News


‘Ageing as Adventure’ Conference

Project Lead Dr Laura Davies will be giving a paper at this conference hosted at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. She’ll be reflecting on insights she has gained into the value of poetry, music and the visual arts in building confidence, widening horizons, prompting memories and questions, and forging relationships in end of life and […]

Responding to End-of-Life “Care” with Poetry

Throughout April, the Good Death? project is exploring ideas about care, caring, caregiving and carefulness as depicted in a wide range of historical and contemporary poetry. We are excited to learn from medical and social care practitioners, carers, patients, their families, and wider publics. What does it mean to be a “care professional” or a […]

A Good Death Project at the Imaginarium

Part of the national Festival of Social Science, join the Good Death Project and friends from the university and city communities to imagine a brighter future for Cambridge. Cambridge Imaginarium is a space where town, gown, creatives, campaigners, and dreamers can share stories, memories, knowledge and hopes for the future. We will be inviting you to […]

Dying Matters Week 2022

Every year, Hospice UK’s Dying Matters Week encourages people in all walks of life to open a conversation about death, dying, and bereavement. In light of the huge pressures that end-of-life and hospice care services have faced and continue to face after the pandemic, the 2022 theme is #InAGoodPlace – what should it mean to […]

Good Grief at the Cambridge Festival

Covid has brought bereavement to the fore, raising questions about how a society confronts grief on such a huge scale. In this discussion, Professor Stephen Barclay, GP Dr Dan Knights and grief podcaster Amber Jeffrey will talk about the impact of bereavement on society at large and changing attitudes to how the medical profession should […]

Dying Matters Week 2021

Dying Matters week is a chance for organisations, individuals and partners to come together to open up the conversation around dying, death and bereavement. This year we’re privileged to be partnering with Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, joining their Living Well service for a creative writing workshop ‘A Conversation with Death‘. The 2021 Dying Matters Week […]

An Everyday Family Practice

An Everyday Family Practice is a short play written by Patrick Morris, Co-Artistic Director of Menagerie Theatre Company and premiered at the Cambridge Festival 2021. This touching, darkly humorous and at times challenging drama explores the impact on a family of a diagnosis of terminal illness. A Good Death? and Menagerie Theatre present: An Everyday […]

Extreme Unction, by Nicolas Poussin

Extreme Unction, by Nicolas Poussin

Life and death drama in the age of COVID

Image copyright Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Reproduced by permission. Extreme Unction. Poussin, Nicolas (French, 1594-1665). The coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of us to come face to face with death in ways that we never imagined. Whether we’ve experienced personal losses, attended virtual funerals, or watched death tolls creeping up on the news, we are all […]

Naked Reflections: What makes a good death?

If you missed the Good Death team in person this Autumn, you can catch Laura Davies in conversation with Ed Kessler and guests on the latest episode of the Naked Reflections podcast.

Deathly Encounters!

A lively encounter with death and death culture at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology!

Let’s start a conversation:
What is a good death?

Fun in the Cambridge Central Library with the Good Death team!

What is a Good Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Dying Well

This conference brings together researchers from across disciplines in order to place historical conceptions and representations of a ‘good death’ in dialogue with contemporary thinking.

What is a good death in the 21st century?

This roundtable event brings together speakers whose professional interests in the matter of dying well take very different forms - philosophical to practical, spiritual to biological.