Halloween was once intricately tied to a day when we actively engaged with death; and facing our own mortality was at the heart of the celebration.
October 22, 2018 | Blog
The Death Positive Roots of Halloween
Death in the Afternoon Podcast – My Roommate, a Corpse: Season 1: Episode 1
Welcome to Death in the Afternoon, a new podcast about all things mortal, from The Order of the Good Death.
October 15, 2018 | Blog
BURYING THE ENEMY: THE NAZI GRAVES OF PORTUGAL
Funerals, archeologists claim, are almost as old as humanity itself. It is seen as a given that we will send our dead into the unknown with respect. But what if some people’s lives are beneath celebration? What if the body in the casket belonged to a violent criminal, or a terrorist, or a member of an oppressive political regime? Rafaela Ferraz tells a little known story about this very question.
October 13, 2018 | Blog
Faces of Death: Katrina Spade
Our series, Faces of Death, showcases the death revolutionaries we are fortunate enough to work with here at The Order. This month, meet Katrina Spade, who is developing a new form of death care that transforms bodies into soil, so that we can return to the earth after we die.
September 5, 2018 | Blog
Deathstagram
People are using Instagram in innovative and meaningful ways, especially when it comes to the subject of death.
August 15, 2018 | Blog
Dying Queer in 2018
Guest writer, Daniel R Wilson, investigates what it’s like to die, queer, in 2018.
August 8, 2018 | Blog
The Stained and Sordid Scene: The Dead of Antietam
The impact and legacy of the first photographs depicting the casualties of the Civil War, which “brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets,” is examined in a new exhibit.
August 1, 2018 | Blog
Am I too attached to a long-dead Portuguese serial killer?
While traveling through Portugal to research her country’s display of dead bodies, Rafaela Ferraz develops a unique connection to a pickled head in a jar, prompting her to consider our society’s fascination with, and even adoration, of serial killers.
July 25, 2018 | Blog
YEAR OF ACTION: The Good Death Art Show
Artist Abby Rocha curated a death positive art show in an effort to create a space where both artists and the public could come together and explore the subjects of death and mortality. Here are some of her favorite pieces.
July 18, 2018 | Blog
They’re Not Morbid, They’re About Love: The Hair Relics of the Midwest
Leila collects art that’s made of human hair and displays it to the public at a museum bearing her name in Independence, Missouri.
July 11, 2018 | Blog
The Macabre, Unknown Origins of Father’s Day
The Monongah Mine Disaster is recognized as the worst industrial disaster in U.S. history– and you’ve likely never heard about it. The disaster occurred in my hometown of Monongah, West Virginia. On…
June 16, 2018 | Blog
1918: The Forgotten Year of Death
No other epidemic or pandemic has claimed as many lives as the Spanish Flu, not even the Black Death in the 14th century or AIDS in the 20th century — 100 years later, why have we forgotten the deadliest pandemic in history?
May 30, 2018 | Blog