Death in Contemporary Popular Culture

<p>With intense and violent portrayals of death becoming ever more common on television and in cinema and the growth of death-centric movies series texts songs and video clips attracting a wide and enthusiastic global reception we might well ask whether death has ceased to be a taboo. What makes thanatic themes so desirable in popular culture? Do representations of the macabre and gore perpetuate or sublimate violent desires? Has contemporary popular culture removed our unease with death? Can social media help us cope with our mortality or can music and art present death as an aesthetic phenomenon? This volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the discussion of the social cultural aesthetic and theoretical aspects of the ways in which popular culture understands represents and manages death bringing together contributions from around the world focused on television cinema popular literature social media and the internet art music and advertising.</p>