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Special Issue 45 is based on a selection of papers from the second Australasian Death Studies Network (ADSN) conference held in Noosa, Queensland in October 2016. These scholars and creative practitioners explored a wide range of topics including: representations of death and dying in literature, visual art and the media, music and various types of popular culture; Gothic representations of death, dying and the undead; and writing about death and dying across cultures and historical periods. Writing about gender, aging and trauma in relation to death and dying were also discussed, as were transgression, murder and crime fiction. The keynote address, ‘A day in the life of a funeral director’, was not only a highlight of the conference, but provided a heady measure of realism to the deliberations.

Special Issue 45 is based on a selection of papers from the second Australasian Death Studies Network (ADSN) conference held in Noosa, Queensland in October 2016. These scholars and creative practitioners explored a wide range of topics including: representations of death and dying in literature, visual art and the media, music and various types of popular culture; Gothic representations of death, dying and the undead; and writing about death and dying across cultures and historical periods. Writing about gender, aging and trauma in relation to death and dying were also discussed, as were transgression, murder and crime fiction. The keynote address, ‘A day in the life of a funeral director’, was not only a highlight of the conference, but provided a heady measure of realism to the deliberations.

Special issues: editorial
Introduction: Writing death and dying
Donna Lee Brien
The 2016 ADSN conference discussed and investigated a range of cultural, humanities and social areas that conduct research into death and dying, including the creative arts, popular culture and health.
Special Issues: scholarly article
Dignifying the poisoned chalice: the ethical challenges of using archival material in a narrative about death and arsenic
Rachel Spencer
This article will explore aspects of the process of writing a true crime narrative in relation to writing about real deaths from a particularly brutal and painful case.
This paper examines the representation of death in selected contemporary Australian rural romance novels published between 2002 and 2017.
Special Issues: scholarly article
Response and response-ability to the death of others who are vulnerable
Kathryn Trees
This article argues that response-ability includes an ethical obligation to respond, and to facilitate response-ability for self and others.
Special Issues: scholarly article
Food for finality: feeding the bereaved and ‘feasting’ the dead
Gail Pittaway
While death is a taboo subject in most cultures, surrounded by practices of prayer and purification, it is surprisingly often ritualised through the sharing of food or drink, or both.