I am a writer, cultural anthropologist, and death educator. My work explores the cultural dimensions of medicine, with a particular focus on life’s bookends: birth and death. In recent years, I have emerged as a leading voice on death literacy in the United States, appearing on podcasts and at community events that tackle Americans’ changing relationship with death. In 2023, I wrote for the PBS series Dead and Buried.
I am currently a Global Fellow on End-of-Life Care with The Completed Life Initiative and the Death with Dignity National Center.
My writing has also appeared in Newsweek, Cognoscenti, The Conversation, The Seattle Times, and Undark Magazine, among other places. I have spoken about my work in hospitals, medical schools, churches, art museums, and law schools across the country, and I have given interviews for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Next Avenue, USA TODAY, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, Vox, Mashable, Insider, and other outlets.
In 2015, I launched a long-term research project on medical aid in dying in the United States. This project asked how assisted dying is transforming the ways Americans die. I spent hundreds of hours talking with patients, families, physicians, lawmakers, and activists across the country. As part of this research, I also served as a hospice volunteer and sat in on various court cases and public hearings. My primary mission was to move beyond a polarizing national debate by uncovering people’s real-life experiences with assisted dying laws. The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America came out with Sourcebooks in May, 2022.
I earned my BA in Anthropology from Reed College and my MA and PhD——also in Anthropology——from the University of Chicago. Over the years, I have received an array of fellowships and grants, including from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. My first book, Beyond Surgery: Injury, Healing, and Religion at an Ethiopian Hospital (2017), was awarded the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology in 2018. I previously worked as Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University, where I taught classes on medicine, religion, gender, and death and dying.
In my free time, I love trail running, swimming, and backpacking in the great outdoors, pursuits that sporadically bring me back in touch with my own mortality.
I am represented by Mackenzie Brady Watson at Stuart Krichevsky Agency.
Anita Hannig 