All of us who work in the field of death and dying are, beyond our projects and our practices, working on our awareness of our own mortality. This richly stimulating collection of original articles challenges the reader to develop a disciplined and focused awareness of his/her own mortality, and to grapple with the implications. "Awareness of Mortality" contributes to the basic and passionate intellectual quest for meaning in thanatology. It provokes the reader with a wide range of ideas and thinking styles to deepen the questioning process within his/her own self. "Awareness of Mortality" explores issues in philosophy, ethics, developmental psychology, psychoanalytic psychology, idealistic humanism, sociology, spiritual traditions, and other humanities that thanatology overlaps. "Awareness of Mortality" is an introduction to a broad-based philosophical thanatology.

Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society is the authoritative guide to the study of and work with major themes in bereavement. The classic edition includes a new preface from the lead editors discussing advances in the field since the book's initial publication. The book's chapters synthesize the best of research-based conceptualization and clinical wisdom across 30 of the most important topics in the field. The volume's contributors come from around the world, and their work reflects a level of cultural awareness of the diversity and universality of bereavement and its challenges that has rarely been approximated by other volumes. This is a readable, engaging, and comprehensive book that shares the most important scientific and applied work on the contemporary scene with a broad international audience. It's an essential addition to anyone with a serious interest in death, dying, and bereavement.

Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society is the authoritative guide to the study of and work with major themes in bereavement. The classic edition includes a new preface from the lead editors discussing advances in the field since the book's initial publication. The book's chapters synthesize the best of research-based conceptualization and clinical wisdom across 30 of the most important topics in the field. The volume's contributors come from around the world, and their work reflects a level of cultural awareness of the diversity and universality of bereavement and its challenges that has rarely been approximated by other volumes. This is a readable, engaging, and comprehensive book that shares the most important scientific and applied work on the contemporary scene with a broad international audience. It's an essential addition to anyone with a serious interest in death, dying, and bereavement.

* Draws on the experience of highly regarded interdisciplinary researchers from all over the world. * The first work to examine the relationship between the field of event studies and death studies, through empirical and conceptual research

This book relates the stories and describes the memorials of the people buried in Shelby, North Carolina's historic Sunset Cemetery, a microcosm of the Southeastern United States. The authors, an academic and a journalist, detail the lives and memories of people who are buried here, from Civil War soldiers to those who created the Jim Crow South and promoted the narrative of the Lost Cause. Featured are authors W.J. Cash and Thomas Dixon, whose racist novel was the basis for The Birth of a Nation. Drawn from historical research and local memory, it includes the tales of musicians Don Gibson and Bobby "Pepper Head" London, as well as a paratrooper who died in the Battle of the Bulge and other ordinary folks who rest in the cemetery. A bigger responsibility is to give a voice to the silenced, enslaved people of color buried in unmarked graves. Cemeteries are sacred places where artistry and memory meet-to understand, we need both the tales and the tombstones.

The issue of death has loomed large in Chinese cities in the modern era. Throughout the Republican period, Shanghai swallowed up lives by the thousands. Exposed bodies strewn around in public spaces were a threat to social order as well as to public health. In a place where every group had its own beliefs and set of death and funeral practices, how did they adapt to a modern, urbanized environment? How did the interactions of social organizations and state authorities manage these new ways of thinking and acting? Recent historiography has almost completely ignored the ways in which death created such immense social change in China. Now, Scythe and the City corrects this problem. Christian Henriot's pioneering and original study of Shanghai between 1865 and 1965 offers new insights into this crucial aspect of modern society in a global commercial hub and guides readers through this tumultuous era that radically redefined the Chinese relationship with death.

The graveyards of old New England hold an incredible range of poetic messages in the epitaphs etched into the gravestones, each a profound expression of emotion, culture, religion, and literature. These epitaphs are old, but their themes are timeless: mourning and faith, grief and hope, loss, and memory. This book tells the story of a years-long walk among gravestones and shares insights gained along the way. It identifies the source texts and authors chosen for these stones; interprets something of the tastes and beliefs of the people who did the choosing; offers some hypotheses on the various ways these texts were accessible to readers in remote towns and villages; gives a brief summary of the religious context of the times; and reflects on how the language and literature chosen for these epitaphs express these peoples' conflicted and evolving attitudes towards life, death, and eternity.

Without exception, all people are faced with the inevitability of death, a stark fact that has immeasurably shaped societies and individual consciousness for the whole of human history. Mirrors of Passing offers a powerful window into this oldest of human preoccupations by investigating the interrelationships of death, materiality, and temporality across far-flung times and places. Stretching as far back as Ancient Egypt and Greece and moving through present-day locales as diverse as Western Europe, Central Asia, and the Arctic, each of the richly illustrated essays collected here draw on a range of disciplinary insights to explore some of the most fundamental, universal questions that confront us.

Without exception, all people are faced with the inevitability of death, a stark fact that has immeasurably shaped societies and individual consciousness for the whole of human history. Mirrors of Passing offers a powerful window into this oldest of human preoccupations by investigating the interrelationships of death, materiality, and temporality across far-flung times and places. Stretching as far back as Ancient Egypt and Greece and moving through present-day locales as diverse as Western Europe, Central Asia, and the Arctic, each of the richly illustrated essays collected here draw on a range of disciplinary insights to explore some of the most fundamental, universal questions that confront us.

This book recognizes and legitimizes the significance of pet and animal loss by exploring the various expressions of trauma and grief experienced by those who work with, live with, or own an animal or pet. The chapters of Pet Loss, Grief, and Therapeutic Interventions weave together cutting-edge research with best practices and practical clinical advice for working with grieving clients. Beginning with an overview of the human-animal bond, the book guides readers through the many facets of pet loss, including topics such as animal hospice and euthanasia, offering a comprehensive account of one of the field's most rapidly emerging areas. Designed to help mental health professionals support clients coping with pet loss, the collection explores personal narratives, current theories, up-to-date research, and future directions. This unique and comprehensive book will be of interest to students, clinicians, academicians, and researchers in the fields of counseling, psychology, and social work.

WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2021 A FINANCIAL TIMES, I PAPER AND STYLIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 'In his absorbing book about the lost and the gone, Peter Ross takes us from Flanders Fields to Milltown to Kensal Green, to melancholy islands and surprisingly lively ossuaries . . . a considered and moving book on the timely subject of how the dead are remembered, and how they go on working below the surface of our lives.' - Hilary Mantel 'Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject. He has written a delightful book.' - The Guardian 'The pages burst with life and anecdote while also examining our relationship with remembrance.' - Financial Times (best travel books of 2020) 'Among the year's most surprising "sleeper" successes is A Tomb with a View. In a year with so much death, it may have initially seemed a hard sell, but the author's humanity has instead acted as a beacon of light in the darkness.' - The Sunday Times 'Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.' - The Observer 'Ross has written [a] lively elegy to Britain's best burial grounds.' - Evening Standard (*Best New Books of Autumn 2020*) 'One of the non-fiction books of the year.' - The i paper (*2020 Best Books for Christmas*) 'Brilliant.' - Stylist (*Best Christmas books for Christmas 2020*) 'Never has a book about death been so full of life. James Joyce and Charles Dickens would've loved it - a book that reveals much gravity in the humour and many stories in the graveyard. It also reveals Peter Ross to be among the best non-fiction writers in the country.' - Andrew O'Hagan 'His stories are always a joy.' - Ian Rankin 'I'm a card-carrying admirer of Peter Ross.' - Robert Macfarlane 'A startling, delight-filled tour of graveyards and the people who love them, dazzlingly told.' - Denise Mina 'A phenomenal, lyrical, beautiful book.' - Frank Turner 'A walk through the graveyards of Britain guided by one of the most engaging wordsmiths willing to take you by the hand.' - The Big Issue (*Best Books 2020*) 'A celebration of life and of love. It confronts our universal fate but tends towards a comforting embrace of mortality. It is also imbued with something deeply moving.' - The Herald 'Beautifully written and strangely life affirming.' - Norman Blake, Teenage Fanclub For readers of The Salt Path, Mudlarking, Ghostland, Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane. Enter a grave new world of fascination and delight as award-winning writer Peter Ross uncovers the stories and glories of graveyards. Who are London's outcast dead and why is David Bowie their guardian angel? What is the remarkable truth about Phoebe Hessel, who disguised herself as a man to fight alongside her sweetheart, and went on to live in the reigns of five monarchs? Why is a Bristol cemetery the perfect wedding venue for goths? All of these sorrowful mysteries - and many more - are answered in A Tomb With A View, a book for anyone who has ever wandered through a field of crooked headstones and wondered about the lives and deaths of those who lie beneath. So push open the rusting gate, push back the ivy, and take a look inside...

Cross-cultural perspective on funerals that emphasizes why groups do what they do In all of our talk of diversity, this book discusses what unites humans in the way we honor death This book succinctly explains the economics of death ceremonies-and why they cost what they do

Since its emergence in early 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the world. Well beyond its health effects, the pandemic has wrought major changes in people's everyday lives as they confront restrictions imposed by physical distancing and consequences such as loss of work, working or learning from home and reduced contact with family and friends. This edited collection covers a diverse range of experiences, practices and representations across international contexts and cultures (UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). Together, these contributions offer a rich account of COVID society. They provide snapshots of what life was like for people in a variety of situations and locations living through the first months of the novel coronavirus crisis, including discussion not only of health-related experiences but also the impact on family, work, social life and leisure activities. The socio-material dimensions of quotidian practices are highlighted: death rituals, dating apps, online musical performances, fitness and exercise practices, the role of windows, healthcare work, parenting children learning at home, moving in public space as a blind person and many more diverse topics are explored. In doing so, the authors surface the feelings of strangeness and challenges to norms of practice that were part of many people's experiences, highlighting the profound affective responses that accompanied the disruption to usual cultural forms of sociality and ritual in the wake of the COVID outbreak and restrictions on movement. The authors show how social relationships and social institutions were suspended, re-invented or transformed while social differences were brought to the fore. At the macro level, the book includes localised and comparative analyses of political, health system and policy responses to the pandemic, and highlights the differences in representations and experiences of very different social groups, including people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, Dutch Muslim parents, healthcare workers in France and Australia, young adults living in northern Italy, performing artists and their audiences, exercisers in Australia and New Zealand, the Latin cultures of Spain and Italy, Asian-Americans and older people in Australia. This volume will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates in sociology, cultural and media studies, medical humanities, anthropology, political science and cultural geography.

Drawing together leading scholars from both theological and literary backgrounds, Christian Theology and Tragedy explores the rich variety of conversations between theology and tragedy. Three main areas are examined: theological readings of a range of tragic literature, from plays to novels and the Bible itself; how theologians have explored tragedy theologically; and how theology can interact with various tragic theories. Encompassing a range of perspectives and topics, this book demonstrates how theologians can make productive use of the work of tragedians, tragic theorists and tragic philosophers. Common misconceptions - that tragedy is monolithic, easily definable, or gives straightforward answers to theodicy - are also addressed. Interdisciplinary in nature, this book will appeal to both the theological and literary fields.

What leads us to respond politically to the deaths of some citizens and not others? This is one of the critical questions Heather Pool asks in Political Mourning. Born out of her personal experiences with the trauma of 9/11, Pool's astute book looks at how death becomes political, and how it can mobilize everyday citizens to argue for political change. Pool examines four tragedies in American history-the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the lynching of Emmett Till, the September 11 attacks, and the Black Lives Matter movement-that offered opportunities to tilt toward justice and democratic inclusion. Some of these opportunities were taken, some were not. However, these watershed moments show, historically, how political identity and political responsibility intersect and how racial identity shapes who is mourned. Political Mourning helps explain why Americans recognize the names of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland; activists took those cases public while many similar victims have been ignored by the news media. Concluding with an afterword on the coronavirus, Pool emphasizes the importance of collective responsibility for justice and why we ought to respond to tragedy in ways that are more politically inclusive.

Exploring a new approach to interfaith/interreligious communication, the contributors to this collection seek to interact from the perspective of their own tradition or academic discipline with Ernest Becker's theory on the relationship between religion, culture and the human awareness of death and mortality. While much interfaith/interreligious dialogue focuses on beliefs and practices, thus delineating areas of disagreement as a starting point, these chapters foster interactive communication rooted in areas of the universal human experience. Thus by demonstration these authors argue for the integrity and efficacy of this approach for pursuing intercultural and interdisciplinary communication.

In this engaging book, diverse phenomena associated with death, such as apparent after-death communication and near-death experiences, are examined through a scientific lens and evaluated for the degree to which they offer evidence for the survival of consciousness after death. Is death the end of everything? Is life after death really possible? Considerable scientific support has emerged in recent years for the idea that death is best described as an altered state of consciousness. This survival hypothesis contrasts with predominant materialist thinking, which holds that there is only oblivion upon death. Chapters in this book investigate scientific evidence for mediumship, instrumental transcommunication, near-death experiences, after-death communication, and past-life experiences, among other anomalous death-related occurrences, and a framework is presented for understanding the nature of a potential afterlife. The phenomena described in this book will broaden the perspective of consciousness researchers, and fill an educational need for caregivers, grief counselors, and all who are interested in this understudied and misunderstood area.   

This book provides detailed analysis of the manifold ways in which COVID-19 has influenced death, dying and bereavement.

Through three parts: Reconsidering Death and Grief in Covid-19; Institutional Care and Covid-19; and the Impact of COVID-19 in Context, the book explores COVID-19 as a reminder of our own and our communities’ fragile existence, but also the driving force for discovering new ways of meaning-making, performing rites and rituals, and conceptualising death, grief and life. Contributors include scholars, researchers, policymakers and practitioners, accumulating in a multi-disciplinary, diverse and international set of ideas and perspectives that will help the reader examine closely how Covid-19 has invaded social life and (re)shaped trauma and loss.

It will be of interest to all scholars and students of death studies, biomedicine, and end of life care as well as those working in sociology, social work, medicine, social policy, cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, counselling and nursing more broadly.

Table of Contents

List of figures

List of tables

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

Introduction: Capturing the beginning of a long journey of loss, trauma and grief Panagiotis Pentaris

PART 1: Reconsidering Death and Grief in Covid-19

Chapter 1. Familiarity with death

Panagiotis Pentaris and Kate Woodthorpe

Chapter 2: Grief in the COVID-19 pandemic

Kenneth Doka

Chapter 3: Apocalypse now: COVID-19 and the crisis of meaning

Robert Neimeyer, Evgenia Milman and Sherman Lee

Chapter 4: Physically distant but socially connected: Streaming funerals, memorials and ritual design during COVID-19

Stacey Pitsillides and Jayne Wallace

Chapter 5: Social death in 2020: Covid-19, which lives matter and which deaths count?

Jana Králová

PART 2: Institutional Care and Covid-19

Chapter 6: End-of-life decision-making in the context of a pandemic

Natalie Pattison and Lucy Ryan

Chapter 7: NHS Values, Ritual, Religion, and Covid-19 Death

Douglas Davies

Chapter 8: Non-COVID-19 related dying and death during the pandemic

Wai Yee Chee, Samuel Wang, Winnie Teo, Melissa Fong, Andy Lee and Woon Chai Yong

Chapter 9: Covid-19 and care home deaths and harms: A case study from the UK

Alisoun Milne

Chapter 10: Impact of Covid-19 on mental health and associated losses

Manju Shahul-Hameed, John Foster, Gina Finnerty and Panagiotis Pentaris

Chapter 11: Assisted dying and Covid-19

Theo Boer and Kevin Yuill

PART 3: Impact of COVID-19 in Context

Chapter 12: Losing touch? Older people and COVID-19

Renske Claasje Visser

Chapter 13: Between cultural necrophilia and African American activism: life and loss in the age of COVID

Kami Fletcher and Tamara Waraschinski

Chapter 14: The biopolitics and stigma of the HIV and Covid-19 Pandemics

Jason Schaub

Chapter 15: Suicide in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Mohammed Mamun and Jannatul Mawa Misti

Chapter 16: Death and dying during the COVD-19 pandemic: The Indian context

Apurva Kumar Pandya and Khyati Tripathi

This book offers a multifaceted exploration of death and the possibilities for an afterlife. By incorporating a variety of approaches to these subjects, it provides a unique framework for extending and reshaping enduring philosophical debates around human existence up to and after death. Featuring original essays from a diverse group of international scholars, the book is arranged in four main sections. Firstly, it addresses how death is or should be experienced, engaging with topics such as near-death experiences, continuing bonds with the deceased, and attitudes toward dying. Secondly, it looks at surviving death, addressing the metaphysics of human persons, the nature of time, the nature of the true self, and the nature of the divine. It then evaluates the value of mortality and immortality, drawing upon the resources of the history of philosophy, meta-analysis of contemporary debates, and the analogy between individual death and species extinction. Finally, it explores what an eternal life might be like, examining the place of selflessness, embodiment, and racial identity in such a life. This volume allows for a variety of philosophical and theological perspectives to be brought to bear on the end of life and what might be beyond. As such, it will be a fascinating resource for scholars in the philosophy of religion, theology, and death studies.

The dispassionate intellectual examination of the concepts of death & dying contrasts dramatically with the emotive grieving process experienced by those who mourn. Death & dying are binary concepts in human cultures. Cultural differences reveal their mutual exclusiveness in philosophical outlook, language, and much more. Other sets of binaries come into play under intellectual consideration and emotive behavior, which further divide and shape perceptions, beliefs, and actions of individuals and groups. The presence or absence of religious beliefs about life and death, and disposition of the body and/or soul, are prime distinctions. Likewise the age-old binary of reason vs. faith. To many observers, the topic of death and dying in the Hispanic cultural tradition is usually limited to that of Mexico and its transmogrified religious festival day of Dia de los Muertos. The studies presented in the ten chapters, and editorial introductions to the themes of the book, seek to widen this representation, and set forth the implications of the binary aspects of death and dying in numerous cultures throughout the so-called Hispanic world, including indigenous and European-derived beliefs and practices in religion, society, art, film & literature. Contributions include engagement with the pre-Hispanic world, Picassos poetry, cultural norms in Cuba, and the literary works of Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Underlying the arguments presented is Saussurean structuralist theory, which provides a platform to disentangle cultural context in comparative settings.

Since its emergence in early 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the world. Well beyond its health effects, the pandemic has wrought major changes in people's everyday lives as they confront restrictions imposed by physical distancing and consequences such as loss of work, working or learning from home and reduced contact with family and friends. This edited collection covers a diverse range of experiences, practices and representations across international contexts and cultures (UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). Together, these contributions offer a rich account of COVID society. They provide snapshots of what life was like for people in a variety of situations and locations living through the first months of the novel coronavirus crisis, including discussion not only of health-related experiences but also the impact on family, work, social life and leisure activities. The socio-material dimensions of quotidian practices are highlighted: death rituals, dating apps, online musical performances, fitness and exercise practices, the role of windows, healthcare work, parenting children learning at home, moving in public space as a blind person and many more diverse topics are explored. In doing so, the authors surface the feelings of strangeness and challenges to norms of practice that were part of many people's experiences, highlighting the profound affective responses that accompanied the disruption to usual cultural forms of sociality and ritual in the wake of the COVID outbreak and restrictions on movement. The authors show how social relationships and social institutions were suspended, re-invented or transformed while social differences were brought to the fore. At the macro level, the book includes localised and comparative analyses of political, health system and policy responses to the pandemic, and highlights the differences in representations and experiences of very different social groups, including people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, Dutch Muslim parents, healthcare workers in France and Australia, young adults living in northern Italy, performing artists and their audiences, exercisers in Australia and New Zealand, the Latin cultures of Spain and Italy, Asian-Americans and older people in Australia. This volume will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates in sociology, cultural and media studies, medical humanities, anthropology, political science and cultural geography.

This book offers a multifaceted exploration of death and the possibilities for an afterlife. By incorporating a variety of approaches to these subjects, it provides a unique framework for extending and reshaping enduring philosophical debates around human existence up to and after death. Featuring original essays from a diverse group of international scholars, the book is arranged in four main sections. Firstly, it addresses how death is or should be experienced, engaging with topics such as near-death experiences, continuing bonds with the deceased, and attitudes toward dying. Secondly, it looks at surviving death, addressing the metaphysics of human persons, the nature of time, the nature of the true self, and the nature of the divine. It then evaluates the value of mortality and immortality, drawing upon the resources of the history of philosophy, meta-analysis of contemporary debates, and the analogy between individual death and species extinction. Finally, it explores what an eternal life might be like, examining the place of selflessness, embodiment, and racial identity in such a life. This volume allows for a variety of philosophical and theological perspectives to be brought to bear on the end of life and what might be beyond. As such, it will be a fascinating resource for scholars in the philosophy of religion, theology, and death studies.

It’s not the dream that matters, it’s the telling of the dream – the words you choose, the risks you take in externalising your mind

This is a dreamlike portrait of a body in struggle to connect with itself and others. As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer.

Merging dreams and dailies, Pathemata recounts the narrator’s tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss – the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life.

With characteristic precision, humour and compassion, Nelson explores the limits of language to describe experience, while also offering a portrait of an unnerving and isolating time in our shared history. A stunning, original experiment in interiority by the adored author of Bluets and The Argonauts, Pathemata is a personal and poetic reckoning with pain and loss, both physical and emotional, as well as an uncanny meditation on love, affliction and resilience.

Sorrow and Solace focuses on the importance of cemeteries in the lives of everyday mourners, and ways in which our bereaved give meaning to and draw value from their commemorative activities. The death of someone dear to us is among the most momentous life event that we experience. In many societies, visiting the grave or memorial is a common behavioural response to bereavement. Memorial sites provide vital connections to our deceased loved ones with whom we wish to maintain ongoing social bonds, and cemeteries are crucial places of deep healing and growth. Millions of visits are made to cemeteries every day, but the extent of this activity and its value to those who mourn - the topics of this volume - have long remained largely unrecognised. Large urban memorial parks are hives of activity for recently bereaved persons, and are among the most visited places in Western communities. Some cemeteries, hosting millions of annual visits, are more popular than many major tourist attractions. Cemetery visitation is a high-participatory, value-laden, expressive activity, and a most significant observable behaviour of the recently bereaved. This work will be invaluable to those seeking a scholarly understanding of bereavement, mourning, and commemoration. Written principally for professionals with a tertiary educational interest in related fields, such as grief educators, nurses, palliative carers, and social workers, it is also an important resource for the further education of other carers and service providers, including psychologists, physicians, counsellors, clergy, funeral directors, cemetery administrators, and monumental masons. The book is also a significant contribution to the field of social anthropology.