This hour, we look at our cultural fascination with dead bodies. What do we owe the dead? What can the dead teach us? What does a body represent to you?

We talk to a death investigator who observes what the dead can teach us about living, a poet / mortician, who laments our growing estrangement from our dead, and a reporter who has investigated the large — and legal — market for body parts.

GUESTS:

• Barbara Butcher: A retired New York City death investigator and the author of What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator
• Ally Jarmanning: A senior reporter for WBUR; she’s the host and reporter for Season 4 of the podcast Last Seen: Postmortem
• Thomas Lynch: The author of six collections of poems, six books of essays, and a book of stories; he worked as a funeral director for over 50 years

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Colin McEnroe, Eugene Amatruda, Jonathan McNicol, and Bradley O’Connor contributed to this show, which originally aired July 18, 2024.

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