Speak with the Dead: Understanding Cemetery Symbolism with Cemetery Expert Allison C. Meier, Begins May 8
Four week class taught online via Zoom
Thursdays, May 8 - 29, 2025
7 - 9 pm ET (NYC time)
$125 Paid Patreon Members / $145 General Admission
Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.
Every tombstone tells a story of the departed, from how they lived to how they died. Symbolism has been used on graves for centuries, such as the ouroboros snake eating its own tail, evoking the cyclical nature of time on the tomb of Tutankhamun in ancient Egypt, and handshakes on steles in ancient Greece, representing an unbroken bond between the living and the dead.
In this class, led by writer and cemetery tour guide Allison C. Meier—author of Grave—you will learn how to decipher and understand cemetery symbolism in a graveyard near you, whether it's an atmospheric colonial churchyard or a Victorian landscape filled with soaring angels. With a focus on the United States and Europe, we will explore some of the most common cemetery symbols, what they mean, and where they come from.
The four sessions of the class will each cover a different era of cemetery symbolism and how it evolved from the visual expression that came before. Each session will include recommended readings and a prompt for exploring symbolism on your own, perhaps to consider what message you might like to leave behind as a final statement:
Ancient Rites: The early beliefs about the dead that shaped our memorial rituals
Memento Mori: How the churchyard became a landscape of the macabre
Death Is Not the End: The Victorian symbolism of the 19th century, from floral meaning to signs of transition
Art of the Afterlife: A look at modern and contemporary memorials that transmit new ideas about what a grave can be
Allison C. Meier is the author of Grave (2023, Bloomsbury) and regularly writes about culture and its intersections with death, with articles in the New York Times, CityLab, Wellcome Collection, Lapham's Quarterly, Hyperallergic, the Art Newspaper, Curbed, and more. She moonlights as a cemetery tour guide at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Four week class taught online via Zoom
Thursdays, May 8 - 29, 2025
7 - 9 pm ET (NYC time)
$125 Paid Patreon Members / $145 General Admission
Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.
Every tombstone tells a story of the departed, from how they lived to how they died. Symbolism has been used on graves for centuries, such as the ouroboros snake eating its own tail, evoking the cyclical nature of time on the tomb of Tutankhamun in ancient Egypt, and handshakes on steles in ancient Greece, representing an unbroken bond between the living and the dead.
In this class, led by writer and cemetery tour guide Allison C. Meier—author of Grave—you will learn how to decipher and understand cemetery symbolism in a graveyard near you, whether it's an atmospheric colonial churchyard or a Victorian landscape filled with soaring angels. With a focus on the United States and Europe, we will explore some of the most common cemetery symbols, what they mean, and where they come from.
The four sessions of the class will each cover a different era of cemetery symbolism and how it evolved from the visual expression that came before. Each session will include recommended readings and a prompt for exploring symbolism on your own, perhaps to consider what message you might like to leave behind as a final statement:
Ancient Rites: The early beliefs about the dead that shaped our memorial rituals
Memento Mori: How the churchyard became a landscape of the macabre
Death Is Not the End: The Victorian symbolism of the 19th century, from floral meaning to signs of transition
Art of the Afterlife: A look at modern and contemporary memorials that transmit new ideas about what a grave can be
Allison C. Meier is the author of Grave (2023, Bloomsbury) and regularly writes about culture and its intersections with death, with articles in the New York Times, CityLab, Wellcome Collection, Lapham's Quarterly, Hyperallergic, the Art Newspaper, Curbed, and more. She moonlights as a cemetery tour guide at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Four week class taught online via Zoom
Thursdays, May 8 - 29, 2025
7 - 9 pm ET (NYC time)
$125 Paid Patreon Members / $145 General Admission
Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.
Every tombstone tells a story of the departed, from how they lived to how they died. Symbolism has been used on graves for centuries, such as the ouroboros snake eating its own tail, evoking the cyclical nature of time on the tomb of Tutankhamun in ancient Egypt, and handshakes on steles in ancient Greece, representing an unbroken bond between the living and the dead.
In this class, led by writer and cemetery tour guide Allison C. Meier—author of Grave—you will learn how to decipher and understand cemetery symbolism in a graveyard near you, whether it's an atmospheric colonial churchyard or a Victorian landscape filled with soaring angels. With a focus on the United States and Europe, we will explore some of the most common cemetery symbols, what they mean, and where they come from.
The four sessions of the class will each cover a different era of cemetery symbolism and how it evolved from the visual expression that came before. Each session will include recommended readings and a prompt for exploring symbolism on your own, perhaps to consider what message you might like to leave behind as a final statement:
Ancient Rites: The early beliefs about the dead that shaped our memorial rituals
Memento Mori: How the churchyard became a landscape of the macabre
Death Is Not the End: The Victorian symbolism of the 19th century, from floral meaning to signs of transition
Art of the Afterlife: A look at modern and contemporary memorials that transmit new ideas about what a grave can be
Allison C. Meier is the author of Grave (2023, Bloomsbury) and regularly writes about culture and its intersections with death, with articles in the New York Times, CityLab, Wellcome Collection, Lapham's Quarterly, Hyperallergic, the Art Newspaper, Curbed, and more. She moonlights as a cemetery tour guide at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.