ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the experience of death in the twenty-first century, with special attention to our contemporary death system—that largely invisible but ever-present social reality that mediates our experience with death. It begins with a review of an avant-garde example of how the media treats the topic via a brief review of the Home Box Office (HBO) series Six Feet Under. The chapter discusses how life imitates art with a brief look at today's death care industry and the commercialization of death. It also explores alternatives to our usual way of dealing with death. Kastenbaum' death system can be understood as a loosely connected network of people, places, and symbols that function to warn, predict, prevent death, provide care for the dying, and in some cases, like capital punishment and war, actually provide a way to inflict death.
