Pandemic Death Discourse Denial Disparity and the Promise of Communication

Since Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic, the virus has caused more than 1 million deaths in the United States and 7 million deaths worldwide. The rampant loss of life exposed fissures in healthcare systems, disrupted mourning rituals, complicated the bereavement process, and laid bare the inequities of death. Though much has been written on dying and death during COVID-19, this book is the first to attend to the communicative and representational practices through which meanings about loss during the pandemic are negotiated.

This book begins by addressing our collective death denial, and the institutional and ideological barriers that must be surmounted if we are to afford dignity and humanity to those who have been stripped of it. Against this backdrop, the authors examine an array of practices and channels through which various social groups have sought to dismantle oppressive structures, find hope amid despair, and reshape understandings of mortality, including what it means to be in community. COVID-19 has issued a challenge to our conscience and to our symbolic capacities, and this book is an earnest response to that challenge, one that is attuned to our collective vulnerabilities.