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Book Cover
E-book
Author Heinz, Donald

Title The last passage : recovering a death of our own / Donald Heinz
Published New York : Oxford University Press, 1999

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Description 1 online resource (xxii, 296 pages)
Contents The dying and reviving of death -- Imagining death -- The lost art of dying -- The last career -- Finishing the story -- Along the ritual way -- Ritual quarrying: bodies in motion -- Ritual quarrying: the arts and letters of hope
Summary The author calls for the reinvestment of dying with the rituals that once gave it spiritual and social meaning, surveying the many ways death has been treated throughout history and demonstrating how the arts might lend a renewed reverence to death
Is death merely the cessation of life? Are our final years simply a wearing out of the body? Are hospitals and funeral homes - the bureaucratic machinery of death - capable of handling the profound spiritual dimension of dying? In The Last Passage, Donald Heinz offers answers to these questions in a book that urges us to "recover a death of our own" and to view our final years as a fulfillment, a "last career." Seeking appropriate models for such a reconstruction, Heinz offers a fascinating overview of the many ways death has been envisioned and ritualized throughout human history, from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to 15th/century Christian ars moriendi - manuals on the art of dying - and from Jean Paul Sartre to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Finally, Heinz shows us how we might create rituals through the use of music, visual arts, dance, drama, and language that would enable us to approach death with reverence, as the spiritual consummation of our lives
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-289) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Death -- United States -- Psychological aspects
Death -- Social aspects -- United States
Funeral rites and ceremonies.
funerals.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Death & Dying.
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS -- Death, Grief, Bereavement.
Death -- Psychological aspects
Death -- Social aspects
Funeral rites and ceremonies
Tod
Gesellschaft
Psychologie
Brauch
Dood.
Psychologische aspecten.
Sociale aspecten.
Dodenbezorging.
United States
USA
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0585367361
9780585367361
1602562229
9781602562226
9786610470198
6610470197