Hannah Gould

University of Melbourne, University of Zurich

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Hannah Gould is a pioneering interdisciplinary researcher whose work sits at the provocative crossroads of death studies, media studies, and emerging technologies. Her scholarship interrogates how digital and robotic technologies are reshaping human experiences of mortality, grief, and remembrance in the contemporary world. Gould's most influential work explores what she terms "necro-technologies" — media technologies designed for and shaped by death — revealing a fundamental tension between the promise of digital permanence and the precarious realities of technological obsolescence ("Media, mortality and necro-technologies," 2021, 20 citations). Her research extends into robotic death care, examining how non-human, mechanised agents are transforming funerary practices and challenging longstanding assumptions about death rituals as exclusively human domains ("Robot death care," 2021, 14 citations; "Cybernetic Funeral Systems," 2021). Equally distinctive is Gould's engagement with Buddhist philosophy and technology, exploring how religious traditions intersect with artificial intelligence and techno-salvationist thinking ("Bad Buddhists, Good Robots," 2020, 19 citations). With a growing body of cited work and an expanding focus on AI and robotics through her 2024 research, Gould is establishing herself as an essential voice for scholars grappling with technology, spirituality, and the future of human mortality.