Hospices have played a critical role in transforming ideas about death and dying. Viewing death as a natural event, hospices seek to enable people approaching mortality to live as fully and painlessly as possible. Award-winning medical historian Emily K. Abel provides insight into several important issues surrounding the growth of hospice care. Using a unique set of records, Prelude to Hospice expands our understanding of the history of U.S. hospices. Compiled largely by Florence Wald, the founder of the first U.S. hospice, the records provide a detailed account of her experiences studying and caring for dying people and their families in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although Wald never published a report of her findings, she often presented her material informally. Like many others seeking to found new institutions, she believed she could garner support only by demonstrating that her facility would be superior in every respect to what currently existed. As a result, she generated inflated expectations about what a hospice could accomplish. Wald's records enable us to glimpse the complexities of the work of tending to dying people.

By CreateSpace: As we move into the twenty-first century, the dynamics of the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide have shifted from the "power and influence" to the "power and control." The religious industry is determined to dictate to everyone to live and die according to their dogmas and it is in everyone's best interest that we do not allow human rights and freedom of choice to be trampled on by pontificators. As such, this is a call to action by the silent majority against the vocal religious ultra-conservative minority that is dictating its non-secular ideology on everyone else. Hani Montan's latest demands to be heard-and requires that the majority seize control of their lives by controlling the ways and means of their deaths. The action needed is: first, is for the silent majority to shed its apathy and weed out through the ballot box and active campaigning the undemocratic and non-secular politicians who place God ahead of the country and the majority of its citizens. Too many unprincipled politicians' prime objective is just to survive in politics and they are a blot on democracy. Second, expose and boycott any religious establishment that is actively engaged in anti-euthanasia and anti-assisted suicide campaign because they are violating human rights and individuals' freedom of choice. It is the expectation in a democratic and secular society where religion and state are separate that the imposition of religious ideals on everyone is not acceptable. As a result, religious dogmas should not be allowed to control people's lives and religious leaders should have no undue influence on the social and political agendas of a democracy which, by definition, entitles people to have their own beliefs. Included in this should be the prerogative to choose the way they want to die. People who are in pain but believe in the sanctity of life and that the earthly suffering is good for their soul and want to exist till their last breath should be entitled to their beliefs. Others who want to prolong their life by few more days or months with palliative care and by taking heavy doses of tranquilizing drugs should also be entitled to do so. These death choices need to also extend their privileges to non-believers, to believers of science and the concept of evolution, and other terminally ill people who prefer euthanasia or assisted suicide as methods for terminating their lives that have become a misery. These people are equally entitled to their beliefs and deserve to have their human rights and freedom of choice respected. Containing many unique features, Montan's treatise gives such useful information as: samples to assist the readers in the preparation of their own legally binding "Advance Health Directive" which is now acceptable in many Western countries; a suggested updated version of the Hippocratic Oath to accommodate the subject of euthanasia and assisted suicide; and a general guide on methods and pro-euthanasia organizations specializing in the practice or advice on euthanasia and assisted suicide. A deeply thoughtful, expansive view on the rights of the dying, Death by Choice versus Religious Dogma is a book for everyone who is facing lingering death now and those who will be in similar predicament later. Euthanasia and assisted suicide is not only about the intolerance to pain or being a burden on the loved ones or the fear of dying without dignity, it is also about the loss of autonomy, loss of the ability to engage in activities that make life enjoyable, and the loss of control of bodily functions.

Death And Anti-Death, Volume 10: Ten Years After John Rawls (1921-2002) is edited by Charles Tandy, Ph.D. and Jack Lee, Ph.D.: ISBN 978-1-934297-15-5 is the Hardback edition and ISBN 978-1-934297-16-2 is the Paperback edition. Volume 10, as indicated by the anthology's subtitle, is in honor of John Rawls (1921-2002). The chapters do not necessarily mention him (but some chapters do). The chapters (by professional philosophers and other professional scholars) are directed to issues related to death, life extension, and anti-death, broadly construed. Most of the contributions consist of scholarship unique to this volume. As was the case with all previous volumes in the Death And Anti-Death Series By Ria University Press, the anthology includes an Index as well as an Abstracts section that serves as an extended table of contents. There are 11 chapters, as follows: ------CHAPTER ONE Autonomy, Contingency, And Mysticism: Three Critical Remarks On Cornelius Castoriadis' Understanding Of Human Mortality (by Giorgio Baruchello) pages 21-30; ------CHAPTER TWO Heidegger And Daoism On Mortality (by Wing-cheuk Chan) pages 31-54; ------CHAPTER THREE Autonomy In Moral And Political Philosophy (by John Christman) pages 55-94; ------CHAPTER FOUR A Fortunate Academic Life (by William Grey) pages 95-100; ------CHAPTER FIVE Who Is The Subject Of The Evil Of Death? (by Jack Lee) pages 101-114; ------CHAPTER SIX Is Death Necessarily Harmful? Some Reflections From A Daoist Perspective (by Shui-Chuen Lee) pages 115-130; ------CHAPTER SEVEN Our Global Problems And What We Need To Do About Them (by Nicholas Maxwell) pages 131-174; ------CHAPTER EIGHT Optimizing One's Immortality: Biostasis And The Philosophy Of Universal Immortalism (by R. Michael Perry) pages 175-212; ------CHAPTER NINE A Brief Inquiry Into Rawls' Religion: Providence, Individuals, And Redemption (by Charles Taliaferro) pages 213-224; ------CHAPTER TEN John Rawls, Albert Camus, And Our Common Task Of Intergenerational Justice (by Charles Tandy) pages 225-254; ------CHAPTER ELEVEN John Rawls (by Leif Wenar) pages 255-300; ------The INDEX begins on page 301.

No matter where in Canada they occur, inquiries and inquests into untimely Indigenous deaths in state custody often tell the same story. Repeating details of fatty livers, mental illness, alcoholic belligerence, and a mysterious incapacity to cope with modern life, the legal proceedings declare that there are no villains here, only inevitable casualties of Indigenous life. But what about a sixty-seven-year-old man who dies in a hospital in police custody with a large, visible, purple boot print on his chest? Or a barely conscious, alcoholic older man, dropped off by police in a dark alley on a cold Vancouver night? Or Saskatoon's infamous and lethal starlight tours, whose victims were left on the outskirts of town in sub-zero temperatures? How do we account for the repeated failure to care evident in so many cases of Indigenous deaths in custody? In Dying from Improvement, Sherene H. Razack argues that, amidst systematic state violence against Indigenous people, inquiries and inquests serve to obscure the violence of ongoing settler colonialism under the guise of benevolent concern. They tell settler society that it is caring, compassionate, and engaged in improving the lives of Indigenous people - even as the incarceration rate of Indigenous men and women increases and the number of those who die in custody rises. Razack's powerful critique of the Canadian settler state and its legal system speaks to many of today's most pressing issues of social justice: the treatment of Indigenous people, the unparalleled authority of the police and the justice system, and their systematic inhumanity towards those whose lives they perceive as insignificant.

For the Romans, the manner of a person's death was the most telling indication of their true character. Death revealed the true patriot, the genuine philosopher, even, perhaps, the great artist-and certainly the faithful Christian. Catharine Edwards draws on the many and richly varied accounts of death in the writings of Roman historians, poets, and philosophers, including Cicero, Lucretius, Virgil, Seneca, Petronius, Tacitus, Tertullian, and Augustine, to investigate the complex significance of dying in the Roman world. Death in the Roman world was largely understood and often literally viewed as a spectacle. Those deaths that figured in recorded history were almost invariably violent-murders, executions, suicides-and yet the most admired figures met their ends with exemplary calm, their last words set down for posterity. From noble deaths in civil war, mortal combat between gladiators, political execution and suicide, to the deathly dinner of Domitian, the harrowing deaths of women such as the mythical Lucretia and Nero's mother Agrippina, as well as instances of Christian martyrdom, Edwards engagingly explores the culture of death in Roman literature and history.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Death and the Migrant is a sociological account of transnational dying and care in British cities. It chronicles two decades of the ageing and dying of the UK's cohort of post-war migrants, as well as more recent arrivals. Chapters of oral history and close ethnographic observation, enriched by photographs, take the reader into the submerged worlds of end-of-life care in hospices, hospitals and homes. While honouring singular lives and storytelling, Death and the Migrant explores the social, economic and cultural landscapes that surround the migrant deathbed in the twenty-first century. Here, everyday challenges - the struggle to belong, relieve pain, love well, and maintain dignity and faith - provide a fresh perspective on concerns and debates about the vulnerability of the body, transnationalism, care and hospitality. Blending narrative accounts from dying people and care professionals with insights from philosophy and feminist and critical race scholars, Yasmin Gunaratnam shows how the care of vulnerable strangers tests the substance of a community. From a radical new interpretation of the history of the contemporary hospice movement and its 'total pain' approach, to the charting of the global care chain and the affective and sensual demands of intercultural care, Gunaratnam offers a unique perspective on how migration endows and replenishes national cultures and care. Far from being a marginal concern, Death and the Migrant shows that transnational dying is very much a predicament of our time, raising questions and concerns that are relevant to all of us.

Death appears to be a process rather than a single event in time and may be heralded by deathbed phenomena such as visions that comfort the dying and help to prepare them for death. On behalf of prominent neuropsychiatric Peter Fenwick, Ineke Koedam, an experienced hospice worker, researched these 'end-of-life- experiences'. She interviewed fellow hospice workers in various hospices and bundled their experiences together in this unique book. A dying man who clearly sees his deceased wife and even can talk with her. A dying woman, confused and hardly responsive, who experiences a bright moment when she sees her old friend. End-of-life experiences are -without exception - miraculous. In The Light of Death the author shows that these moments are significant and essential for the dying themselves, their families and caregivers. Koedam believes they indicate a transition to another form of existence. We do not exactly know what the dying are going through internally, however Koedam's research demonstrates that devoted and open minded spiritual care is very important. By developing more openness and understanding for these personal end-of-life experiences, there will be room for the needs of the dying. This allows us to support them even better in the process of acceptance and surrender. In the light of death is informative, comforting and helpful at a time when many people are afraid of dying. "I am convinced that this book will make a huge contribution to the acknowledgement and recognition of end-of-life experiences, which can diminish the fear of death even in its final stages." - Pim van Lommel, cardiologist, author of Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of Near-Death Experience.

The Death And Anti-Death Series By Ria University Press discusses issues and controversies related to death, life extension, and anti-death. A variety of differing points of view are presented and argued. Death And Anti-Death, Volume 11: Ten Years After Donald Davidson (1917-2003) is edited by Charles Tandy, Ph.D.: ISBN 978-1-934297-17-9 is the Hardback edition and ISBN 978-1-934297-18-6 is the Paperback edition. Volume 11, as indicated by the anthology's subtitle, is in honor of Donald Davidson (1917-2003). The chapters do not necessarily mention him (but some chapters do). The chapters (by professional philosophers and other professional scholars) are directed to issues related to death, life extension, and anti-death, broadly construed. Most of the contributions consist of scholarship unique to this volume. As was the case with all previous volumes in the Death And Anti-Death Series By Ria University Press, the anthology includes an Index as well as an Abstracts section that serves as an extended table of contents. There are 12 chapters, as follows: ------CHAPTER ONE Do We Really Want Immortality? (by David Brin) pages 25-42; ------CHAPTER TWO The Importance Of Being Identical: On How Not To Derive A Contradiction Within A Metaphysical Theory (by Troy Catterson) 43-60; ------CHAPTER THREE In Saecula Saeculorum? Bioscience, Biotechnology And The Construct Of Death: A Neurobioethical View (by Christine Fitzpatrick and James Giordano) 61-80; ------CHAPTER FOUR Making Death Worth Its Cost: Prolegomena To Any Future Necronomics (by Steve Fuller) 81-92; ------CHAPTER FIVE On What Persists After Death (by Vladimir V. Kalugin) 93-104; ------CHAPTER SIX Extreme Lifespans Via Perpetual-Equalising Interventions: The ELPIs Hypothesis (by Marios Kyriazis) 105-124; ------CHAPTER SEVEN What Philosophy Ought To Be (by Nicholas Maxwell) 125-162; ------CHAPTER EIGHT Resurrecting The Dead Through Future Technology: Parallel Recreation As An Alternative To Quantum Archaeology (by R. Michael Perry) 163-172; ------CHAPTER NINE Supervenient Spirituality And The Meaning Of Life (by Gabriel Segal) 173-190; ------CHAPTER TEN What Might It Take To Get From Donald Davidson's Mature Philosophical Position To Recognize The Possibility, And Even Plausibility, Of An Afterlife? (by Charles Taliaferro and Christophe Porot) 191-210; ------CHAPTER ELEVEN Roger Penrose, Rupert Sheldrake, And The Future Of Consciousness (by Charles Tandy) 211-228; ------CHAPTER TWELVE Rational Suicide And Global Suicide In The Amor Fati Of Modal Totality (by Sascha Vongehr) 229-268; ------The INDEX begins on page 269.

In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, Becky Aikman--a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role--forms an unlikely group with five other young widows, each seeking a way forward in a strange and disquieting world. A warm, witty, and compassionate guide on this journey, Aikman explores surprising new discoveries about how people are transformed by adversity, learning the value of new experiences, humor, and friendship. The Saturday Night Widows band together to bring these ideas to life, striking out on ever more far-flung adventures and navigating the universal perils of finding love and meaning.
Theirs is a transporting true story of six marriages, six heartbreaks, and one shared beginning--an inspiring testament to what friends can achieve when they hold each other up. Saturday Night Widows is the rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize.
Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader's guide and bonus content

The terminal diagnosis is given, the knock on the door comes, and someone you love is dying or has just died. Death happens every day, yet as one hospital chaplain said, "Most of the time we just live life as if it isn't an issue until it's in our face."

It's not as if death is a secret. It's on the news and in the newspaper daily, but we don't talk about it very much, almost pretending as if it won't happen to us or our loved ones. But by not talking and not preparing, we make dying and death scarier and more difficult than it needs to be. That is one of the messages that the storytellers in What Obituaries Don't Tell You: Conversations about Life and Death want to impart. Talk and prepare is a theme repeated over and over.

In these stories and interviews you are sure to find people and narratives that are meaningful to you, helping you heal from loss, assuring you that you are not alone in your experiences, and allowing you to find your voice and speak your truth in your own conversations about life and death.

You may also be surprised. Did you know that there is a strong correlation between whether a death is deemed good or bad, easy or difficult, and the relationships in a person's life, including one's relationship to religious or spiritual beliefs?

Whether you are a person who has lost a loved one, a person thinking about your own death and wanting to prepare for it, or a student or professional preparing to or already working with issues of death in any way, you may find that the information that helps you the most is not imparted to you in obituaries but in the stories behind the scenes.