Lecture – Death Becomes You. Funeral practices and rituals in Québec

Death down through the ages: a mirror of our societies

Death is not just an end, it is also a key to understanding the life, beliefs, and values of past and present societies.

In this original and fascinating lecture, historian Catherine Ferland leads a journey of discovery, examining the many faces of death in Québec. Using a rich collection of images, this lecture takes you from the days of New France to the present.

What do ancient tombs, bones, and funerary furniture reveal? How did people experience death during epidemics? How was a death announced 200 years ago? Why were the dead buried in churches before being taken to large garden cemeteries? How have funeral rites and expressions of mourning changed? And how have religious traditions intersected, influenced, and transformed each other?

A captivating foray into the social and cultural history of Québec, where death speaks... of life.

Catherine Ferland

Catherine Ferland, who holds a doctoral degree in history, specializes in the cultural history of Québec. While pursuing her research on an independent basis, she also acts as an expert reference for museums, television productions, arts companies, private businesses, and government agencies. She is the author of several books, some of which have received accolades, and writes for about a dozen national magazines and media outlets. As an editor, she has produced nearly a hundred articles for the Encyclopédie du patrimoine culturel de l’Amérique française and edited some twenty works for Septentrion, where she is head of the “Aujourd’hui l’histoire” collection. In 2018, she founded the Rendez-vous d’histoire de Québec, an organization that gives lectures celebrating history, heritage, and historical literature.