What does our relationship with the dead tell us about the living? Anthropologists learn about ancient cultures by studying their burial sites, but could we do the same with contemporary America? Those are the questions that University of Chicago anthropologist and historian Shannon Lee Dawdy set out to answer in her new book, American Afterlives: Reinventing Death In The Twenty-first Century.

What she uncovered was a discreet revolution happening around American death rituals and practices, especially the rise in cremation after the tragedies of Sept. 11. According to one funeral director, there have been more changes in the death industry in the last ten years than the last hundred. And those changes reveal all sorts of societal and cultural shifts in response to climate change, COVID-19 and the personalization of everything, including DIY funerals and green burials.

Dawdy also produced a documentary, "I Like Dirt.", during her research with director Daniel Zox. Much of the audio used in this episode comes from that documentary.

You can find out more about "I Like Dirt." Directed by Daniel Zox and Shannon Lee Dawdy, Zox Films, 2020 at http://ilikedirtfilm.com and find Dawdy's book at https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691210643/american-afterlives