What is a Good Death?

Fri 19 July 2019 - Sat 20 July 2019

Cambridge Central Library

What is a good death?
Can literature help?

Drop in and join us for:
– talks and workshops exploring literature and death (some sessions may require advance booking, see the website for details)
– opportunities to speak to archaeologists and museum staff and to study and handle human bones
– interactive and hands-on activities for kids and adults
– to a go at writing some literature of you own
– to start a new conversation!

In the past, it was considered normal to think and talk about dying well. In the anglophone world, ideas of a good death derived from a range of different sources – religion, literature, history, ethics, medicine – and was bound up in very personal but also universal questions about what it means for humans to live a good life in the certain knowledge of death. From works of art, novels and poetry, medical texts, diaries, newspapers, we can get a glimpse of a rich culture of open, very diverse and in many cases highly-informed conversation about how or whether ‘a good death’ is achievable, and what it might look like.

Nowadays, talk of dying well is noticeably less common. Our CRASSH-funded project looks to the literature of the past to encourage new reflections on how individuals, including those closely affected by death and dying, can find languages and spaces to explore the idea of dying well, and to challenge our assumptions about what that means for ourselves, our social institutions, and our broader culture.

Twitter: @what_death

Cost: free