Call for Papers
"The Agency of the Dead in the Lives of Individuals: Experience and Conceptualisation"
International conference
August 30, 2024 - September 1, 2024
Organised by ERC project The Roles of the Agency of the Dead in the Lives of Individuals in Contemporary Society (DEAGENCY, ERC No 101095729)
Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Contrary to pre-modern European societies, where the dead were considered members of the community and continued to be significantly involved in people's everyday lives, the dominant Western ontology nowadays does not integrate communication and exchange between the living and the dead. However, as a bulk of quantitative as well as qualitative research testify, for many people in contemporary Western society, social interactions do not necessarily cease after death, but may be merely transformed. The dead continue to be involved in our lives, affecting our thoughts, emotions, values, behaviour, and social relations. While various disciplines have treated the dead as expressions of “folk belief”, as symbols and metaphors of larger cultural and social problems and changes, our aim is to take the effects of the agency of the dead in the lives of individuals seriously.