Death

Laurie Taylor talks to Molly Conisbee, Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, about her ‘people’s’ history of mortality, beyond queens and aristocrats. From the plague pits to grave-robberies and wakes, she explores how cycles of dying, death and disposal have shaped our society. What did it mean to die well in the past, what does it mean now? Also, Chao Fang, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool, talks about his study of the meaning of a good death in China & how it differs from western notions which centre the dying person’s wishes rather than family harmony. Producer: Jayne Egerton

You can listen to Death online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Death is an episode from Thinking Allowed by BBC.

This episode is 28:29 long.

This episode was published on Jun 17, 2025.

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