Bodycount Rising on Radio 4

Ruth Penfold-Mounce is speaking on a new Radio 4 programme on thursday 6th October at 11.30am. The programme entitled 'Bodycount Rising' is exploring the rise in female dead bodies displayed on television. Ruth discusses the rise in violence against dead women and challenges the assumption that this is acceptable entertainment. You can catch the programme on iplayer from friday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pc9qx

A review of the Marginal Death Symposium December 2015

The Marginal Death Research: Doing Edgework symposium on Wed 2nd December was a dynamic and exciting day with stimulting papers and discussion.

Follow the link for a review of the day: Marginal Death

Encountering Corpses in Manchester

Ruth Penfold-Mounce is speaking at the new public event -  Encountering Corpses II - on Saturday 19th March 2016.

Held in the Manchester Crematorium Old Chapel the day will include tours of the Crematorium facility, a visit to the Greater Manchester Police social centre for lunch and a display on policy pathology in the area.

Ruth will be part of a panel on (Sub)Cultural Encounters - Mountaineer corpses, celebrity bodies and preserved tattoed skins

Follow the link for more details and to book your ticket:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/encountering-corpses-ii-tickets-19842731143

The Krays, the BBC's Hairy Bikers and Corpses

Ruth Penfold-Mounce has been interviewed by the University Research Online Site about her recent filming experiences with the BBC's Hairy Bikers, her research into celebrity culture and crime and also death, dying and corpses.

The resulting story has just been published: Celebrating Crime: How the rise of the TV corpse feeds our appetite for fictional violence

Popular Culture, Forensics and Corpses

Ruth Penfold-Mounce has a new article 'Corpses, popular culture, and forensic science: public obsession with death' that has been released online in Mortality. Mortality is currently her favourite journal and not just because they have published her work but because it provides an interdisciplinary approach to death studies allowing for and and encouraging cultural explorations of this field.

The article considers how forensic science portrayals in popular culture fuel public obsession with death and corpses. It suggests that watching the dead is societally acceptable when seen through forensic science which provides a softening lens. It is this softening lens and popular culture representation that is leading to a normalisation of consuming the dead by the public.