Vinciane Despret is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Liège and the Free University of Brussels. The original French edition of Our Grateful Dead ( Au bonheur des morts) won the prestigious Prix des Rencontres Philosophiques de Monaco. Her books include What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions? and The Dance of the Arabian Babbler: Birth of an Ethological Theory, both from Minnesota. 

Stephen Muecke is professor of creative writing at Flinders University, South Australia. His many translations include works by Gilles Deleuze, Roland Barthes, and Luce Irigaray. 

Contents

Translator’s Note

Stephen Muecke

Our Grateful Dead

1. Taking Care of the Dead

2. Allowing Yourself to Be Instructed

3. The Ties That Keep the Living and the Dead Together

4. Watching Over the Things That Matter

5. Extending the Work: The Generosity of the Dead

6. Uncertain Thoughts

7. Putting Our Trust in Spirits: How to Call on Them

8. Protecting Voices

Acknowledgments

Notes

"Vinciane Despret's unique storytelling, woven with ethnography and family history, assembles accounts of those living their daily lives with their dead"--