Every industry has their niche micro-culture of enthusiasts, researches, and theorists… but death care seems to be an exception. There are only a handful of explorers of death touching on the industry, ethics, law, or cultural outlooks. We were thrilled earlier this year when Tanya Marsh led the publishing the Disrupting the Death Care Paradigm papers in the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy and now she’s launched an enlightening new death podcast to bring mortality musings to the masses. Death, et seq. is a podcast about the relationship between the living and the dead with a new episode released every Monday.
Death, et seq. (which literally means death, and what follows) takes an intelligent, thoughtful, analytical approach to death topics while remaining playful creating a captivating listening experience for both the funeral professional and average curious person.
In the first episode (episode #2), Liam Sherman and Marsh discuss topics including: Are funerals for the living or the dead? (And therefore, who should make decisions about funerals and disposition – the decedent or the family?) and What is the difference between a mummy in a museum and a person who was recently buried?
Marsh tells Connecting Directors, “I start the podcast in Episode 2 the same way I begin my Funeral & Cemetery Law class at Wake Forest – by discussing a number of real life cases. In the episode, I discuss them with my 17-year-old son to get his initial impressions on some of the fundamental issues that we’ll discuss during the podcast.
Episode 3 is an interview with Dan Isard of The Foresight Companies which lays out the structure of the funeral industry in 2018 and highlights the challenges that it faces. He reveals jaw-dropping statistics that will have you both terrified, mad, and excited for the future.
Episode 4 is an interview with Caitlin Doughty of Undertaking LA and Ask a Mortician discussing the death positive movement. We know how most of the funeral industry feels about Doughty, but give this episode a try… you won’t be disappointed. It outlines the mission of this influential death ambassador as she opens up about her tumultuous relationship with the funeral industry and shares her goals for public education around death options and ritual awareness.
Upcoming episodes feature Lee Webster (Green Burial Council/National Home Funeral Alliance) and Bob Fells (ICCFA).
Don’t Miss the New episodes of this Death Podcast! Subscribe HERE.
The host of Death, et seq., Tanya Marsh, is a law professor at Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She is the author of The Law of Human Remains (2015), Cemetery Law: The Common Law of Burying Grounds in the United States (2015), Disposition of Human Remains: A Legal Research Guide (2015), and The Regulation of the Funeral Services Industry: A Legal Research Guide (2018 – forthcoming).
Marsh describes the inspiration for her career and the Death, et seq. podcast:
There isn’t anything more universal than death, and it turns out that the law of human remains is really misunderstood and complicated. There is simultaneously more law than you ever could have imagined, and stunning radio silence on some really important points. What the rules are, how they impact us, and the way that death care is changing — these are all things that we will talk about a lot on Death, et seq.
