Memento Morbid
Memento Morbid is a podcast hosted by Joanna Ebenstein, founder of Morbid Anatomy, featuring conversations about death, the human condition, and life's mysteries. Guests include death workers, artists, authors, and others who explore rituals, stories, and the ways people confront mortality. The show aims to reveal beauty, humor, and meaning in life by facing death directly. Listeners can submit voice notes about death and dying for possible inclusion in future episodes.
Episodes
14: ‘Death Makes Creativity Possible’- Dylan Thuras
What happens when the project that defined your life suddenly no longer belongs to you?This week, Joanna Ebenstein is joined by her longtime friend Dylan Thuras, co-founder of Atlas Obscura, to explore wonder, grief, creativity, and what it means to let go of the work that has shaped your identity.Long before algorithms and influencers transformed the internet, Joanna and Dylan were part of a sma
13: Yvonne Chireau- Hoodoo: Healing & Harm
What if the dead are not gone at all, but woven into the fabric of everyday life?Historian, scholar of religion and Black studies, and Sinners consultant Yvonne Chireau joins Joanna Ebenstein for a rich conversation about African American conjure, hoodoo, ancestry, and the many ways we misunderstand the relationship between the living and the dead.Drawing on decades of research into Black religio
12: From Pixar to Peculiars - Lee Unkrich
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Lee Unkrich—director of Coco, Toy Story 3, and longtime Pixar creative—joins Joanna Ebenstein for a deeply personal conversation about collecting, mortality, and the unexpected ways art can reshape our relationship with loss.Long before Coco brought Día de Muertos to a vast global audience, Lee was fascinated by cemeteries, ghost stories, and the uncanny. In this i
11: Tiffany Hopkins – ‘Living Persons Guide to the Dead’
What if mediumship and creativity trace back to the same roots?In this episode of Memento Morbid, Joanna Ebenstein is joined by medium, researcher, educator and author Tiffany Hopkins for a wide-ranging conversation that moves between science, spirituality, and the porous edges of perception. From her academic background in cognitive science, computing, music, and international business, Tiffany
10: Sparkling Skeletons and Costumed Cats - Paul Koudournaris
What happens when a lifelong fascination with mortality leads you into crypts, catacombs, pet cemeteries, and skull festivals across the world?Photographer, writer, and art historian Paul Koudounaris joins Joanna Ebenstein for a wide-ranging conversation about death, beauty, human remains, and the stories we tell through the dead. Best known for his acclaimed books Empire of Death, Heavenly Bodie
9: ‘Ectoplasm? It looks like cheesecloth’ – Shannon Taggart
What happens when a photographer spends 25 years documenting people who believe they can speak with the dead?Photographer Shannon Taggart joins Joanna Ebenstein for a fascinating conversation about spiritualism, séance culture, spirit photography, and the enduring human desire to remain connected with those who have died.Best known for her acclaimed book Séance, Taggart reflects on how a mysterio
8: Jeffrey Kripal- Mysticism, Sex, and the Impossible
Is Reality Stranger Than We’re Willing to Admit? Religious scholar and author Jeffrey J. Kripal joins Joanna Ebenstein for an engrossing conversation exploring mysticism, sexuality, death, and the edges of what we call “real.”Kripal reflects on his early years in a Catholic seminary, where fasting, faith, anorexia, and psychoanalysis shaped his understanding of religion as far stranger and more p
7: ‘Impossible Bodies’ - Asti Hustvedt
In this episode of Memento Morbid, Joanna Ebenstein speaks with independent scholar, historian, and author Asti Hustvedt about hysteria, gender, spiritualism, and the uneasy territory where medicine meets the uncanny.What happens when the body refuses to behave according to science?Beginning in nineteenth-century Paris, the conversation explores hysteria as a once-dominant medical diagnosis — one
6: ‘I've never not known death’ - John Troyer
What happens when a lifetime spent studying death collides with personal loss?Death scholar, writer, and educator John Troyer joins Joanna Ebenstein for a conversation about mortality, grief, funeral culture, and the sometimes uneasy relationship between intellectual understanding and lived experience.Best known for his book Technologies of the Human Corpse and his work with the Centre for Death
5: ‘Darkness is Healthy and Holy’ - Pam Grossman
What happens when we recognise creativity as a form of magic?Writer, curator, and cultural critic Pam Grossman joins Joanna Ebenstein for a conversation about witchcraft, creativity, death, and the unseen forces that shape our lives.Best known for her books Magic Maker and Waking the Witch, Grossman reflects on her lifelong relationship with magic — from childhood fascinations with mythology and
4: ‘Death isn’t a problem to fix’ - Oliver Burkeman
What does it mean to live well, knowing our time is finite?Author Oliver Burkeman joins Joanna Ebenstein for a conversation about time, mortality, and what it means to live well inside finite lives.Best known for Four Thousand Weeks, Burkeman reflects on his shift from scepticism about self-help and productivity culture to a deeper engagement with anxiety, limitation, and acceptance. Together, th
3: 'Grave Dirt & Mud Pies' - Leila Taylor
Grave dirt makes the best mud pies… Leila Taylor, writer, designer, cultural critic and Creative Director of Brooklyn Public Library, joins Joanna Ebenstein for a rich, wide-ranging conversation about the Gothic as both a cultural form and a lived sensibility—one that moves through memory, history, music, and space.Drawing from her acclaimed books Darkly: Black History and America’s Gothic Soul a
2: 'I'm a Monster Now'- Paul Giamatti
What Does It Mean to Become Someone Else?Award-winning actor and producer Paul Giamatti joins Joanna Ebenstein for a wide-ranging, eerie, and often amusing conversation about monsters, performance, and the porous boundary between life and death.From childhood fascinations with werewolves and classic horror to the uncanny psychological states accessed through acting, Giamatti reflects on a lifelon
1: 'Corpse Girl' - Caitlin Doughty
What Happens to a Body After Death?Mortician, author and death care reformer Caitlin Doughty joins Joanna Ebenstein for a candid, curious and surprisingly funny conversation about what really happens to our bodies after we die and why modern Western culture would rather not think about it.From Caitlin’s early days working in a crematory to founding Order of the Good Death, they explore death posi
Welcome to Memento Morbid….
Memento MorbidFascinating, poignant, and surprisingly life-affirming conversations about death, the human condition, and life’s great mysteries.Join Joanna Ebenstein, founder of Morbid Anatomy, for Memento Morbid, a series of surprisingly life-affirming conversations around topics that tend to be deemed morbid. Meet a wide range of fascinating individuals including death workers, artists, New Yor
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