This handbook explores and critically evaluates key debates and controversies in the emerging field of Dark Events. It brings together leading specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical regions to provide state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and empirical research on celebrations, heritage and customs of death (events) and the macabre.
Divided into ten parts, the book explores traditions of dark festivals and events; the display of the dead; commemoration and authenticity within the context of dark events; dark events from the past; dark events in popular culture; controversial dark events; grief and memory; managing dark event experiences; decolonisation and equality for the dead; and dark event futures. This significant volume offers the reader a comprehensive synthesis of this emerging field, conveying the latest thinking and research. The text is international in focus, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study, providing an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in Dark Events.
This is essential reading for students, researchers and academics of Dark Events, as well as those of related studies such as tourism, cultural studies, leisure, geography, sociology, death studies and museums.
This handbook explores and critically evaluates key debates and controversies in the emerging field of Dark Events. It brings together specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical regions, to provide theoretical reflection and empirical research on celebrations, heritage, and customs of death and the macabre.
Arvustused
"Readers of the Routledge Handbook of Dark Events will be challenged: about preconceived notions of why events are held to commemorate death, wars, and disasters; why people travel for ritualised and sanitised horror; why dark events and dark tourism have become mainstream. The contributors and editors of this reference volume have, in ten sections, systematically and provocatively covered the entire field as never before. They have achieved balance between theory and real-world examples, provided an inter-disciplinary approach that will appeal to many scholars and practitioners in diverse fields, explored ethical and practical issues, and created a landmark to both consolidate and advance these fields."
Donald Getz, PhD, Professor Emeritus, The University of Calgary, CA
"This outstanding Handbook elucidates the complexities of dark events and offers profound insights into peoples fascination with human suffering and death, and the commemoration of such phenomena through events and other touristic happenings. The books multifaceted perspectives on humankinds interest in the macabre provide an excellent treatise on the hauntological outcomes of the performativity, ritualization, memorialization and heritagization of difficult pasts. A must-read collection!"
Dallen J. Timothy, Arizona State University, US
"Dark Events is a relatively recent yet fascinating and topical area of study and research. The editors innovative, new text expands the academic field of dark tourism, through the DET framework, to reveal the importance and centrality of events and festivals to this debate and their role as a global phenomenon celebrating and educating readers about mortality and the macabre.
Through a range of unique and novel chapters and event case studies, contributors explore themes such as celebration; tradition; representation; authenticity and commodification, bringing together the largest contribution of current thinking and insights in this area and extending the event studies literature.
Never has there been a time when a text like this was more needed and relevant to help us understand, contextualize and critique current political, cultural and psychological issues surrounding death and help us learn from what history has taught us."
Dr Jane Ali-Knight, Professor in Festival and Event Management, The Business School, Edinburgh Napier University, UK
Introduction
PART I Cultural celebrations, traditions and honouring the dead in dark
events
1 A play to banish the darkness: the domestication of death in Bulgarian folk
traditions
2 Sacred shadowed pathways: Kkai and the Shikoku pilgrimage
3 Rituals of remembrance: exploring mortuary and mourning rites among the
Akan of Ghana
4 Nigeria Indigenous community and befitting burial for the deceased
going-to-the-spirit land
5 Sacred sustenance: culinary death rituals and mourning events among
Assamese Hindus and Christian Nagas
PART II Interpretation, representation and display of the dead for dark
events
6 Commemorating the deceased through the Hungry Ghosts Festival in Hong Kong
7 Representing Samhain: symbols, semiotics and Halloween
8 Fact or fiction: Walpurgis Night and the commemoration of the victims of
Germanys witch trials
9 Italys martyrs for peace: representing suffering and patriotic sacrifice
after the Nasiriyah Massacre of 2003
PART III Negotiating commemoration, commodification and authenticity in dark
events
10 Re-enacting the Gulag: authenticity and commemoration of the Soviet penal
heritage in Kazakhstan
11 Dark commemorative events and selective amnesia in Cambodia
12 Death, ritual and deification: examining the commemorative procession of
Keralas iconic politician, Oommen Chandy
13 Ritual returns: commemoration, commodification and the evolution of UK
Halloween festivals
PART IV Historicising dark events through memory and meaning
14 More like the first exhibition at a playhouse, than the solemnity of a
Funeral: spectating urban funeral events in late 18th-century London
15 Seeing justice done: a day at the Tyburn Fair in the long 18th century
16 At the dark edge of life and death: sin-eating rituals in Britain
(16401900)
17 Shadows of the departed: post-mortem photography and mourning rituals in
Victorian society
18 Immortalising the premature death: commemorating talented daughters in
Ming-Qing China (16th to early 20th centuries)
19 Honour and sacrifice: the socio-cultural dynamics of Jauhar and
co-cremation in medieval South Asian traditions
PART V Dark events in popular culture and media
20 Manifesting ghosts and mimicking ghost hunters: media and the rise of
ghost hunting events
21 Heroism to horror: the reception and transformation of the blood eagle
in popular culture
22 If they come, we must build it: popular culture, tradition and the
Hollywoodization of Día de Muertos in Mexico City
23 Celebration, cultural appropriation, or something else? La Catrina, Barbie
dolls, and Day of the Dead
24 La Santa Compaña: a demonstration of the literary and ritualistic richness
surrounding death in Galician folklore
PART VI Culture, controversy and dark events
25 Navigating culture, religion, and controversy: the Penitensya rituals in
the Philippines as a dark event
26 Death as a celebration of spiritual liberation: the controversial pathways
of Aghor Sdhus in India
27 Multivalent organised commemoration of the Great War: building
transcultural memory with (embedded) fissures
28 Dark events and media controversies: Remembrance Sunday in the United
Kingdom
PART VII Grief, memory and the affective dimensions of dark events
29 The Dust Parlour: speaking to the dead
30 Death at play: celebration and memorialisation of motorsports dead
31 Eternal troupers: circus death memorialisation and community identity
32 Managing death rites and mourning rituals in the modern era: the evolution
of Brazilian funeral rites
PART VIII Managing dark event experiences
33 Managing collective memory through funeral events: an experience design
perspective
34 Cultivating a death network through dark academic and pedagogical events
35 Managing Black Metal festivals
36 Managing event spaces and visitor experiences: entering liminal worlds at
the Whitby Goth Weekend and Dublins Bram Stoker Festival
37 Managing subcultural capital dynamics for dark events: the case of the
Moonlight Goth Music Festival (Italy, 20092011)
PART IX Legacy, decolonisation and equality for the dead within dark events
38 Murder mystery and mayhem: digging up the human stories lurking in
19th-century cemeteries
39 Considering the legacy of cultural genocide: commemorating the colonial
expulsion of the Garifuna from their Caribbean homeland
40 Glocal perspectives on the dark heritage of Indigenous reconciliation
events
PART X Dark event futures
41 Royal funerals as dark events: organisational and emotional challenges
42 Tea and hammers: new weapons in the battle with death anxiety
43 Glacier funerals as dark events of the Anthropocene
44 Bringing out the dead: body worlds exhibits as touchstones for reflection
Dark events and remaking our lifeworld: an afterword
Brianna Wyatt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Tourism, Events, Entertainment and Attractions at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida, USA. She is also a Visiting Researcher for Oxford Brookes University, UK. Her publications, primary research interests and industry experience centre on interpretation and experience design in heritage and dark tourism. Brianna is a consulting academic, with her most recent work pertaining to interpretation and visitor experience development for penal heritage attractions in the UK.
Hannah Stewart is a cultural events specialist and PhD candidate at the Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR), University of Lancashire. Her doctoral research critically examines Halloween heritage in Salem (USA) and Pendle (UK), exploring supernatural placemaking, cultural imperialism and the commodification of historical trauma through the lens of Dark Event Tourism. She has also designed, produced and delivered large-scale events across Canada, the UK and the Middle East.
James Kennell is the Head of Surrey Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey, UK, where he is also an Associate Professor in Events and Hospitality. His research explores issues associated with the relationships between the events, tourism and hospitality industries and society, and he has particular interests in the fields of policy and governance, political and protest events, dark tourism and exploration of events connected to conflict and tragedy.
Philip R. Stone is the Director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) at the University of Lancashire, UK. He is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of dark tourism and difficult heritage and has published extensively about the subject. Philip is also a Media Consultant on dark tourism, with clients including the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Washington Post.
