Our goal is to provide a comprehensive list of philosophical works that either focus on grief or include a substantial amount of material on grief. This bibliography is a work in progress and will be added to over the course of the project. Please email us with any suggestions for additional sources.
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Grief: A Bibliographical Resource
Phenomenology
- Attig, T. (2000). The Heart of Grief: Death and the Search for Lasting Love. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Attig, T. (2011). How We Grieve: Relearning the World. Revised Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Bonanno, G. A. and S. Kaltman. (2001). The Varieties of Grief Experience. Clinical Psychology Review, 21(5), 705–734.
- Brinkmann, S. (2019). The body in grief. Mortality, 24, 290–303.
- Drożdżowicz, A. (2020). The difficult case of complicated grief and the role of phenomenology in psychiatry. Phenomenology and Mind, 18, 98–109.
- Fuchs, T. (2018). Presence in absence. The ambiguous phenomenology of grief. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 17(1), 43–63.
- Keeping, J. (2014). The Time Is Out of Joint: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Grief. Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, 18 (2), 233-255.
- Køster, A. (2020). Bereavement and the Meaning of Profound Feelings of Emptiness: An Existential-phenomenological Analysis. In Tewes, C. and Stanghellini, G. (eds.) Time and Body: Phenomenological and Psychopathological Approaches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Køster, A. and Kofod, E.H. (eds.) (2021). Cultural, existential and phenomenological dimensions of grief experience. London, Routledge.
- Maclaren, K. (2011). Emotional Clichés and Authentic Passions: A Phenomenological Revision of a Cognitive Theory of Emotion. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 10, 45–65.
- Mehmel, C. (2021) Grief, disorientation, and futurity, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
- Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945). Phenomenology of Perception. (D. A. Landes, Trans.) London: Routledge.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2016) Relating to the Dead: Social Cognition and the Phenomenology of Grief. In T. Szanto & D. Moran, (Eds.), Phenomenology of Sociality (Chapter 12). New York: Routledge.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2017). Grief and the Unity of Emotion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XLI, 154-174
- Ratcliffe, M. (2018). The Phenomenological Clarification of Grief and its Relevance for Psychiatry. In G. Stanghellini, M. Broome, A. Raballo, A. V. Fernandez, P. Fusar-Poli, & R. Rosfort (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Phenomenological Psychopathology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2019). Grief and Phantom Limbs: A Phenomenological Comparison. New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, 17, 1–25.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2019). Towards a phenomenology of grief: Insights from Merleau-Ponty. European Journal of Philosophy, (November), 1–13.
- Read, R. (2018). Can There Be a Logic of Grief? Wittgenstein and Phenomenology, (June), 176–196.
- Romanyshyn, R. (1999). The Soul in Grief: Love, Death and Transformation. Berkeley CA: North Atlantic Books.
- Walters, D.A. (2008). Grief and loss: towards an existential phenomenology of child spirituality. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, 13, 277–286.
- Fuchs, T. (2018). Presence in absence. The ambiguous phenomenology of grief. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 17(1), 43–63.
- Fullarton, C. (2020). Grief, Phantoms, and Re-membering Loss. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 34, 284–296.
- Køster, A. (2019). Longing for concreteness: how body memory matters to continuing bonds. Mortality, 1-13.
- Køster, A. (2020). The felt sense of the other: contours of a sensorium. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
- Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945). Phenomenology of Perception. (D. A. Landes, Trans.) London: Routledge.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2019). Grief and Phantom Limbs: A Phenomenological Comparison. New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, 17, 1–25.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2019). Towards a phenomenology of grief: Insights from Merleau-Ponty. European Journal of Philosophy, (November), 1–13.
- Roberts (2019). Feeling nothing: Numbness and emotional absence. European Journal of Philosophy, 27, 187–198.
Epistemology of Mind
Rationality, desires and judgments
- Cholbi, M. (2017). Grief’s Rationality, Backward and Forward. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XCIV(2), 255-272.
- Cholbi, M. (2022). Grief: A Philosophical Guide. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Gustafson, D. (1989). Grief. Noûs, 23(4), 457–479.
- Nussbaum, M. (2001) Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 19–88.
- Marušić, B. (2018). Do Reasons Expire? An Essay on Grief. Philosophers’ Imprint, 18(25), 1-21.
- Moller, D. (2018). Love and the Rationality of Grief. In A. Grau, C.; Smuts (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love (pp. 1–15).
- Price, C. (2010). The Rationality of Grief. Inquiry, 53(1), 20–40.
- Roberts, R.C. (2003) Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (pp. 235–240; pp. 325–326). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Taylor, C.C.W. (1986). Emotions and wants. In J. Marks (Ed.), The Ways of Desire, pp. 217–231 (Chicago, IL: Precedent Publishing). (See particularly pp. 221-223)
- Cholbi, M. (2017). Grief’s Rationality, Backward and Forward. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XCIV(2), 255-272.
- Gustafson, D. (1989). Grief. Noûs, 23(4), 457–479.
- Kelly, M. R. (2016). Grief: Putting the Past before Us. Quaestiones Disputatae, 7(1), 156–177.
- Atkins, A. in press. On Grief’s Sweet Sorrow. European Journal of Philosophy.
- Cholbi, M. (2017). Finding the Good in Grief: What Augustine Knew that Meursault Could Not. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 3(1), 91-105.
- Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, Trauma and Human Resilience: Have We Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive after Extremely Aversive Events? American Psychologist 59(1), 20–28.
- Bonanno, G. A. (2009). The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us about Life after Loss. New York: Basic Books.
- Cholbi, M. (2018). Regret, Resilience, and the Nature of Grief. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1–23.
- Marušić, B. (2018). Do Reasons Expire? An Essay on Grief. Philosophers’ Imprint, 18(25), 1-21.
- Moller, D. (2016). Love and Death. The Journal of Philosophy, 104(6), 301–316.
- Moller, D. (2018). Love and the Rationality of Grief. In C. Grau and A. Smuts (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love (pp. 1–15). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199395729.013.35
Philosophy of Emotion
- Deonna, J. A. and F. Teroni. (2012). The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge.
- Gustafson, D. (1989). Grief. Noûs, 23 (4), 457–479.
- Helm, B. W. (2009). Emotions as Evaluative Feelings. Emotion Review, 1, 248–255.
- James, W. (1884). What is an Emotion? Mind, 9, 188–205.
- Lyons, W. (1980) Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Nussbaum, M. (2001) Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Prinz, J. (2004). Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Roberts, R. C. (1988). What an Emotion Is: A Sketch. The Philosophical Review, 97, 183–209.
- Slaby, J. (2008). Affective Intentionality and the Feeling Body. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 7, 429–444.
- Solomon, R. C. (1973). Emotions and Choice. The Review of Metaphysics, 27, 20–41.
- Solomon, R.C. (1976/1993). The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Revised Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett.
- Solomon, R. C. (2003). Not Passion’s Slave: Emotions and Choice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Gilbert. K. R. (2002). Taking a Narrative Approach to Grief Research: Finding Meaning in Stories. Death Studies, 26, 223–239.
- Goldie, P. (2011). Grief: a narrative account. Ratio, XXIV(2), 119–137.
- Goldie, P. (2012.) The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Higgins, K. (2012) Bob on Meaning in Life and Death. In K. Higgins and D. Sherman (Eds.) Passion, Death, and Spirituality: The Philosophy of Robert C. Solomon (pp. 259–267). Dordrecht: Springer.
- Higgins, K. (2013). Love and death. In J. Deigh (Ed.), On emotions: Philosophical essays, 159–178. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Ingerslev, L. R. (2018). Ongoing: On Grief’s Open-Ended Rehearsal. Continental Philosophy Review, 51(3), 343–360.
- Neimeyer, R. A. (1999). Narrative Strategies in Grief Therapy. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 12, 65–85.
- Neimeyer, R. A. (2005). Grief, Loss, and the Quest for Meaning. Bereavement Care, 24 (2), 27–30.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2017). Grief and the Unity of Emotion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XLI, 154–174.
- Solomon, R. (2008). True to Our Feelings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Walter, T. (1996). A New Model of Grief: Bereavement and Biography. Mortality, 1, 7–25.
- Corns, J. (2015). The Social Pain Posit. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 93(3), 561–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048402.2014.984614
- Cholbi, M. (2017). Grief and End-of-life Surrogate Decision Making. In J. K. Davis (ed.), Ethics at the End of Life: New Issues and Arguments. New York: Routledge. pp. 201-217
- Varga, S. & Gallagher, S. (2020). Anticipatory-Vicarious Grief: The Anatomy of a Moral Emotion. The Monist, 103(2), 176–189. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onz034
- Stout, R. (2012). What someone's behavior must be like if we are to be aware of their emotions in it. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 11(2), 135–48.
Interpersonal experience
Grief and Social Cognition
- Ratcliffe, M. (2016) Relating to the Dead: Social Cognition and the Phenomenology of Grief. In T. Szanto & D. Moran, (Eds.), Phenomenology of Sociality (Chapter 12). New York: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315688268
- Bennett, G. and K. M. Bennett. (2000). The Presence of the Dead: An Empirical Study. Mortality, 5(2), 139–157.
- Boelen, P. A., M. S. Stroebe, H. A. W. Schut, and A. M. Zijerveld. (2006). Continuing Bonds and Grief: A Prospective Analysis. Death Studies, 30(8), 767–776.
- Brinkmann, S. (2020). Grief: The Price of Love. Trans. T. McTurk. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Klass, D. (2006). Continuing Conversation about Continuing Bonds. Death Studies, 30, 843–858.
- Klass, D., P. R. Silverman, and S. L. Nickman. Eds. (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. London: Routledge.
- Klass, D. and E. M. Steffen. Eds. (2018). Continuing Bonds in Bereavement: New Directions for Research and Practice. London: Routledge.
- Køster, A. (2019). Longing for concreteness: how body memory matters to continuing bonds. Mortality, 1–13.
- Køster, A. (2020). The felt sense of the other: contours of a sensorium. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
- Higgins, K. (2013). Love and death. In J. Deigh (Ed.), On emotions: Philosophical essays, 159–178. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2020). Towards a Phenomenology of Grief: Insights from Merleau-Ponty. European Journal of Philosophy, 28, 657–669.
- Solomon, R. C. (2004). In Defense of Sentimentality. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Valentine, C. 2008. Bereavement Narratives: Continuing Bonds in the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge.
- Walter, T. (2019). The Pervasive Dead. Mortality, 24, 389–404.
- Bowlby, J. (1980 / 1998). Attachment and Loss. Volume 3. Loss: Sadness and Depression. London: Pimlico.
- Wonderly, M. L. (2016). On being attached. Philosophical Studies, 173(1), 223–242.
- Lopez-Cantero, P. (2018). The Break-Up Check: Exploring Romantic Love through Relationship Terminations. Philosophia, (46), 689–703.
Categorising Grief
Disenfranchised Grief
- Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
- Doka, K.J. (1999). Disenfranchised grief. Bereavement Care, 18, 37–39.
- Doka, K. J. (2001). Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies. Champaign: Research Press Publishers.
- Rinofner-Kreidl, S. (2016). On Grief’s Ambiguous Nature. Quaestiones Disputatae, 7(1), 178-207.
- Austin, E. A. (2016). Plato on Grief as a Mental Disorder. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 98 (1), 1-20.
- Boelen, P. A., M. A. van den Hout, and J. van den Bout. (2006). A Cognitive-Behavioral
Conceptualization of Complicated Grief. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 13(2), 109–128. - Boelen, P. A., M. C. Eisma, G. E. Smid, and L. I. M. Lenferink. (2020). Prolonged Grief Disorder in Section II of DSM-5: A Commentary. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11, 1771008.
- Brinkmann, S. (2018). Could Grief be a Mental Disorder? Nordic Psychology, 70, 146–159.
- Cooper, R. (2012) Complicated Grief: Philosophical Perspectives. In Stroebe, M., Schut, H., Boelen, P. & van den Bout, J. (eds.), Complicated Grief: Scientific Foundations for Health Care Professionals (pp. 13-26). Routledge.
- Field, N. P. (2006). Unresolved Grief and Continuing Bonds: An Attachment Perspective. Death Studies, 30, 739–756.
- Jacobs, S., Mazure, C., & Prigerson, H. G. (2000). Diagnostic Criteria for Traumatic Grief. Death Studies, 24(3), 185–199.
- Jordan, A. H., & Litz, B. T. (2014). Prolonged Grief Disorder: Diagnostic, Assessment, and Treatment Considerations. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 45(3), 180–187.
- Kopelman, L. M. (1994). Normal Grief: Good or Bad? Health or Disease? Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 1(4), 209–220.
- Lamb, K., Pies, R., & Zisook, S. (2010). The Bereavement Exclusion for the Diagnosis of Major Depression: To Be, Or Not to Be. Psychiatry, 7(7), 19–25.
- McCracken, J. (2005). Falsely, Sanely, Shallowly: Reflections on the Special Character of Grief. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 19(1), 139-156.
- Pies, R. (2008). The anatomy of sorrow: a spiritual, phenomenological, and neurological perspective. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 3(17).
- Pies, R. (2012). After bereavement, is it "normal grief" or major depression?: The PBPI, a potential assessment tool. Psychiatric Times, 29(5), 12–14.
- Prigerson, H. G., Maciejewski, P. K., Reynolds III, C. F., Bierhals, A. J., Newsom, J. T., Fasiczka, A., Frank, E., Doman, J., & Miller, M. (1995). Inventory of complicated grief: A scale to measure maladaptive symptoms of loss. Psychiatry Research, 59(1–2), 65–79.
- Neimeyer, R. A. (2006). Complicated Grief and the Quest for Meaning: A Constructivist Contribution. Omega-Journal of Death and Dying, 52, 27–52.
- Sekowski, M. and Prigerson, H.G. (2022). Disorganized attachment and prolonged grief. Journal of clinical psychology, 1–18.
- Stroebe, W., Schut, H., & Stroebe, M. (2005). Grief work, disclosure and counseling: Do they help the bereaved? Clinical Psychology Review, 25, 395–414.
- Wakefield, J. C., & First, M. B. (2012). Validity of the bereavement exclusion to major depression: does the empirical evidence support the proposal to eliminate the exclusion in DSM-5? World Psychiatry, 11(1), 3–10.
- Wilkinson, S. (2016). Is ’Normal Grief ’ a Mental Disorder? The Philosophical Quarterly, 50(200), 289–304.
- Zachar, P., First, M. B., & Kendler, K. S. (2017). The Bereavement Exclusion Debate in the DSM-5: A History. Clinical Psychological Science, 5, 890–906.
- Zisook, S., & Shear, K. M. (2009). Grief and bereavement: what psychiatrists need to know. World Psychiatry, 8, 67–74.
- Bilimoria, P. (2011). On Grief and Mourning: Thinking a Feeling, Back to Bob Solomon. Sophia, 50, 281–301.
- Albrecht, G.A. (2020). Negating Solastalgia: An Emotional Revolution from the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene. American Imago, 77(1), 9-30.
- Clark, T. (2020). Ecological Grief and Anthropocene Horror. American Imago, 77(1), 61-80.
- Stolorow, R. D. (2020). Planet Earth: Crumbling Metaphysical Illusion*. American Imago, 77(1), 105-107.
- Kamp, K. S., E. M. Steffen, B. Alderson-Day, P. Allen, A. Austad, J. Hayes, F. Larøi, M. Ratcliffe, and P. Sabucedo. (2020). Sensory and Quasi-Sensory Experiences of the Deceased in Bereavement: An Interdisciplinary and Integrative Review. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 46, 1367–1381.
- Millar, B. (In press). Grief’s Impact on Sensorimotor Expectations: An Account of Non-veridical Bereavement Experiences. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.
- Ratcliffe, M. (2021). Sensed Presence without Sensory Qualities: A Phenomenological Study of Bereavement Hallucinations. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 20, 601–616.
- Castelnovo, A., S. Cavallotti, O. Gambini, and A. D’Agostino. (2015). Post-bereavement Hallucinatory Experiences: A Critical Overview of Population and Clinical Studies. Journal of Affective Disorders, 186, 266–274.
- Keen, C., C. Murray and S. Payne. 2013. Sensing the Presence of the Deceased: A Narrative Review. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 16, 384–402.
- Rees, W. D. (1971). The Hallucinations of Widowhood. British Medical Journal, 4, 37–41.
- Steffen, E. and A. Coyle. (2011). Sense of Presence Experiences and Meaning-Making in Bereavement: A Qualitative Analysis. Death Studies, 35, 579–609.
- Steffen, E. and A. Coyle. (2012). ‘Sense of Presence’ Experiences in Bereavement and their Relationship to Mental Health: A Critical Examination of a Continuing Controversy. In C. Murray. Ed. Mental Health and Anomalous Experience. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 33–56.
Metaphysics
Composition as Identity
- Baxter, D. L. M. (2005). Altruism, Grief, and Identity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 70(2), 371 - 383.
- Garland, C. E. (2019) Grief and composition as identity. The Philosophical Quarterly, 0(0), 1-16.
Ethics and Political Philosophy
- Butler, J. (2009). Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? London: Verso.
- Cholbi, M. (2017). Grief and End-of-life Surrogate Decision Making. In J. K. Davis (ed.), Ethics at the End of Life: New Issues and Arguments. New York: Routledge. pp. 201-217.
- Friedrich, A. B. (2019). More Than “Spending Time with the Body”: The Role of a Family’s Grief in Determinations of Brain Death. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 16(4), 489-499.
- Kristjánsson, K. (2015). Grief: An Aristotelian Justification of an Emotional Virtue. Res Philosophica, 92(4), 805-828.
- Tomasini, F. (2009). Is post-mortem harm possible? Understanding death harm and grief. Bioethics, 23(8), 441-449
- Blustein, J. (2008). The Responsibility of Remembrance. In The Moral Demands of Memory (pp. 240-300). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511818615.006
- Higgins, K. (2013). Love and death. In J. Deigh (Ed.), On emotions: Philosophical essays (pp. 159–178). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- McCracken, J. (2005). Falsely, Sanely, Shallowly: Reflections on the Special Character of Grief. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 19(1), 139-156.
- Solomon, R.C. (2004). On Grief and Gratitude. In In Defense of Sentimentality (Chapter 4, pp. 75–101). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Varga, S. & Gallagher, S. (2020). Anticipatory-Vicarious Grief: The Anatomy of a Moral Emotion. The Monist, 103(2), 176–189. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onz034
Aesthetics
- Higgins, K. M. (2020). Aesthetics and the Containment of Grief. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 78(1), 9-20.
- Bell, E. (2014). Grief Time: Feeling Philosophy in Inception. Film and Philosophy, 14, 19-35.
- Carel, H. (2011). In the Grip of Grief: Epistemic Impotence and the Materiality of Mourning in Shinya Tsukamoto’s Vital. In H. Carel & G. Tuck (Eds.), New Takes in Film-Philosophy (pp. 240 – 255). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Philosophy of Religion
- Saint Augustine. (397-400 AD/2006) Confessions. F. Sheed, trans., Michael P. Foley, ed. Indianapolis: Hackett. Original composition.
Eastern Philosophy
- Olberding, A. (2007) Sorrow and the Sage: Grief in the Zhuangzi. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 6 (4), 339-359.
- Olberding, A. (2004) The Consummation of Sorrow: An Analysis of Confucius' Grief for Yan Hui. Philosophy East and West, 54(3), 279-301.
- Tsai, Y. M. (2016). Neither Bereavement nor Grief: Coping with the Death of a Cherished Person in the Cunda-sutta. Contemporary Buddhism, 17(2), 357-368.
Practical Philosophy
- Attig, T. (2011). How We Grieve: Relearning the World. Revised Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Diaz-Waian, M. (2014) How Philosophy Can Help Us Grieve: Navigating the Wake(s) of Loss. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 28(1)
Other Philosophical Works
- Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical Investigations, (Part II), 3rd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
We are also interested in other current and recent research projects into grief. Please get in touch if you are working on grief and want your project to be added to this page.
- Martin House Research Centre: A collaboration between Martin House Children's Hospice and researchers at the University of York and University of Leeds. Research includes The Early Days Project, which examines parents’ experiences of the early days of bereavement and the support they receive from children’s hospices, particularly with regards the use of cold bedroom/cooling blanket/cuddle cot facilities.
- 'End Of' or 'Start Of' life? Visual Technology and The Transformation of Traditional Post-Mortem: An ESRC-funded project at the University of Sheffield exploring early-life loss and the impact of medical imaging on paediatric post-mortem. Researchers collaborated with artists to put together an exhibition titled 'Remembering Baby'.
- Improving communication with parents or carers who have lost a child: A research project at the University of Birmingham investigating the experiences of parents and carers who have lost a child. It aims to help healthcare practitioners, registrars and funeral directors to better provide support.
- Centre for Death & Society: This research centre at the University of Bath focuses on the interdisciplinary social aspects of death, dying and bereavement. Researchers are engaged in a number of research projects relating to grief.
- Cemetery Research Group: Based at the University of York, this research group is exploring current and past burial culture