Death, Dying, and Beyond Unit

1. The Death, Dying, and Beyond Unit invites proposals on “The Future of Death: Mortality, Memorialization, and Meaning-Making". Engaging this year’s presidential theme of “The Future,” we encourage submissions that interrogate how death, dying, and the afterlife function as sites for "futuring"—critical spaces where we assess and build the horizons for what is yet to be. In a moment where dystopic imaginations often loom large, we ask: How do the dead shape our visions of the possible? Topics may include but are not limited to: the evolution of memorialization in digital and ecological landscapes; "hauntologies" and the role of counter-memory in challenging dominant narratives; the aesthetics of mourning; tensions between eschatology and technoscientific futurisms (e.g., transhumanism, cryonics, and AI afterlives); the precarity of the academy and the "death" of the humanities; and the capacity of ancient and new traditions to imagine futures beyond despair. Submissions that incorporate diverse disciplinary approaches, methodological perspectives, and global or comparative contexts are especially welcome. We also welcome non-traditional presentations, full panel submissions, artistic work, roundtables, and book discussions.

2. The Death, Dying, and Beyond Unit invites proposals on the theme “What We Can't Write: Writing About Death and Material Culture in Academia.” We encourage proposals that consider how scholars who study memory objects of the dead navigate the expectations of academic writing and disciplinary boundaries that treat these objects as dead, secular objects and/or non-supernatural signifiers of the past. Topics may include but are not limited to: writing about memory objects of the dead in disciplines that treat the objects themselves as dead objects; scholarly methods and/or editorial processes that privilege secular methods for studying and writing about memory objects of the dead; narratives about memory objects of the dead from scholars’ own lives that reveal challenges in writing about death and material culture; tensions between writing about death and material culture and dedicating books in memory of the dead. Submissions that incorporate diverse disciplinary approaches, methodological perspectives, and global contexts are especially welcome. We envision this panel as a lightening panel comprised of 5-6 short papers on the theme followed by ample discussion among participants and attendees. We welcome full panel submissions and individual submissions.