Fionnáin reviewed Our Grateful Dead by Vinciane Despret
Where death goes next
4 stars
Philosopher Despret has an extraordinary ability to shift perspectives on any given topic. Usually her writing centres on how we observe animals or other nonhuman critters, and where bias comes into this. Here, she follows a different path, similarly considering how rationalistic philosophy influences behaviours, but instead applying it to grief. Anchored with chapters about her own search for information about a great-granduncle who died in a train crash, Despret combines philosophy and stories from oral research about how people communicate with the dead.
As always, Despret seems to open up cracks and bring us deep into them. The writing is immaculate and spins a good yarn, but it also asks deep questions. Essentially, it begins to position a person's death as a moment in their life, not necessarily the last one. But the performance after death might not include that person directly (they are 'instaurated' instead). This idea fascinates …
Philosopher Despret has an extraordinary ability to shift perspectives on any given topic. Usually her writing centres on how we observe animals or other nonhuman critters, and where bias comes into this. Here, she follows a different path, similarly considering how rationalistic philosophy influences behaviours, but instead applying it to grief. Anchored with chapters about her own search for information about a great-granduncle who died in a train crash, Despret combines philosophy and stories from oral research about how people communicate with the dead.
As always, Despret seems to open up cracks and bring us deep into them. The writing is immaculate and spins a good yarn, but it also asks deep questions. Essentially, it begins to position a person's death as a moment in their life, not necessarily the last one. But the performance after death might not include that person directly (they are 'instaurated' instead). This idea fascinates me, and I love how it is threaded together. A couple of later chapters on séances and communing with the dead carry interesting moments but don't hold the argument as well as the others, but overall this is another golden book from a philosopher who influences me every day.