Writing Death

Sam Roberts

Katie Roiphe

Pete Hamill

Presented by NYU Journalism and The Center for the Study of Transformative Lives

It happens to all human beings, men and women, old and young. No matter what faith they embrace, or language they speak, or diet, or exercise. If they are humans, they are sure to die.

But death is the human experience that cannot be undergone and then written about. We often disguise its finality with platitudes. Somebody has “passed away” or “gone to a better place.” We hope that if the dead person added to the tale of human decency (or even human folly, or absolute human evil) that his or her obituary will reflect that truth.

Our panel features Sam Roberts of The New York Times, who writes many of the obituaries for that newspaper, sometimes two a day. He also reviews New York books in the Sunday paper, writes occasional features for the Metropolitan section, and does a weekly TV show focused on New York 1.

At the same table will be Katie Roiphe whose acclaimed study of death called The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End has much to teach all students of the human condition. She takes us through many of the final hours of Susan Sontag, Sigmund Freud, John Updike, Dylan Thomas, Maurice Sendak, and James Salter. Professor Roiphe is the director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism graduate program at NYU Journalism.

Our moderator will be Pete Hamill, whose career as a writer began in 1960 at the N.Y. Post. He has since written books of non-fiction and fiction, too often covering wars and urban violence. He is Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.