Television/Death
Television/Death intertwines the study of death, dying and bereavement on television with discussion of the ways that television (and the TV archive) provides access to the dead.

Section One looks at the representation of death, dying and the afterlife on television, in historical and contemporary factual television (from around the world) and in US television drama.

Section Two focuses on dramas of grief and bereavement and discusses how the long form seriality and narrative complexity of television, from family melodramas to the ghost serial, allows for an emotionally realist representation of experiences of grief, bereavement and death-related trauma.

Finally, Section Three proposes that television has been overlooked in critical analyses of recorded sounds’ and images’ propensity to ‘bring back the dead’. It argues that television is the posthumous medium par excellence and looks at how the dead return via incorporation into new television programmes or through projects to bring television out of the archive.

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Television/Death
Television/Death intertwines the study of death, dying and bereavement on television with discussion of the ways that television (and the TV archive) provides access to the dead.

Section One looks at the representation of death, dying and the afterlife on television, in historical and contemporary factual television (from around the world) and in US television drama.

Section Two focuses on dramas of grief and bereavement and discusses how the long form seriality and narrative complexity of television, from family melodramas to the ghost serial, allows for an emotionally realist representation of experiences of grief, bereavement and death-related trauma.

Finally, Section Three proposes that television has been overlooked in critical analyses of recorded sounds’ and images’ propensity to ‘bring back the dead’. It argues that television is the posthumous medium par excellence and looks at how the dead return via incorporation into new television programmes or through projects to bring television out of the archive.

24.95 In Stock
Television/Death

Television/Death

by Helen Wheatley
Television/Death

Television/Death

by Helen Wheatley

Paperback

$24.95 
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Overview

Television/Death intertwines the study of death, dying and bereavement on television with discussion of the ways that television (and the TV archive) provides access to the dead.

Section One looks at the representation of death, dying and the afterlife on television, in historical and contemporary factual television (from around the world) and in US television drama.

Section Two focuses on dramas of grief and bereavement and discusses how the long form seriality and narrative complexity of television, from family melodramas to the ghost serial, allows for an emotionally realist representation of experiences of grief, bereavement and death-related trauma.

Finally, Section Three proposes that television has been overlooked in critical analyses of recorded sounds’ and images’ propensity to ‘bring back the dead’. It argues that television is the posthumous medium par excellence and looks at how the dead return via incorporation into new television programmes or through projects to bring television out of the archive.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781474451734
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 05/30/2025
Series: Edinburgh Studies in Television
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Helen Wheatley is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. She is co-founder of the Centre for Television Histories and works collaboratively with archives and curators to engage the public with the history of British broadcasting. Her most recent book, Spectacular Television: Exploring Televisual Pleasure (2016) won the BAFTSS Award for Monograph of the Year in 2017. She has research interests in various aspects of television history and has published widely on popular genres of television drama, including the monograph Gothic Television (2006). She also has an ongoing interest in issues of television history and historiography, the topic of her edited collections Re-viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography (2007) and Television for Women: New Directions (2016, with Rachel Moseley and Helen Wood).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Television/Death

Section One: Death and Dying on Television

Chapter One: Everyday death: The early history of death on British television

Chapter Two: Signs of care: Assisted suicide on television

Section Two: Dramas of Grief, Bereavement and the Television Afterlife

Chapter Three: A good death? Death and the afterlife in US television fiction

Chapter Four: Dramas of grief: television and mourning

Chapter Five: Haunted houses, haunted landscapes: grief and trauma in the television ghost story

Section Three: Posthumous Television

Chapter Six: Entering the mausoleum: Posthumous television

Chapter Seven: Ghost town: Posthumous television in the city

Notes

References

Index

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