Episode 227 - Death and Dying 101 with Ryan Seidemann
Join Jennie and Dianne on the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast as they tackle tough questions about death and dying with returning guest Ryan Seidemann. This week, they're answering questions from Ryan's students at Arizona State University, including:
*When should the needs of the living take precedence over considerations of the dead?
*How can we make death care more inclusive and flexible?
*Why is modern Western culture so uncomfortable discussing death?
Listen in on this thought-provoking conversation and feel free to share your ideas on these important questions in our social media comments or shoot us an email at ordinaryextraordinarycemetery@gmail.com.
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Ryan M. Seidemann, J.D., Ph.D, RPA
Lawyer, Archeologist, Anthropologist, Professor
Ryan M. Seidemann earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Florida State University, focusing on human remains analysis with research at the Smithsonian Institution and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He completed a Master’s degree in Anthropology at Louisiana State University with a thesis on Maya skeletal remains from Belize. His early work in cultural resource management ranged across the Southeastern United States, with surveys and site excavations on Archaic peoples to inhabitants of New Orleans in the nineteenth century. Ryan later earned both a Bachelor of Civil Law and a Juris Doctorate at LSU and, in 2021, a Ph.D. in Urban Studies/Urban Anthropology from the University of New Orleans, with a dissertation on cemetery preservation inequities in New Orleans.
Throughout his law practice in both Louisiana and Vermont, Ryan has continuously show cased his ability to balance the intersecting worlds of cultural resources management, archaeology, cemeteries, and law. Ryan previously served as an Assistant Attorney General (2005-2024) and Chief of the Lands & Natural Resources Section (2007-2024) of the Louisiana Department of Justice. In that position, he represented the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, the Office of State Lands, Louisiana Cemetery Board, and the Louisiana Division of Archaeology, among other government agencies. He has argued cases in most Louisiana district courts, all Louisiana appellate courts, and multiple times before the Louisiana Supreme Court. Ryan has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications on hu… Read More