Scholars educators health professionals and activists from a variety of fields have struggled with one of the most significant questions of contemporary life How do we rescue the experience of death and dying from the mire of fear denial and secrecy that it has been associated with for the better part of a century In When Death Goes Pop Charlton D. McIlwain describes a striking emerging shift in the way that death is represented in such omnipresent forms of media as television a shift that seems to be moving the American discourse on death and dying from the private sphere to the public. The book surveys the past thirty years of deathrelated television programming from daytime soaps to primetime dramas focusing primarily on Home Box Offices Six Feet Under and its innovative approach to the subject and from the SciFi Channels Crossing Over to the genre of paranormal programming as a whole.