International conference - Plants, the dead and the living. Cemeteries and plants in the West from the 19th to the 21st century

News 13 June 2025

Illustration Vincent Ielpo / Based on a photograph of the Koroni cemetery (Greece) by Julie Deramond (2022)


11 & 12 September 2025

Hannah Arendt Campus
City centre site / Room 2E07


The CER Histoire and the Centre Norbert Elias, in collaboration with the TEMOS laboratory and the University of Angers, are organising an international colloquium to examine the place of plants in cemeteries in Western Europe in the contemporary period, in terms of their cultural and environmental dimensions, at the crossroads of history, geography, anthropology and urban planning.

Provisional programme

11 September 2025

Morning :

9h-9h30: Introduction - Bruno Bertherat (Avignon Université, CNE) and Louise Couëffé (Avignon Université, CNE)

9.30-10.30: Session 1: Landscaping. Part 1: Fragments of European history

Moderation and discussion by : Régis Bertrand (University of Aix-Marseille, TELEMMe)

  • 9.30-10.00: Odile de Bruyn (freelance historian), "Fields of rest and plants: the point of view of landscape gardeners (Belgium, late 18th to 21st century)".
  • 10h-10h30 Ana Duarte Rodrigues (University of Lisbon, CIUHCT), "Politics and Religion: Greening Catholic and Protestant Cemeteries in 19th-Century Lisbon".

10.30-11am: Break

11am-12.30pm: Session 1: Landscaping. Part 2: Circulation, innovation and contemporary issues (20th century)

Moderation and discussion by : Margot Garcin (Avignon University, TELEMME)

  • 11.00-11.30: Frédéric Bertrand (ENSA Paris-Belleville, IPRAUS), "Landscaped cemeteries in an urban environment, between theory and practice in the 20th century. The exchange of models and their adaptation".
  • 11.30am-12.00pm: Virginie Dessauges (HETSL), Maëlle Proust (HEPIA) "Towards ecological cemeteries: human and social issues involved in greening funeral spaces".
  • 12:00-12:30: Marie Fruiquière (ENSA Strasbourg, AMUP) "The cemetery, a living infrastructure under discussion. Narratives and debates around representations of nature in the process of greening Strasbourg cemeteries".

Afternoon:

14:00-15:30: Session 2. Flowering the dead. Part 1. Imaginary plants

Moderated and discussed by : Cristiana Oghina-Pavie (University of Angers, TEMOS)

  • 2.00-2.30pm: Otto Shaefer (Vice-Chairman of the Scientific Council, Ballons des Vosges Regional Nature Park) "Memorial sign" and "Protestant relic": plants as a means of remembering the dead in Rousseau, Fontane and Loti".
  • 14h30-15h: Bruno Bertherat (Avignon University, CNE), "Des fleurs pour Jeanne (1877-...). The plant imaginary of death".
  • 15:00-15:30: Judith Vitale (University of Zurich), "Chrysanthemums: flowers of death and Japonism".

15:30-15:45: Break

3.45pm-4.45pm: Session 2. Flowering the dead. Part 2. Flowers between economy and society

Moderated and discussed by : Isabelle Renaudet (Aix-Marseille University, TELEMMe)

  • 3.45pm - 4.15pm: Eric Sergent (University of Haute-Alsace, CRESAT), "The flowering of tombs in the 19th century or a certain social mirror".
  • 16.15-16.45: Pierre-Louis Poyau (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, IHMC), "Neither flowers nor wreaths": crisis and redefinition of the use of flowers at funerals in France (1880-1914)".

4.45pm - 5pm: Break

5pm - 6pm: Round table

Régis Bertrand (University of Aix-Marseille, TELEMMe), Pierre-Yves Kirschleger (University of Montpellier Paul-Valéry, CRISES), Sandrine Laramendy (Plantes & Cités).

12 September 2025

Morning

Session 3: Looking at the cemetery through the eyes of plants

9:30-10:30: Session 3. Looking at the cemetery through the eyes of plants. Part 1: When spontaneous vegetation reclaims its rights

Moderated and discussed by : Louise Couëffé (Avignon University, CNE)

  • 9.00-9.30am: Margot Garcin, "Algeria: from tears to flowers
  • 9.30-10.00: Amélie Barbier (EPHE, LAS), Giulia Gaddi (Université Paris Nanterre, LESC), "Des morts en fleurs: ethnographie des relations au végétal dans deux cimetières parisiens" (The dead in bloom: an ethnography of relations with plants in two Parisian cemeteries).

10am-10.30am: Break

11am-12.30pm: Session 3. Looking at the cemetery through the eyes of plants. Part 2: Inventory

Moderated and discussed by : Bruno Bertherat (Avignon University, CNE)

  • 10.30-11am: Louise Couëffé (Avignon University, CNE), "Herborising in cemeteries? Traces and misappropriations of herbarium collections". 
  • 11-11.30am: Louis Dall'Aglio (ENS Lyon) "De si petits fantômes: les mousses dans les cimetières, hantise du paysage funéraire" (Such small ghosts: mosses in cemeteries, a haunting of the funerary landscape) 
  • 11.30am-12pm: Cristiana Oghina-Pavie (University of Angers, TEMOS) "Cemetery roses: passionate investigations into cultural biodiversity".
  • 12h-12h30: Conclusion - Cristiana Oghina-Pavie (University of Angers, TEMOS) and Margot Garcin (Avignon University, AMU, TELEMMe)

Afternoon

Visit the Saint-Véran cemetery

Updated le 26 June 2025