227; of burial practices, Freud, Sigmund, 88, 88n23, 93n23
159–160; of corpse preservation Frishmuth, Harriet, 133
and final disposition, 29–39, 227; Fromm, Eric, xvn1
of cremation, 122–123; of green Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 99
practices, 169–171; of human Fry, Richard, 82n15
composting, 230; of natural FTC. See Federal Trade Commission
burying grounds, 127–132 Fumagalli, Paulo, 3
Epicurus, 61, 90 Funeral and Memorial Information
Eterneva, 180 Council, 32n24
European cemeteries, 36–37 Funeral Consumers Alliance, 67n40,
147n17, 148n20, 157–158, 158n62
Farragut, David, 19 Funeral cooperatives, 168–169
Farrell, James J., 121n6 Funeral directors, 24–25; increase of,
Faulkner, William, 102n29 in early 20th century, 121; law of
Fausset, Richard, 217n48 human remains, 97; licenses,
Faust, Drew Gilpin, 121, 121n4, 152, 108–112
152n44 Funeral homes, 109–110; zoning
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), ordinances, 112–114
25–26, 147n16 Funeral industry: association
Feinberg, Joel, 216n44 recommendations, 161–162;
Ferraz, Rafaela, 36n44 changing roles and services,
Feuer, Alan, 38n62 162–163; community- and family-
Figueiredo, Eberval Gadelha, 184n18 centered trends, 166–168;
Fillmore, Millard, 11 consumers’ role in, 154–157;
Fins, Joseph, 69n48 cooperative funerals, 168–169;
Firstenberg, Suzanne Brennan, 138 COVID-19 pandemic, 150–152,
Fitting Tribute Funeral Service, 153–154; in crisis, 146–152;
150n32 funeral cost, 147–150; funeral home
Fivush, Robyn, 90n31 ownership changes, 165–166; green
Fletcher, Kami, 152n43 burial, 144, 146; green practices,
Index 263

169–171; human health and Good death, 52–53, 153

environment, 30–31; marketing, Goodman, Arnold M., 111nn72–73
24–26; perception of dysfunction, Gorer, Geoffrey, 60n33
144–146; reformers and advocates, GPL. See General Price List
157–161; revisiting purpose of Graham, A. W., 11
funerals, 152–154; use of Granek, Leeat, 88n23
technology, 163–165 Gravestones, 125–126
Funeral planning, 159–160 Graveyard, 205n12
Funeral rituals, 75–88, 91–92 Great Pyramid of Giza, 2
Greek cemeteries, 2–3, 3
Galeo, Sandro, 49n7 Green, Amy, 186–187
Gaming, 186–188 Green, Carol Lynn, 147, 147n13
Ganges (OH) Mausoleum, 20 Green, Deborah, 134n36
Gao, Junling, 53n16 Green, Ryan, 186–187
Garden cemeteries, 5–6 Green, Trish, 126n21, 133n35
Garrard Farm (Cincinnati, OH), 16 Greenberg, Jeff, 214n28
GatheringUs, 192, 192n48 Green burial, 32–33, 129–130, 131,
Gawande, Atul, 64, 64n37 144, 146, 160–161, 170–171
Gay, Andre, 69n51 Green Burial Council, 31n9, 32–33,
Gebhart, John, 122–123, 123n8 32n23, 33n28, 129, 129n29, 130,
Gedye, Grace, 168n97 133, 134, 170nn104–105, 171,
General Price List (GPL), 147–148, 171n109, 171n111
167–168, 173n18 Greene, Jacob, 185n23
Generation Z and death, 82 Green funeral practices, 169–171,
Georgia, “defacement” of human 226–233
remains statute, 104 Greenwashing, 169
Geraci, Robert M., 190, 190n42 Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn,
Geraghty, Lincoln, 87n21 NY), 12–15, 15, 22, 34, 120
Gettysburg (PA) battlefield/cemetery, Gregerson, Kat, 30n3
200, 209–210, 220, 221–222 Grief Support Network App, 182n14,
Ghost Bikes, 87, 87n22 182–183
Ghosts, 200, 212 Grief theories, 88–91, 93n23
Gibbs, Martin, 181–182, 182n9 Griefbots, 188–190
Gibson, Daniel, 215n33 Griffiths, Sarah, 235n37
Gibson, Margaret, 189, 189n39 Grube, Blanche D., 31n14, 31n19
Gilbert, Allan, 207n16 Guffanti, Lucas, 36n43
Gilbert, Dominic, 37n46 Guralnik, Jack M., 54n19
Gillespie, Deana, 98n5, 112n78
Gilligan, T. Scott, 109n61 Habenstein, Robert W., 108nn59–60
Gladstone, William, 1 Hacker, P., 216n44
Global Health Authority, 57n22 Hadjimatheou, Chloe, 36n44
Glosson, Eva M., 30n3 Hamm, Dick, 100
Goldstein, Nathaniel, 23 Hammack-Aviran, Catherine M.,
Golker, Madeline, 107–108 218n55
264Index

Hammond, Bray, 13n13 alkaline hydrolysis, 99–100,

Hanson-Rasmussen, Nancy J., 82n15 227–229; anaerobic bioconversion,
Harding, Warren G., 137 231–234; composting, 134,
Harrington, David E., 160n70 160, 229–231, 232; cryomation,
Harris, Mark, 30n8, 84n19, 127n22, 230; promession, 230;
169, 169n100 recomposition, 134
Harrison, Robert Pogge, 198, 198n1, Humboldt, Alexander von, 17
210, 210n20 Hunt, Melinda, 34
Hart Island cemetery (New York, Hunter, John, 9
NY), 9, 34 Hutchings, Tim, 186n26
Hartley, Patricia, 152n40 Huxley, Aldous, 21
Hauptmann, Michael, 147n14
Hawkins, Holly Blue, 171n110 Idaho, human remains statute, 106
Hayes, Richard B., 147n14 Iltis, Ana, 218n55
Henry, Tanya Albert, 49n9 Indianapolis, Indiana, funeral home
Herland Forest Natural Burial permits, 113, 114
Cemetery (Wahkiacus, WA), 231 International End of Life Doula
Herman, Susan, 240 Association (INELDA), 54n17
Herring, Lucinda, 171n112 Intervolution, 69
Heywood, Janet L., 11n10 Islam burial practices, 129–130
Hidden death, xvi Italian tombs, 3–4, 4
Hillhouse, James, 8
Hillside Memorial Park (Los Angeles, Jackson, Kate, 58n29
CA), 130, 131 Jackson, Michael, 181
Hobbes, Thomas, 200, 205 Jackson, Percival E., 96n3
Hockey, Jenny, 126n21, 133n35 Jacobs, Paula, 159n63
Hoffmann, Heath C., 87n21 Jenkins, Virginia Scott, 126n18,
Holmes, Oliver, 38n60 128n24
Holt-Lunstad, Julianne, 58n28 Jenkins, W. C., 20, 20n30, 126
Holy See Press Office, xvin5 Jennings, B., 221n67
Home deaths, 50–52 Jervell, Ellen Emmerentze, 36n44
Honan, Katie, 34n34 Jewish mourning and burial practices,
Hong Kong Food and Environmental 111, 129–130, 131
Hygiene Department, 37n55 Johnson, Samuel, 198
Hood, William Ira, 20 Jones, Colleen, 185nn20–21
Hospice, 50–52 Jones, Madison, 185n23
Hospital deaths, 61–63 Jones, Maggie, 30n6
Hoy, William G., 77n4, 77n6 Joralemon, Donald, 70n52
Hoyert, D. L., 59n31 Joyce, James, 200
Huberman, Jenny, 189, 189n41
Human composting, 134, 160, Kansas: alkaline hydrolysis, 228;
229–231, 232 promession, 230
Human disposition other than Kearl, Michael C., 213, 213nn21–27,
whole-body burial and cremation: 214, 214nn29–30
Index 265

Kearns-Stanley, Paul, 163 Laurel Hill Cemetery (Philadelphia,

Keeper Memorials (app), 182, PA), 11, 11–12
182n13 Lauver, Kristy J., 82n15
Keijzer, E. E., 227n2 LaValleur-Adame, Shawn, 162,
Kelly, Suzanne, 123–124, 124n11, 162n76, 163, 167–168, 168n96
160, 160n69 Law of human remains: alkaline
Keltner, Dacher, 53n15, 245n1 hydrolysis, 99–100; cremation,
Kemmis, Barbara, 98n6 98–99; criminal statutes, 96; family
Kent, Esmerelda, 144, 144n2 obligations, 107–108, 116–117n52;
Khufu, Pharaoh, 2 “indecently” handling remains,
Kierszenbaum, Quique, 38n60 101–105; licensing of cemeteries,
Kiley, Brendan, 100n15, 231n27, 97; natural organic reduction,
231n29 100–101; occupational licensing of
Kilvert, Nick, 229n15 funeral directors, 97; overview,
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 207 95–98, 114; public health statutes,
King’s Chapel Cemetery 96–97; what is forbidden, 101–105;
(Boston, MA), 7 what is permitted, 99–101; what is
Klass, Dennis, 89n27 required, 105–108; where activities
Klaufus, Christien, 38nn58–59 are permitted, 112–114; who may
Kleese, Pam, 98n6 conduct activities, 108–112
Klok, Christie Hemm, 134n37 Lawn, 128
Klupar, G. J., 125, 125n15, 126, Laws of the dead: living remains,
126n20 217–219; respect and interests,
Knight, Christopher, 137n47 214–217
Kochanek, Kenneth D., 30n5 LBGTQ families, 159
Kok, H. J. G., 227n2 Lee, Jae Rhim, 240, 240n41
Kong, Lily, 37n53 Lee, Joonyup, 54n19
Koudounaris, Paul, 102n31 Leech, Stacy, 121n3, 121n5
Králová, Jana, 58n27 LeMoyne, Francis, 122, 123
Kramer, Matthew H., 218n54 Let Your Love Grow, 229, 229n19
Krieger, Nancy, 49n8 Levenbook, Barbara Baum, 218n56
Kuo, Lily, 37n52, 37n54 Lewis, John, 88, 156
Kutscher, Austin K., 48n4 Li, Wenhui, 237n38
Kymlicka, Will, 220, 220n66 Lievrouw, Leah A., 179n3
Lifenaut, 189, 189n36, 189n38, 190
Laderman, Gary, 121n6, 124n12 Lim, Ming, 181n8
Lafayette Cemetery Research Project, Lincoln, Abraham, 200, 208, 209–
35n40 210, 220, 221–222
Lafrak, Mikaela, 138n50 Linden, Blanche M. G., 17nn24–25,
Lamers, William M., 108nn59–60 18n27
Laqueur, T. W., 205n12 Linden-Ward, Blanche, 16n23
Last words, 153 Little, Becky, 31n16
LATENT Productions, 234, 235, 236, Livingstone, Sonia, 179n3
237, 238, 239 Llamas, Rosa, 181n8
266Index

Louis XIV, 6 Memorial designs: AfterLight,

Loy, R. M., 59n31 234–235, 237, 238, 239, 241;
Lyon, Deborah, 214n28 Constellation Park, 237–239;
Sylvan Constellation, 235–237, 236
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 207–208, Memorial parks, 21–22, 123–127
207n16 Memorial spaces, 88, 136, 171, 219
Mackay, Douglas, 218n55 Memorialization, 133–136
Maddrell, A., 133n35 Memory gardens, 123–127
Main, Liz, 37n49 Memory Picture, 153n48
Mandavilli, Apoorva, 38n61 Mercy chain, 169
Manhattan Bridge, 237–238, 238 Merrill, Natalie A., 90n31
Maple Grove Cemetery and Memorial Meta Medical VR, 184n19
Park (Brooklyn, NY), 23 Metella, Caecilia, 4
Marble Cemeteries (New York, Michigan, funeral zoning
NY), 9–10 ordinance, 113
Margolies, Jane, 34n29 Milesi, Cristina, 126n19
Margolis, Rachel, 139n52 Millennials and death, 90
Marovich, Beatrice, 91n37 Miller, Jennifer, 32n21, 160n66
Marquez-Grant, N., 229n18 Miller, Jim T., 149n25
Marsh, Jason, 53n15, 245n1 Miller, William, 6
Marsh, Tanya D., 96n1, 97n4, 112n79, Milman, Lena, 5n2
214n31, 215nn32–33, 215nn35–40, Mindfulness, 89
216nn42–43, 219n62, 228 Miniño, Arialdi, 30n5
Marshall, Thurgood, 222, 222n68 Missing You, 185n24, 185–186
Martin, Andrew, 30n2 Mitford, Jessica, 24–26, 24nn41–46,
Matchar, Emily, 235n37 125, 125n13, 125n16, 127,
Mates, Lewis H., 31n20 144, 144n4
Mathur, Sonia, 37n48 Mitra, Ananda, 188, 188n33, 189
Mausoleums, community, 19–21, 21 Mitroff, Sarah, 191n45
Mausolus, 2 Modjeski, Ralph, 20
Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), 228 Mohring, Hunter, 35n41
McCarthy, Justin, 81n10 Monkhouse, Bob, 180–181
McGinley, Devin, 110n64 Montaigne, Michel de, 47, 48, 57,
Mchunu, K., 87n21 57n21
McKibben, Frank, 107–108 Mori, Masahiro, 188, 188n35
McKibben, Robert, 107–108 Moriyama, I. M., 59n31
McMath, Jahi, 68 Mortuaries: law of human remains,
The Meadow (Lexington, VA), 35 112–114
Meaning making, 89 Mortuary technologies: alkaline
Medical-assisted dying, 59 hydrolysis, 99–100, 227–229;
Medieval cemeteries, 4–5 anaerobic bioconversion, 231–234;
Meese, James, 182n9 human composting, 134,
Méheut, Constant, 39n67 229–231, 232
Meier, Emily A., 53n14 Mosher, Dave, 151n36
Index 267

Mount Auburn Cemetery (Boston, New Haven (CT) cemeteries, 7–8

MA), 10, 35, 35n38, 120, 130–131, New Orleans, Louisiana, tombs, 35
131n32 New York City cemeteries, 8–10,
Mount Hope Cemetery 33–35, 236–237
(Boston, MA), 35 New York Cremation Society, 99n7
Mourning practices, 86–92 NFDMA. See National Funeral
Murphy, R. G. L., 227n4 Directors and Morticians
My Grief Angels (app), 182n15, Association
182–183 Nickman, Steven L., 89n27
Myles Standish Burial Ground Niemczyk, Katherine, 39n66
(Duxbury, MA), 7 Nigro, Carmen, 9n6
Nixon, Richard, 128
Nagle burying ground (Manhattan), 9 Niziolomski, J., 229n18
NAGPRA. See Native American Graves North Carolina: alkaline hydrolysis,
Protection and Repatriation Act 100; funeral homes, 109–110
Namani, Ramakrishna R., 126n19 Norton, Francisco Gino, 74n3
Nansen, Bjorn, 182n9 Notman, John, 12, 16
Napoleon Bonaparte, 6, 7 Nuland, Sherwin B., 67n41
Narbs, 188, 189 Numrich, Paul D., 81n11
Nash, P. B., 227n4 Nursing home deaths, 56–57
National Cancer Institute, 30n4
National Funeral Directors and Obama, Barack, 222, 222n68
Morticians Association (NFDMA), O’Brien, B., 237n38
161, 161n73 Ochs, Caitlin, 151n35
National Funeral Directors Ohio: corpse-abuse statute, 103–104;
Association, 31n10, 31n13, 32n22, human remains statute, 105–106
130n31, 147n15, 161, 161n72, 162, Old Graveyard (New Amsterdam), 8
165nn86–87 Olsen, Dean, 132n34
National Home Funeral Alliance, Olson, Philip R., 111n77, 145n5,
157–158 165–166, 166n88, 227n4, 228n6,
Native American Graves Protection 228nn8–9
and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Once I’ve Gone (app), 182
106–107 O’Neill, Kevin Lewis, 38n56
Natural burying grounds, 127–133 Online arrangements and services,
Natural death care assistants (NDAs), 164–165
111–112 Oregon, corpse-abuse law, 104
Natural organic reduction, 100–101 Organ donation, 66–67, 72n38
Nature Conservancy, 170–171, Ornstein, Katherine, 54n19
171n108 Otoch, Jose Pinhata, 184n18
Nelson, Blair, 110nn67–68
Neumann, Ann, 151n34 PAD. See Physician-assisted dying
Nevada, cremation, 100 Pandemic, COVID-19. See COVID-19
New Hampshire Funeral Resources, pandemic
Education & Advocacy, 150n26 Pantzar, Michael, 153n49
268Index

Park, Chang-Won, 186n26 Prothero, Stephen, 130n30

Park, Minwoo, 186n25 Prout, Donald, 16n22
Parliament of South Australia, 37n50 PSDA. See Patient Self-
Parmalee, Thomas A., 109n62 Determination Act
Patient Self-Determination Act Public Health Emergency, 150n30
(PSDA), 63 Public health statutes concerning
Pauls, Karen, 36n42 human remains, 96–97, 105–108
Pawlett, M., 229n18 Public memorials, 87–88
Pawlowski, Mark, 215n33 Puett, M. J., 203n8
Peirera, V., 180n4 Puri, Belle, 228n11
People’s Memorial, 168n98 Purser, Ronald, 89n30
Père Lachaise cemetery (Paris, Pyramids, 2
France), 6, 6–7 Pyszczynski, Tom, 214n28
Pericles, 209
Perley, Sidney, 105n40 Qin Shi Huang, 2
Personalized funeral services, 83–86 QR code technology, 180
Peters, Absalom, 18, 19, 28n28 Quigley, Christine, xviin6
Peters, Harriet, 18, 18n28 Quinlan, Karen Ann, 63
Petri, Alexandra E., 151n37
Pew Research Center, 80n8, 81n12, Rahman, Khaleda, 150n31
164n83 Ramsey Creek Preserve
Phoenix, Arizona, funeral home (Westminster, SC), 131–132,
restrictions, 113 133, 144
Physician-assisted dying (PAD), 59, Rankine, Claudia, 90, 90n34
72n32 Raz, J., 216n44
Piao, Vanessa, 37n54 Real Life, 179, 179n3, 184, 185,
Pierrepont, Henry Evelyn, 12 186–188
Pietsch, Bryan, 231n30 Reckdahl, Katy, 217n48
Pilon, J. L., 227n4 Recompose, 134, 160, 160n71,
Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 4 230–231, 231n25, 231n28,
Plato, 200 231nn31–32
Pokémon Go, 184, 184n16 Republic, 200, 207–208
Political action, 206–207 Restoring Families’ Rights to Choose, 157
Pollastri, Tatiana, 39n65 Return Home, 232
Post, Emily, 24, 24n42 Richman, Jeffrey I., 10n8, 13, 13n15,
Powell, Alvin, 68n46 14nn16–18, 15n19
Powell, Mark, 126n21, 133n35 Ricketts, B. C., 218nn52–53
Powers, B. E., 227n4 Rickson, J., 229n18
Presbyterian Burying Ground RIP Cemetery (app), 182
(Cincinnati, OH), 15–16 Rituals, 53–54, 74–75, 91, 203–204
Presley, Elvis, 184 Rizotto, Lucas, 187
Price, Molly, 191n45 Robb-Smith, A. H. T., 59n31
Promessa, 230, 230n21, 230n24 Roberts, Andrea L., 147n14
Promession, 230 Rogers, Everett M., 146n12
Index 269

Roman Catholics: cremation, xvi; Silva, Jennifer M., 89n30, 90n31,

funerals, 79–80 90n33
Romans: political thought, 206–207; Silver, Gale, 9n7
tombs, 3–4, 4 Silverman, Phyllis R., 89n27
Rosenberg, H. M., 59n31 Sima Qian, 2
Rosenblatt, Abram, 214n28 Simon, B., 203n8
Rosenbloom, Megan, 105n39 Simpson, Jeff S., 184n17
Rothaupt, Jeanne W., 88n26 Sincerity, 203–204
Rothblatt, Martine, 189, 189n37 Singapore National Environment
Rothstein, Karla, 29n1, 74n1, 135, Agency, 37n55
226n1, 234n35 Singer, Peter, 68n45
Ruggles, Samuel B., 96n3 Six Feet Under, 143–144
Rumble, Hannah, 229n16 1619 Project, 208
Rural garden cemeteries, 10–19 Skolnik, Fred, 215n34
Rush, Merilynne, 158n61 Sloane, David Charles, 16n23, 21,
21n34, 22, 22nn35–38, 24nn39–
Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 133 40, 87, 96n2, 119n1, 122n7,
Sales, Jessica M., 90n31 123n10, 125n17, 136n40, 137n41
Salkin, Patricia E., 113n83 Slocum, Josh, 145nn6–8, 149n24,
San Francisco and Colma, California, 155n54, 157nn59–60
cemeteries, 35 Slominski, Elena Michele, 153,
Sanders, Cody J., 152–153, 153n50, 154n51, 161–162, 162n74
153n45 Smartphone memorialization,
Savarese, Mauricio, 39n65 181–183
Scanga, J. A., 227n4 Smillie, James, 15
Schiavo, Terri, 63 Smith, G. C., 227n4
Schliemann, Heinrich, 2 Smith, Jeremy Adam, 53n15, 245n1
Schmidt, Danna, 160n68 Smith, John Jay, 12, 12n11
Schmidt, Elise V., 134n36 Smith, Richard, 52n13
Seagal, David, 137n45 Smith-Greenaway, Emily, 139n52
Sehee, Joe, 32n25, 146, 146n10 Smolensky, Kirsten Rabe, 218n54
Self-determination, 63–65 Social media, 182–183
Seligman, Adam B., 203, 203nn8–9, Sofka, Carla, 178n1
204, 204nn10–11, 211 Soil, 100–101
Shakur, Tupac, 181, 184 Solidarity with the dead, 220–222
Shanken, Andrew, 134n38, 137n42 Solomon, Adina, 228n10
Shapiro, Art, 31n17 Solomon, Sheldon, 214n28
Shapiro, Rich, 151n34 Sousa, Leonardo de Moura, Jr.,
Shared subjunctive, 203–205 184n18
Sherlock, Alexandra, 181n6 South American cemeteries, 37–38
Shorman, Jonathan, 230n23 Spade, Katrina, 134, 160, 230–231
Shove, Elizabeth, 153n49 Spanish flu, 136, 137, 138
Sidaway, J. D., 133n35 Speyer, Josefine, 128n26
Siddiqui, Danish, 39n69 Spinney, Laura, 138, 138n48
270Index

Spongberg, Alison L., 30n8 Thagard, Paul, 92n39

Spring Grove Cemetery Thanatechnology. See Digital tools
(Cincinnati, OH), 17–19 That Dragon, Cancer (video game),
St. Augustine (FL) National 186–187
Cemetery, 184 Thogmartin, Ryan, 163–164, 164n81
Stack, Liam, 38n62 Thomas, E. Lewis, 101n18
Staglieno cemetery (Genoa), 7 Threshold circles, 156
Stander, Dina, 156, 156n55, 160n67, Thucydides, 209
168, 168n99 Thunberg, Greta, 222, 222n68
Stanford School of Medicine, 47n2 Tibau, Anita Vazquez, 31n14, 31n19
Stang, Heather, 89n29 Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava, 189,
Stanković, Isidora, 6n3 189n40, 190, 190n43
State of New York, 96n2 Tisdale, Sallie, 50n11
Staudt, Christina, xvin4, 29n1, 49n5, Tombs, 1–2, 3–4, 4, 35
74n1, 226n1 Tradition, 206
Steele, Austin, 138n49 Transhumanism, 188–190
Stein, Lori, 156, 156n56 Transplants, 66–67, 72n38
Stevens, Holly, 155n53 Treber, Jaret, 160n70
Stewart, Jeremy, 128n28 Troug, Robert D., 69n47
Stowe, Johnny P., Jr., 134n36 Troyer, John, 229n16
Strachey, James, 88nn24–25 Trust, 210–212
Strangwayes-Booth, Alex, 36n45 Turner, J. W. M., 6
Strauch, Adolph, 16–18, Tutankhamen, 2
17nn24–26, 19 Tuttle, Benjamin T., 126n19
Strong, George Templeton, 10
Strudwick, Nigel C., 52n12 Uniform Determination of Death Act
Subjunctive covenant, 201–202, 205, (UDDA), 67–68, 67nn43–44, 69
207, 208–209, 211. See also United Kingdom cemeteries, 36–37
Covenant United Nations, Department of
Survival odds, 49, 57 Economic and Social Affairs,
Sustainability: design, 136; 39nn70–71
disposition options, 160, 226, 229, University of Maryland Department of
230, 231; ecological responsibility, Environmental Safety,
136, 171, 213, 241; legislation, 98, Sustainability and Risk, 31n9
115, 228; spaces of remembrance, Upton, Dell, 120n2
235–241 Urban Death Project, 134, 230, 240
Sutton Hoo burial site (East Ur cemetery (Babylonia), 1
Anglia, UK), 4 Urnfield cemetery, 2
Swenson, Anna, 231n31 U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics,
Sylvan Constellation, 235–237, 236 150n27
U.S. cemeteries, 7–19
Tanzberger, Eric, 110n65 U.S. Government Information on
Taylor, Mark C., 69, 69n50 Organ Donation and
Teixeira, Manoel Jacobsen, 184n18 Transplantation, 66n39
Index 271

Van Brussel, Leen, 189n39 “Whispering Glades” (Waugh), 22

VerCauteren, K. C., 227n4 Whiting, Robert E. K., 19
Verdery, Ashton M., 139n52 Whole-body burial. See Cemeteries
Video games, 186–188 Wicclair, Mark R., 216nn46–47,
Vieira de Faria, Jose Weber, 184n18 218n57
Virago, Zenith, 153n47 Wienrich, Stephani, 128n26
Virgil, 200n4, 209 Wiigh-Mäsak, Susanne, 230, 230n24
Virtual reality (VR), 183–186 Wilde, Caleb, 146, 146n11
Williams, Corey, 150n29
Wahlster, Sarah, 68n44 Williams, David, 139n51
Wallace, Benjamin, 135n39 Williams, Keith, 34n30
Walter, Tony, 229n16 Wills, G., 210n19
Wards Island cemetery (New York, WIllsher, Kim, 36n43
NY), 9 Wilson, John F., 137n43
Waring, Jay, 110n70, 111n71 Wolfelt, Alan D., 79n8, 90n32
Warren, Charles D., 19, 19n29 Women and death care, 166
Wartburg, 83n16 Wood, Michael, 200, 200n5, 212
Washington: human composting, 231; Woodlands burial grounds, 128
natural organic reduction, 100–101 Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, NY),
Wasserman, Rabbi Daniel, 111 18–19, 23
Wasserman v. Burrell, 111 Woodsen, Mary, 31
Watson, Matt, 153n49 Woodthorpe, Kate, 229n16
Waugh, Evelyn, 21–22 World Health Organization (WHO),
Weaver, Helen, 47n1, xvin3 58n30, 152n42
Webster, Lee, 145n7, 146n9, 148n19, Wren, Christopher, 5, 5n2
150n31, 157nn58–60, 159n64, Wright, Frank Lloyd, 20
166n89
Wedam, Elfriede, 81n11 Xu, Jiaquan, 30n5
Weller, R. P., 203n8 Xue, Yifeng, 31n15
Wenger-Trayner, Beverley, 156n57
Wenger-Trayner, Etienne, 156n57 Yong, Ed, 233n34
West, Ken, 126, 128 Young, Hilary, 215n41, 216n45, 217,
Wheeler, Brian, 30n7 217n50, 218, 218n51, 218n54,
Where Thoughts Go (video game), 187 218nn58–59, 219n63