Death in the 21st Century: A Companion - Paperback

by Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon (Editor), Simon Bacon (Editor)

In the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, death has become an all too familiar feature of the early 2020s.

The 21st century has in fact produced a singular historical moment with its unique intersection of popular politics, environmental extremes, globalisation and technological innovation, which has correspondingly created distinctive expressions of death, as well.

This companion reveals our visions of death in the 21st century and what they say about us and the times we live in. Organised into sections on the war on terror, technology, climate change, extremism and global pandemics, the short, reader-friendly essays in this volume highlight crucial encounters with death in the contemporary period.

Author Biography

Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. In her research, she has explored representations of ageing and old age, as well as the notions of memory and nostalgia within literary gerontology. She is the editor of Autumnal Faces (2017) and «Experienc'd Age knows what for Youth is fit»? (2019) and author of «And Yet I Remember» (2019).

Simon Bacon has written and edited over 30 books, including The Anthropocene and the Undead (2022), Nosferatu in the 21st Century (2023), 1000 Vampires on Screen Vols 1 & 2 (2023) and The Palgrave Handbook of the Vampire (2024). He is the Series Editor for Genre Fiction and Film Companions and Vampire Studies: New Perspectives on the Undead with Peter Lang.