Åpen forelesning med Kate Woodthorpe

The DERK(/C) Research Network invites you to a public lecture by Professor Kate Woodthorpe on Direct Cremation, Rituals and Grief.

Direct cremation, in which the deceased is cremated without a public ceremony, is a form of funeral practice that has grown rapidly in the UK and now accounts for around 20 per cent of all funerals. In this lecture, Kate Woodthorpe will explore why an increasing number of people are choosing this option and what this development means for grief, rituals, and community.

Drawing on her own research, Woodthorpe demonstrates that financial considerations are only one of several factors behind this trend. Changing attitudes towards death, a preference for more personal forms of commemoration, and a growing need for flexibility also play important roles. At the same time, the phenomenon raises important questions about the role of collective rituals in contemporary society and how we experience loss and grief in an era where more and more of our social lives take place online.

The lecture invites reflection on how our ways of marking death are changing and what social and cultural consequences these changes may have.

About Kate Woodthorpe

Kate Woodthorpe is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bath, where she serves as Co-Director of the Centre for Death & Society.

Over the past two decades, she has led externally funded research projects and published extensively on funeral practices, the deathcare workforce, and families at the end of life. She is currently involved in two major UKRI-funded projects: Living at Home (2025–2028) and Death Administration (2025–2028).