NextGen Humanities Episode 6 – Laura Davies: The Literature & Art of Dying Well

In this episode we talk to Laura Davies (King's College – Cambridge) about how her work on 18th century British literature can inform the way we think about death in the present. Dr Davies teaches, researches and writes on British literature of the long eighteenth century, with a particular interest in life writing and the textual representation of experiences and ideas that resist language or narration, including sound, time, death, spiritual visions, and dreams. She’s also the co-founder of an interdisciplinary and multi-platform project called “A Good Death?” Its goal is to provide us with new cultural and linguistic forms to talk about and deal with death. In this episode we discuss her work on figures such as Samuel Johnson, and talk about what it means to die well. You can find her work on Google Scholar. And the "A Good Death?" project is located here. Thanks to Adam Pisarkiewicz for the music.