CHINWAG WITH PAUL GIAMATTI AND STEPHEN ASMA #31: Digging into the business of death
Paul and Stephen are into learning about death. Not just what happens after one departs, not just about ghosts and spirits and the afterlife, but what happens in the days that follow - to the bodies, and to the workers in the trenches of the death industry.
Enter journalist and author Hayley Campbell, who after a lifelong fascination with death, sought these answers from the hardworking people who make their living working with the dead. Learn about alkaline hydrolysis (water cremation), cryogenics, the euphemisms for embalming, crime scene clean up, and how women and men process death differently. Join Paul and Stephen as they dig into the different cultural traditions and attitudes around death, and discuss the merits of facing death directly as a means of fearing it less.
BONUS: Why Paul prefers female crime-writers to men!
Paul Giamatti is an award-winning actor and producer. Stephen Asma is a professor and author specializing in the philosophy of science, religion, and art.
CONVERSATIONS WITH RICHARD FIDLER
Ever since Hayley Campbell was a little girl she has been fascinated by death.
Her father was the comic book artist behind the classic graphic novel, From Hell, and oftentimes his violent drawings of murder and death would be lying around the home, and Hayley would use discarded drafts as scrap paper for her homework.
As she got older, Hayley became more and more curious about the invisible people who work in the death industry, and so she set about uncovering that secret society.
In the process, Hayley has helped dress a dead man before his funeral, examined death masks, a frozen body and an embalmed head, slowly coming to terms with her own mortality and that of the people she loves.
Content warning: this episode contains discussions of death and includes descriptions of dead bodies. Towards the end of the conversation there is a brief discussion of infant mortality.
WE CAN BE WEIRDOS #15: cemetery school dropout
Prepare to plunge into the peculiar as Dan Schreiber, professional fact-hunter, uncovers the wild beliefs, ideas and theories of some of the most remarkable people on planet earth.
As well as delving into the lives of truly fascinating people, Dan asks his guests a maverick tour of questions known as The Batshit Survey. Do they believe in Ghosts? Déjà vu? Telepathy? Premonitions? Déjà vu? Either way, everyone has theories they are transfixed by, or a mystery in their own life that they’re trying to solve. Dan leaves no rock unturned – and he’ll share plenty of his own mind-blowing facts and theories too.
Distraction Pieces Podcast with Scroobius Pip #445
Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Distraction Pieces Podcast with Scroobius Pip!
This week Pip is joined by journalist, author and presenter HAYLEY CAMPBELL!
You’re probably familiar with the age old dilemma of ‘Cake or death?’ - well, you’re about to hear a podcast which contains firstly takeaway, and then death. So it’s not worlds away, let’s say. This is a well overdue meeting of Pip and Hayley who get along like old pals from the get go, beginning with - as stated - takeaway habits and secret condiment hacks that will level up your sauce game (you can thank Hayley), and branches off into pandemic nostalgia, fitness, cinemas, parents, Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, comic books, but more importantly - death. Hayley’s new book ‘All The Living And The Dead’ addressed the dead. Not the dying or the grieving. The dead. You wouldn’t think it was an overlooked sector but death is a strange one. A fascinating chat which deals with so much but with a good heart and no gloominess, but worth mentioning that those who struggle with the subject might be well warned to tread lightly. Just saying. Enjoy!
Films to be Buried With, with Brett Goldstein
“LOOK OUT! It’s only Films To Be Buried With! Join your host Brett Goldstein as he and his guest go deep into the subject of mortality via cinema, and this week he is joined by the amazing writer, podcaster and Empire journalist HAYLEY CAMPBELL!
A blissful celebration of cinema and death, and immaculately timed too as Hayley is - at the time of podcasting - writing a book about death AND has had written several powerfully interesting articles about all manner of mortality related subjects. She writes for Empire Magazine too so basically Hayley is the perfect guest for Films To Be Buried With! Enjoy the overflowing awesomeness as the two get down to this whole life and death and film business, getting started on her reasons for not actually going into film production itself (fully understandable and surely infinitely relatable reasons!), her graphic novelist father Eddie Campbell and how he would incorporate her in his own novels from birth to present day (and the ensuing weirdness this brings from some fans), how the book she’s writing about death is slowly messing her up, cremation alternatives and how one can turn one’s self into a bag of white powder after death, Stallone porn and hating your own interests.”
Curious Cases: Freeze Me When I Die
When you die, would you want to be frozen so that one day you might be brought back to life? Listener Elspeth wants to know if that’s even possible. So Hannah Fry and Dara Ó Briain embark on a quest to explore the chiling science of ‘cryobiology’: preserving living things at really low temperatures.
It turns out there are already thousands of people alive who were once suspended in antifreeze and stored in liquid nitrogen - when they were just a small clump of cells! There’s even a frog which can turn into a ‘frogsicle’ for months on end. But re-animating full size humans is a challenge no one has solved…yet. Will some miraculous nanotechnology of a distant future solve the problem?
Contributors:
Professor João Pedro de Magalhães: University of Birmingham
Hayley Campbell: Author and broadcaster
Professor Joyce Harper: UCL
Dr Hanane Hadj-Moussa: The Babraham Institute, Cambridge
Garrett Smyth: Cryonics UK
SMARTY PANTS PODCAST (THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR)
Anglo-American attitudes toward burial have changed significantly over the past half century: today, most people choose to be cremated, and alternatives like natural burials and human composting are on the rise. Margareta Magnusson’s The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, about the importance of getting your affairs in order, was a surprise bestseller, and American mortician Caitlin Doughty is but one of several popular YouTube personalities who speak about death. But largely absent from the conversations at so-called Death Cafes (coffee, crumpets, and the inevitable!) is any discussion of the people who devote their lives to caring for the dead. These death workers are the focus of Hayley Campbell’s new book, All the Living and the Dead. Campbell speaks to people doing jobs we tend not to consider: embalmers and executioners, of course, but also crime scene cleaners, mass fatality investigators, bereavement midwives, and others. What makes these people choose to surround themselves with death tells us a lot about what the rest of us lose when we relegate death to the shadows.
KERA’S THINK PODCAST WITH KRYS BOYD
Many of us do all we can to avoid thinking about death. But what if every day you went to work and death was part of your job? Journalist Hayley Campbell joins host Krys Boyd to talk about people who deal exclusively in death – from homicide detectives to gravediggers – and to ask why death remains a taboo subject in Western culture.
Book Shambles with Robin Ince
Hayley Campbell is a writer and broadcaster you may best know for his book The Art of Neil Gaiman. Her latest book, All the Living and the Dead, looks at our relationship with death, and the people for whom death is their life. She joins Robin to talk about her fascination with death, seeing her first dead body, embalming and Jeremy Bentham’s head.
SATURDAY EXTRA WITH GERALDINE DOOGUE
Many of us are in denial about death. So what can we learn from those who work in the death industry?
Guest: Journalist and author Hayley Campbell, who wrote the new book, "All the Living and the Dead: A Personal Investigation into the Death Trade."
BBC Sounds: Obsessed With… Dracula
Dracula creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat join TV critic Hayley Campbell, to dive deep into the making of the show.
BBC Sounds: Must Watch
Scott Bryan, Hayley Campbell and Naga Munchetty with your weekly guide to the best (and worst) in new TV and streaming shows.
With previews of the most talked about new shows on UK TV and interviews with the stars behind them, Must Watch is available every Monday afternoon from BBC Radio 5 live.
Here’s that time they pranked her about Monty Don.
BBC Radio 4: one to one
"Novelist Nikesh Shukla is learning how to box. It's gone from memories of Rocky movies and watching the big match with family as a child to being a skill he wants for himself. When he voiced his thoughts on Twitter, journalist Hayley Campbell gave him 3 key pieces of advice. She took up kickboxing two and a half years ago and shares how the sport and the partnership with her trainer changed her physically and mentally, but also how the boxing world became a source of fascination leading her to meet and interview some of the most powerful fighters."
BBC: UNPOPPED PODCAST
A series on the BBC in which we discuss pop culture and what it means. Hosted by Hayley Campbell.
THE VIRTUAL MEMORIES SHOW
The Virtual Memories Show is a weekly interview podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order. This episode was recorded in September 2016, on the hottest day in New York City and probably on Earth.
Second appearance, in August 2022, to talk about All the Living and the Dead. It was less sweaty that day but only slightly.
NICK HELM & NATHANIEL METCALFE'S FAN CLUB
"We let Nick and Nat back into the studio for another Fan Club show! Their guest this week was journalist Hayley Campbell who talked to them about Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Paul Reiser and more."
“Hayley Campbell guest hosted the show today with Nathaniel as Nick is away on his holidays! They were joined by Drag queen and Puppeteer Ginger Johnson.”
THE TAKEAWAY
What do you think happens to us after we die? Not our essences, our inner beings, our souls — whichever term you prefer — but our bodies. Who takes care of us, from the time we are found to the time we are laid in the ground? The people who tend to our bereavements, our burials, and our bodies do work that is largely invisible, allowing the rest of us to maintain our distance from a painful and difficult concept.
"But the bodies have to go somewhere," writes journalist Hayley Campbell, in her new book, "All the Living and the Dead." Each chapter focuses on a different person who works closely with the bodies of those who have died. We speak with her about what we might learn from confronting the physical realities of death with an open mind.
PATENTED: HISTORY OF INVENTIONS
Episode: Cryonics — Living Forever?
Often mistakenly called Cryogenics, Cryonics is the speculative practice of preserving and storing recently dead bodies at very low temperatures — all in the hope we may one day be able to bring them back to life. Crucially, the technology to execute that final step, reanimation, doesn't exist. At least not yet. Individuals who sign up to a Cryonics service today are betting on people of the future to solve that particular problem.
Host Dallas Campbell speaks with Hayley Campbell about her visit to The Cryonics Institute, a facility founded by the the “Father of Cryonics” Robert Ettinger, whilst reporting her latest book.
Peculiar Book Club with dr. brandy schillace
Join host Dr. Brandy Schillace for an exploration of the people who have made death their life's work with Hayley Campbell, author of All the Living and the Dead! In true book-club style, you will meet the author and participate in the discussion–so come with questions! Join us, too, for the PopCult Quizzer with host Davey Berris, where science fact meets science fiction.
Episode was recorded live on September 8th, 2022.
PANIC ROOM
News is everywhere and it’s all bad! So, John Robins has sealed himself in his panic room and he won’t come out until the world’s fixed. Each week John discovers something that makes him so anxious he can barely sit still, and his two trusted comedian advisors Olga Koch and Eshaan Akbar compete to find an ingenious solution by consulting with experts and road-testing their ideas.
Episode 1: We’re running out of grave space!