| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Intro; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface to Second Edition; Preface to Third Edition; Acknowledgements; Illustrations; Introduction; Chapter 1: Interpreting death rites; Introducing the theory; Words and humanity; Perspectives in death studies; Sociological and anthropological explanations; Human body as microcosm; Identity and embodiment; Rites of passage; Psychological explanations; Hope and survival; Death and transcendence; Chapter 2: Coping with corpses: Impurity, fertility and fear; Burying, caves and cemeteries; Burning bodies; Funerals as two-phased rituals |
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Modern cremation ritesCremation in Britain; Hertz and cremation; Modern treatment of ashes; The politics of burial and cremation; Air, earth and water disposal; Space for bodies; Impurity, fear and fertility: Values of the corpse; Food against death; Chapter 3: Theories of grief; Psychoanalytic forces; Evolutionary aspects; Ritual transcendence; Reservations; Performing grief; Tears and emotion; Embodiment, soul and role; Popular psychology of grief in Greece; Grief: Normality or illness?; Motherhood and loss of child; Behavioural, cognitive and stress-focused theories |
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Stage theories of griefContinuing bonds and narrative approaches; Dividuality and grief; Chapter 4: Violence, sacrifice and conquest; Control and death; Sacrificial violence and war; Chapter 5: Eastern destiny and death; Zoroastrian-Parsee death rites; Indian death rites; Buddhism; Chapter 6: Ancestors, cemeteries and local identity; Mummies East and West; Ancestors, identity and death; Identity, emigration and ancestors; Cemeteries and ethnic identity; Ancestral Mormonism; Myths of death; Competing and complementing rites; Chapter 7: Jewish and Islamic Destinies; Judaism; Islam |
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Books and wordsChapter 8: Christianity and the death of Jesus; Death, life and Jesus; Early Christianity and graves; Christianity and the death of Jesus; Folk beliefs in Christian cultures; Retrospective fulfilment of identity; Theological concern; Chapter 9: Near-death, symbolic death and rebirth; Symbolic power of death; Imagination, hope and survival; Initiation rituals; Spiritual rebirth in Christianity; Shamanism; Wounded healers; Near-death experience; Chapter 10: Somewhere to die; Home deathbed; Hospital bed; Hospice; Roadside deaths; Battlefield memorials; National Memorial Arboretum |
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Locating deathAge and place; Chapter 11: Souls and the presence of the dead; The nineteenth century; Popular British views on reincarnation; The dead in living memory; Chapter 12: Pet and animal death; The death of dogs and cats; Human and animal remains; Symbolic animals; Surveying pet death, 1992; Animal souls; Bereavement and pet death; Animal grief; Chapter 13: Robots, books, films and buildings; Religious sources; Media sources; Television; Music; Hymns and music; Sculpture; Exhibition and art; Poetic words against death; Humane words against death; Architecture of death; Death studies |
| Summary |
"Death, Ritual and Belief, now in its third edition, explores many important issues related to death and dying, from a religious studies perspective, including anthropology and sociology. Using the motif of 'words against death' it depicts human responses to grief by surveying the many ways in which people have not let death have the last word, not simply in terms of funeral rites but also in memorials, graves, and in ideas of ancestors, souls, gods, reincarnation and resurrection, whether in the great religious traditions of the world or in more local customs. He also examines bereavement and grief, experiences of the presence of dead, near-death experiences, pet-death and the symbolic death played out in religious rites. Updated chapters have taken into account new research and include additional topics in this new edition, notably assisted dying, terrorism, green burial, material culture, death online, and the emergence of Death Studies as a distinctive field. Case studies range from Anders Breivik in Norway, to the Princess of Wales, and to the Rapture in the USA. A new perspective is also brought to his account of grief theories. Providing an introduction to key authors and authorities on death beliefs, bereavement, grief and ritual-symbolism, Death, Ritual and Belief is an authoritative guide to the perspectives of major religious and secular worldviews."--Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Death -- Religious aspects -- Comparative studies
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Funeral rites and ceremonies.
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Funeral Rites
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funerals.
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RELIGION -- Reference.
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Death -- Religious aspects
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Funeral rites and ceremonies
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| Genre/Form |
Comparative studies
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781474250979 |
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1474250971 |
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