Is the Cemetery Dead? Mourning and Commemoration in the 21st Century

Chicago: University of Chicago Press,  2018

The book gets to the heart of the tragedy of death for the survivors, chronicling how Americans are inventing new or adapting old traditions,  burial places, and memorials. Sloane shows how people are taking control of their grief by bringing their dying home, interring them in natural burial grounds, mourning them online, and memorializing them streetside with a shrine, ghost bike, or RIP mural.

Review: Sam Halloran, An elegy for cemeteries. Los Angeles Review of Books (6/13/2018)

Review: Douglas Davies, Is the Cemetery Dead? Times Higher Education (9/5/2019)

Review: Publishers Weekly, Is the Cemetery Dead?

Review: Loren Rhoades, Is the Cemetery Dead? Cemetery Travels (4/22/2019)

Interview: Mutual of Omaha, New Trends in Funeral Celebrations (2020)

Interview: Larry Rifkin, Is the Cemetery Dead? americatrendspodcast.com (1/28/2020)

Quoted: Madeline Cummings, The cost of dying: How a spike in cremation is changing the funeral industry. Canadian Broadcast Company (2/16/2020)

Quoted: Janet Siroto, Emotional wallop of my friend’s green burial, NextAvenue (1/30/2020)

Quoted: Jean Lang, Having the last word, The Bucket (6/2018)

Talk: LA Regional Planning, Should We Keep the Ghouls Fenced in the Cemetery? Considering Public Memorialization (1/31/2019)

Talk: Challenging and Changing the American Way of Death, New York State Association of Cemeteries (May 2019)

Is the Cemetery Dead? gets to the heart of the tragedy of death, chronicling how Americans are inventing new or adapting old traditions, burial places, and memorials. Sloane shows how people are taking control of their grief by bringing their dying home, interring them in natural burial grounds, mourning them online, and memorializing them streetside with a shrine, ghost bike, or RIP mural.

Interview: Mutual of Omaha interview (2020)
https://www.mutualofomaha.com/advice/video/rethinking-funerals

Interview: Larry Rifkin, americatrendspodcast.com (1/28/2020)

Available through:

Quoted: Janet Siroto, Emotional wallop of my friend’s green burial, NextAvenue (1/30/2020)
https://www.nextavenue.org/the-emotional-wallop-of-my-friends-green-burial/

Talk: LA Regional Planning, Should We Keep the Ghouls Fenced in the Cemetery? Considering Public Memorialization (1/31/2019)

Talk: Challenging and Changing the American Way of Death, New York State Association of Cemeteries (May 2019)

Review: Douglas Davies, Times Higher Education (9/5/2019)

Quoted: Jean Lang, Having the Last Word, The Bucket (6/2018)
https://thebucket.com/dying-well/funeral-planning-memorials/having-the-last-word/