CfP: ‘Death Down Under: Toward an Australian Death Studies’
An interdisciplinary symposium hosted by the Australian Death Studies Society and held at the University of Melbourne on Friday 10th July, 2026
Call for papers
Questions of death and dying appear of universal concern, having inspired intellectual enquiry throughout history and across cultures. Still, as a project of the modern university, the interdisciplinary field of death studies only emerged as a research cluster in the 1970s, largely driven by scholars working in the British academy. The United Kingdom is home to major research centers in this field, and landmark publications and theories that shape the intellectual trajectory of death studies primarily draw on data sets collected in the UK. The UK also regularly hosts the biannual ‘Death, Dying and Disposal’ Conference, organised by the Association for the Study of Death and Society. In the United States of America, scholars and practitioners working in the interrelated and overlapping field of thanatology are represented by the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and internationally, the field of death studies is primarily served by three English-language journals, Death Studies, Omega, and Mortality.
It is thus no exaggeration to state that the anglosphere looms large within the contemporary intellectual space of death studies. As Candi Cann identifies, “much of the work in thanatology up to now has been conducted or written in English-speaking countries and remains highly Anglo in both scope and practice” (2018a, 4). Australia occupies a liminal position within the academic world system, as both a part of and apart from the anglosphere. This positioning has been described by Ross Gibson (1992) as “South of the West”. Australia is an industrialised Western nation state with substantial trade routes throughout Asia and deep histories of violent settler colonialism that continue to be enacted on Indigenous peoples. Australian academia has more or less seriously and fruitfully engaged with this inheritance. Death studies in particular is a relatively new research concentration within the Australian academy. Today, major clusters for death studies include the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death, and Dying (Flinders University), the DeathTech Research Team (the University of Melbourne), and the Australian Centre for Health Law Research (Queensland University of Technology). Efforts to grow Australian death studies can be seen in the formation of the Australian Death Studies Society (www.deathstudies.org) in 2020, and in the Redesigning Deathcare Conference in 2022. This conference, attended by over 300 delegates, demonstrated the significant presence of scholars researching death and dying in Australia across a variety of disciplines and settings, despite the absence to date of a clear collective project of death studies, permanent forum to exchange ideas, or shared research agenda.
There is a clear opportunity to harness this enthusiasm and grow the field of death studies in Australia. Further, death and dying, bereavement, and memorialisation in Australia are shaped by distinct legal systems, cultural norms, and histories of colonisation and migration, such that academics working on death in Australia – and the populations we study – are disserviced by the continued dominance of work produced by and about the UK and (to a lesser extent) the US. It is against this background that the ‘Death Down Under: Toward an Australian Death Studies’ symposium emerges.
The Australian Death Studies Society is inviting abstracts for this day-long symposium, the ultimate goal of which is to identify and elaborate on a collective project that is a uniquely Australian death studies. Abstracts are invited from any discipline and all career stages. Potential topics include (but are not limited to) the idea of an ‘Australian way of death’ and the values and perceptions embedded within this concept, the introduction of VAD legislation across Australia, Indigenous experiences of death and dying, systematic disadvantages in Australian death care, and methodological approaches to doing death studies in Australia.
Abstracts should be submitted using this form by 10th May 2026, with acceptance to be announced in mid-May. Presenters will be required to be members of the Australian Death Studies Society. Presentations will be 20 minutes long. Whilst online presentation can be facilitated, strong preference will be given to in person presentation. Please indicate your preference for online or in person presentation when submitting your abstract. The ADSS is in a position to offer some financial support to facilitate in person attendance, with preference being given to PhD researchers, early career researchers, and those in precarious employment.
For any questions, please contact the event organisers at info@deathstudies.org.