The Death Studies Podcast

What's the episode about? 
In this episode, hear Ruth E. Toulson on the necropolitics of the ordinary, dying and death in Singapore, anthropology, burials, funeral directors and morticians
Who is Ruth?
At Johns Hopkins, Ruth E. Toulson is a lecturer for the Master of Arts in Museum Studies program. Toulson is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the dead body, and death’s material culture in Southeast and East Asia. Trained at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Toulson brings to Johns Hopkins a multi-sited collaborative international research agenda that combines long-term ethnographic fieldwork and in-depthwork in museum collections. Toulson brings significant teaching and advising experience at the graduate level in anthropology, material culture studies, and critical museum studies.
As a whole, Toulson’s scholarship explores the intersection ofdeath and the state, particularly in moments of sociopolitical transition.
Toulson probes this intersection by focusing particularly on the dead body as a form of highly politicized material culture. Supported through numerous external grants, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the Hong Kong Research Council, thisresearch program has resulted in published work, including a book and numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles, including in Journal of Material Culture.
Toulson recently delivered the keynote address at University ofMelbourne, Redesigning Deathcare Conference, and has given invited lectures at the Gatty Lecture Series (Cornell), The Centre for the Study of Death and Society (University of Bath), The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (Harvard), and at the Council for Southeast Asia (Yale), among otherinvitations. Toulson is associate editor of the journal Anthropology and Humanism.
How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?
To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:
Toulson, R. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 May 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32143756
 
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What's the episode about?
In this episode, hear Professor Beverley Clack on philosophyof religion, failure, loss, neoliberalism, thinking about death and not freaking out, women, gender and good public conversations about difficult topics
 Who is Bev?
 Beverley Clack is Visiting Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. She is funded by the Westminster College Oxford Trust to research and create projects which enable flourishing in and outside the Methodist Church. Beverley taught for many yearsat Oxford Brookes University, where she is Professor Emerita in the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford Brookes University.  
Her publications include Feminism, Religion and Practical Reason (Cambridge 2021); How to be a Failure andStill Live Well (2020); Philosophy of Religion: A Critical Introduction, co-authored with Brian R Clack (3rd edition published in 2019); Freud on the Couch (2013); Sex and Death: A Reappraisal of Human Mortality (2002); and Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition (1999). She is currently working on How to Think about Death (And Not Freak Out) for Bloomsbury. How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:
Clack, B. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 April 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.31916916
 What next?
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Cole Imperi on grief, thanatology, shadow loss, and non-clinical tools in support of those experiencing loss and grief.
What's the episode about?
In this episode, hear Cole Imperi on grief, thanatology, shadow loss, and non-clinical tools in support of those experiencing loss and grief.
Who is Cole?
Cole Imperi is a thanatologist, award-winning author, and researcher whose work focuses on the use of non-clinical tools in support of those experiencing loss and grief. Cole is the Founder of the School of American Thanatology, which has students in more than 30 countries, where she both teaches andconducts research under the school’s ThanaLab. Through her development of Shadowloss Theory and her pioneering work with the field of Thanabotany, Cole’s work seeks to bridge the gaps left by the decline in non-clinical, community-led bereavement support.
As a leading expert in the field of thanatology, Cole hasgiven multiple TEDx Talks on Shadowloss and resiliency, appeared on the Netflix series The Future of…, and served as an expert for WNYC’s Radiolab, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Ologies, MoMA, and more.
Cole’s is the author of A Guide to Grief, for teens and tweens, and a book about grief for adults called Grief is the Way Home being published by Penguin in 2027.
Cole has diverse experience from working in and aroundloss and grief since 2008 where she worked as a chaplain-thanatologist in one of America’s 25 largest jails, mortuary college professor, crematory operator, hospice volunteer, grief support group leader for children as young as 3 to adults, death companion, served on the board of a green burial startup, and as Board President of a historic cemetery and arboretum. She traveled the US and Canada for 5 years training funeral directors and embalmers, and co-founded a deathcare startup. She currently consults on bereavement programming for organizations, and publishes the popular column Grief or Madness.
Cole was the recipient of the Curtis Gates Lloyd Fellowship through the Lloyd Library and Museum, is a California MasterGardener, and a California Master Food Preserver. She works as a horticulturalist one morning a week specifically for a Hummingbird Garden, which gives her a break from life behind a computer screen. She is based in Los Angeles.
The Book Promo: Decolonising Death Studies
You can find the book promoted in the introduction here.
How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?
To cite this episode, you can use the following citation: Imperi, C. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 March 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.31440127
 
 What next?
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What's the episode about?
 In this episode, hear Nina Vaswani on young men and grief during in imprisonment, childhood bereavement, masculinities and grief, trauma informed practice, comics for education and research, disenfranchised grief, grieving a death you have caused, and public health responses to grief
 Who is Nina?
 Nina is Senior Research Fellow at the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice, University of Strathclyde.  Her key research interests are the experience and impact of loss, bereavement and trauma in young people and how these experiences interface and shape contact with the justicesystem.  Of particular interest is the overrepresentation of young men in justice-settings, and how their exposure to loss, bereavement and trauma might shape their developing masculinities identities, behaviours and outcomes. As a result, she is also interested in institutional and organisational responses to trauma, and the realities of trauma-informed approaches in practice.  Nina was also the PI on Men Minds, a coproduced research project exploring masculinities and mental health with marginalised young men.

Resources
 
When People Die
 
Men Minds comic, whichopens with a story of bereavement in prison
 
The prevalence study isopen access and is available here.
How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?
To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:
Vaswani, N. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 2 January 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.31224109

What's the episode about?
 In this episode, hear Joshua Hurtardo Hurtardo on postmortal futures, future studies, de-growth, immortality imaginaries, future collective death, Westworld, and promoting your work in 2026
 
Who is Joshua?
Joshua Hurtado Hurtado is a Mexican interdisciplinary researcher, currently finalising his PhD research at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He studied International Relations for his Bachelor’s degree at the Tecnológico de Monterrey university,in Mexico. He obtained his first Master’s degree in International Relations as well, specialising in Ideology and Discourse analysis, from the University of Essex, in the United Kingdom. He did a second Master’s degree at the University of Turku, in Finland, this time in Futures Studies. After that, he began hisPhD research at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences.
 
He uses his expertise in several disciplines and fields of study to conduct theoretical and empirical research on the topics of death and immortality, as well as on the topics of degrowth and sustainability more generally. Scholars in the DeathStudies field will find his articles ‘Towards a postmortalsociety of virtualised ancestors? The Virtual Deceased Person and the preservation of the social bond’, ‘Envisioning postmortalfutures: six archetypes on future societal approaches to seeking immortality’, and ‘Exploited in immortality: Techno-capitalism and immortality imaginaries in the twenty-firstcentury’ published in the journal Mortality, his article ‘Fight, or flee, the future: Affect in contrasting responses against future collective death’ published in the journal Journal of Sociology, and his book chapters ‘Westworld, Morality, and Digital Afterlives’ in the edited collection Depicting the Afterlife in Contemporary Film and Media: Morality, Religion and Death byAngelique Nairn, and ‘Death, Relationality, and Resistance against Necropolitical Violence in Latin America’ in the upcoming edited book Decolonising Death Studies by Panagiotis Pentaris, Stacey Pitsillides and Hajar Ghorbani.
 
In addition to his academic trajectory, he has also worked at the Ministry of Social Development at the local level in Nuevo León, Mexico, in the roles of policy analyst and later chief of research. He has taught courses at the Undergraduate level at Tecnológico de Monterrey, in Mexico, on Business Models andEntrepreneurship (despite his insistent anti-capitalist critiques) and at the Master’s level at the University of Helsinki, on Organizations and EconomicDegrowth.
 
In his spare time, he enjoys reading, watching films and TV series, and playing with Luna, his family’s dog.

You can contact him via the following email addresses: [email protected] (personal), and [email protected] (institutional, as of January 2026). You can find him at BlueSky at @joshuahh.bsky.social

How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?
To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:
Hurtado Hurtado, J. (2026) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 2 January 2026. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com,DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.30987202What next?
Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts!Got a question? Get in touch.