%0 Journal Article
%T The Sociology of Death
%J Sociology compass
%D 2008
%A Walter, Tony
%V 2
%N 1
%P 317-336
%X The understanding of death, dying and bereavement in relation to society is indebted to a number of disciplines – anthropology, history, psychology and sociology are surveyed. Theories and methods used by sociologists of death, dying and bereavement are briefly outlined, followed by a number of key debates and challenges: denial, taboo and sequestration; death and the media; how to integrate scholarship in collective memory and Holocaust studies; theorising contemporary rites of passage; the lack of comparative research; and the need to focus on the meaning and organisation of death for those who encounter it most directly; namely, the poor, displaced and elderly. A brief discussion of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is followed by the conclusion that any promise of a general sociology conducted in the light of mortality has been eclipsed by yet another specialism, the sociology of death.<p />
%G 
%I John Wiley and Sons
%@ 1751-9020
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00069.x