Birth and Death in British Culture

Liminality, Power, and Performance

Edited By: Anette Pankratz, Claus-Ulrich Viol, Ariane de Waal

£39.99

Why look at birth and death together? These 13 interdisciplinary articles prove that looking at the two in tandem throws their distinct patterns and shared socio-political issues into sharp relief, probing their medialisation and commodification.

Why discuss birth and death when they lie outside discourse? And why look at them together when they are so much unlike each other, one…

Why discuss birth and death when they lie outside discourse? And why look at them together when they are so much unlike each other, one the moment of fresh beginnings, joys, and the relative certainties of existence, the other the moment of life’s end, grief, and the relative uncertainties of non-existence? Because it turns out that both events, while virtually unrepresentable, have spawned a host of representations, narratives, rites, and attempts at making sense of them; and because they may have more similarities than appears at first sight. The 13 interdisciplinary articles collected in this volume prove that looking at the two phenomena in tandem throws into sharp relief the distinct patterns and functions of each, while also highlighting some of the fundamental historical developments, cultural functions, and socio-political issues shared by both. The contributions take stock of the discourses of birth and death prevalent in British (and Western) culture, probing into the way the two phenomena have been subjected to strategies of medialisation, commodification, and bio-politics.

Anette Pankratz is Professor of British Cultural Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Her research interests include representations of death and dying in contemporary British drama.

Claus-Ulrich Viol is Lecturer of British Cultural Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. His research interests include the bio-politics of pregnancy and birth, the James Bond phenomenon, and popular music.

Ariane de Waal is Research Assistant at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Her research interests include cultural constructions of childbirth, urban spaces, and representations of the ‘war on terror’.