American Afterlives: Reinventing Death in the Twenty-First Century

The author, anthropologist Shannon Lee Dawdy, reminds us that reminders of death are pinpricks that affects most people's thoughts throughout their life. After all, it's one of the few guarantees that come with life. As many of Americans have witnessed in pop culture media, there are more and more methods that enter the vogue on what to do with the dead, or what to do with ourselves once we are. Americans specifically are reconsidering their relationship with funerary rituals -- with an increase of DIY practices, an uptick in cremation, American culture comes face to face with mortality -- on what it means and what they'd like to do.

The author interviews people within the industry (morticians, cemetery workers, death doulas, startup entrepreneurs) to show us what the industry in culture is shaping up to be as the 21st century progresses. 

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