Department of Sociology
DaCNet is lead by a steering group but relies on a collective of network members and associates. On this page, you will find information about our steering group, our network members inside the University of York, our associate members based in research and professional institutions internationally, and our affiliated research students across the University.
Steering Group:
Professor Ruth Penfold-Mounce is based in the Sociology Department at the University of York and works in the arena of cultural and visual criminology and death studies. Ruth launched the York Death and Culture Walk as a pedagogic tool back in 2019. She completed her second monograph Death, the Dead and Popular Culture (Emerald) in 2018 and has published articles in the arena of death and culture including ‘Consuming Criminal Corpses’ and ‘Corpses, Popular Culture and Forensic Science’. Ruth also writes for Discover Society and The Conversation. She has worked with BBC Radio 4, BBC2 and as a consultant for BBC1.
Dr Julie Rugg is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of York, and since the 1980s has been working in the field of cemetery history and policy. She has published extensively on British funerary culture. Her most recent monograph is Churchyard and Cemetery: Tradition and Modernity in Rural North Yorkshire She has international links with death scholars throughout Europe and hosts the annual International Cemeteries Colloquium in York.
Professor Benjamin Poore is based in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York. As a researcher, he has written on the adaptation of texts between page, stage and screen, and on the cultural afterlives of Victorian fictional characters, authors, and other historical figures. His books include Heritage, Nostalgia and Modern British Theatre: Staging the Victorians and Theatre & Empire.
Dr Daniel Robins is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Sociology, University of York. His research examines the relationship between science, technology, and the dead body. He received the AsSIST-UK Andrew Webster PhD Prize (2022) for the contribution of his PhD research to policy and social theory in the environmental and technological management of the dead body. His work can be found in the Mortality and Sociological Review journals, as well as the edited collection, Ghost Criminology.
Dr Bethan Michael-Fox is a Staff Tutor at the Open University, UK. She is the managing editor of Mortality and co-host of The Death Studies Podcast. With Professor Ruth Penfold-Mounce, she runs the six weekly death and culture network meet up group to support those researching in this area. Sign up for the next meeting.
Network members:
- Dr Penny Bickle (Archaeology)
- Dr Clare Bielby (Centre for Women's Studies)
- Dr Stephen Buckley (BioArCh)
- Dr Rachael Burns (Sociology)
- Dr Jenn Chubb (Sociology)
- Professor Joann Fletcher (Archeology)
- Dr Tom Johnson (Centre for Medieval Studies)
- Professor Joanna Latimer (Sociology)
- Dr Aimee Little (Archaeology)
- Dr Christopher Lyon (Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity)
- Dr Alice Masterson (School of Arts and Creative Technology)
- Professor Matthew Ratcliffe (Philosophy)
- Dr Darren Reed (Sociology)
- Dr Anna Strhan (Sociology)
- Dr Sethina Watson (History)
Associate Network Members:
- Professor Peter J Adams (University of Auckland, New Zealand)
- Dr Gian Luca Amadei (Royal College of Art, UK)
- Professor Erica Seruset Borgstrom (Open University)
- Professor Dorthe Christensen (University of Aarhus, Denmark)
- Dr Heather Conway (Queen's University Belfast, Ireland)
- Matt Coward-Gibbs (York St John University)
- Dr Cath Davies (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
- Dr Jack Denham (York St John University)
- Dr Kami Fletcher (Delaware State University, USA)
- Professor Jacque Lynn Foltyn (National University, USA)
- Dr Terence Heng (University of Liverpool)
- Professor Tora Holmberg (Uppsala Universitet, Sweden)
- Dr Annika Jonsson (Karlstads Universitet, Sweden)
- Professor Emma Kirby (University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia)
- Dr Devaleena Kundu, (School of Liberal Studies, UPES, Dehradun, India)
- Dr Katarzyna Małecka (Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie, Poland)
- Dr Lisa McCormick (University of Edinburgh)
- Professor Ruth McManus (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)
- Dr Alison Peirse (University of Leeds)
- Dr Naomi Richards (University of Glasgow)
- Professor Melissa Schift (East Tennessee State University, USA)
- Dr Margaret Schwartz (Fordham University, USA)
- Dr Philip Stone (University of Central Lancashire)
- Professor Stephen Regan (Durham University)
- Dr Georgina Robinson (Durham University)
- Professor Vanessa Taylor (University of Huddersfield)
- Carla Valentine (Barts Pathology Museum)
- Dr Renske Visser (University of Oulu)
- Dr Jenna Ward (University of Coventry)
- Dr Kate Woodthorpe (University of Bath)
- Dr Brianna Wyatt (Oxford Brookes University