Bringing television out of the archive…

Join Professor Helen Wheatley for the launch of her new book Television/Death (Edinburgh University Press, 2024) at Coventry Cathedral.

Television/Death intertwines the study of death, dying and bereavement on television with discussion of the ways that television (and the TV archive) provides access to the dead. Helen will introduce the book at this event and we’ll hear from some of the people she collaborated with on this project and some responses to the work. There will be drinks and canapes served at the end of the event.

The event is being held at Coventry Cathedral as this special place was one of the key locations for the events discussed in the final section of the book. Helen is keen for anyone who attended the Centre for Television Histories’ Ghost Town screenings and exhibitions to come along to hear how they have been reflected on in this book.

About Television/Death:

The first section of the book explores the representation of death and dying on television, in historical and contemporary television documentaries. The middle section focuses on dramas of grief and bereavement and discusses how contemporary complex serial television drama and comedy, from family melodramas to the ghost serial to afterlife dramadies, presents emotionally realist representations of experiences of grief, bereavement and death-related trauma and explores questions like ‘What happens to us after we die?’ The final section of the book proposes that television has been overlooked in critical analyses of how recorded media ‘brings back the dead’. It argues that television is the ultimate posthumous medium and looks at how the dead return via incorporation into new television programmes or through projects to bring television out of the archive.

This event will be suitable for teenagers and adults and anyone who is interested in media history, thinking about death and dying, and people who are interested in the history of Coventry.