Death will come to us all, but most of us live our lives as if death did not exist. Medicine has made dying more complicated and more removed from the experience of most people. Death is partitioned off to hospital rooms, separated from our daily lives. Most of us find ourselves at a loss when death approaches. We don't know how to die well. For centuries Christians have prepared for the "good death" with particular rituals and spiritual disciplines that direct the actions of both the living and the dying. In this well-researched and pastorally sensitive book, Rob Moll explores the Christian practice of dying well. He gives guidance for those who care for the dying as well as for those who grieve. This book is a gentle companion for all who face death, whether one's own or that of a loved one. Christians can have confidence that because death is not the end, preparing to die helps us truly live. A decade after writing this book, Rob died in a hiking accident at age forty-one. This edition includes a new afterword by his wife, Clarissa Moll, reflecting on Rob's life, death, and legacy.

This book explores death in contemporary society - or more precisely, in the 'spectacular age' - by moving beyond classic studies of death that emphasised the importance of the death taboo and death denial to examine how we now 'do' death. Unfolding the notion of 'spectacular death' as characteristic of our modern approach to death and dying, it considers the new mediation or mediatisation of death and dying; the commercialisation of death as a 'marketable commodity' used to sell products, advance artistic expression or provoke curiosity; the re-ritualisation of death and the growth of new ways of finding meaning through commemorating the dead; the revolution of palliative care; and the specialisation surrounding death, particularly in relation to scholarship. Presenting a range of case studies that shed light on this new understanding of death in contemporary culture, The Age of Spectacular Death will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology and anthropology with interests in death and dying.

This book explores death in contemporary society - or more precisely, in the 'spectacular age' - by moving beyond classic studies of death that emphasised the importance of the death taboo and death denial to examine how we now 'do' death. Unfolding the notion of 'spectacular death' as characteristic of our modern approach to death and dying, it considers the new mediation or mediatisation of death and dying; the commercialisation of death as a 'marketable commodity' used to sell products, advance artistic expression or provoke curiosity; the re-ritualisation of death and the growth of new ways of finding meaning through commemorating the dead; the revolution of palliative care; and the specialisation surrounding death, particularly in relation to scholarship. Presenting a range of case studies that shed light on this new understanding of death in contemporary culture, The Age of Spectacular Death will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, psychology and anthropology with interests in death and dying.

Death and Dying is an important core text for students and professionals interested in developing a holistic understanding of death and dying. Chapters are replete with case studies, activities, key point boxes, and other features that enable readers to develop a sociologically informed understanding of the broad range of complex issues that underpin death and dying. Written by two established and highly respected experts in the field, it offers a thoroughgoing account of a wide range of social aspects of death and dying, filling gaps left by the traditionally narrow focus of the existing literature. By drawing the suggested sociological perspectives and highlighting the role of social policy, the authors put forward a fresh perspective of the field of thanatology. This book is a major contribution in progressing knowledge and understanding of dying and death for students and professionals in counseling, health and human services.

While it can be traced to the 1700s, the term thanatology has gained traction in recent decades to refer to the study of death. Because of the breadth of the published material and the challenges of discovery in large bibliographic databases and catalogs, finding and identifying monographic material on death, dying, grief, and bereavement can be extremely challenging. Although there have been several bibliographical resources published on thanatology, those titles were incomplete, limited in scope, or leaned heavily toward one area of the field. In Death and Dying: An Annotated Bibliography of the Thanatological Literature, John F. Szabo provides more than 2,200 citations of monographs on the science and study of death and dying. Among the areas this volume addresses are the psychological, philosophical, and attitudinal aspects; coping and dealing with the burdens of caregiving and working in the helping professions; instructional and educational topics for practitioners, primarily health care providers; cultural differences in bereavement rituals; and grief, mourning, and loss. In addition, notable titles on or relating to death and dying in popular culture, death themes in literature, methods of death, or specific ethical, policy, or public issues are also included when they contribute important information to subject areas on which the book focuses. This book will be helpful to students, researchers, academics, caregivers, health care professionals, psychologists, social workers, and anyone with an interest in death, dying, bereavement, or the care of the terminally ill.

Talking to the dead and communication with 'the other side' is often presented as a taboo in an increasingly technological and medically advanced world. However, practices of spiritualism and mediumship continue to remain popular and in high demand within contemporary Western societies. This book analyses the practices of today's mediums, who insist on standing at the threshold between life and death, interpreting signs and passing on communications, and asks how such concepts and practices are perceived by contemporary society. Using first-hand material gathered from alternative fairs, mediumistic congresses, seances, and interviews with both practitioners and clients, as well as thorough textual analysis, Anne Kalvig provides a clear overview of the various forms of consumption of mediumship in Western society and places these within a socio-cultural, religious and historical context. She also raises questions as to the controversies surrounding spiritualism and its representation and relationship with popular culture and the media. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of sociology, religious studies, folklore, media studies and anthropology as well as to anyone interested in the upsurge of contemporary spiritualism, psychic phenomena and the paranormal.

Three-quarters of deaths in the U.S. today occur to people over the age of 65, following chronic illness. This new experience of "predictable death" has important consequences for the ways in which societies structure their health care systems, laws, and labor markets. Dying in Old Age: U.S. Practice and Policy applies a sociological lens to the end of life, exploring how macrosocial systems and social inequalities interact to affect individual experiences of death in the United States. Using data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study and Pew Research Center Survey of Aging and Longevity, this book argues that predictable death influences the entire life course and works to generate greater social disparities. The volume is divided into sections exploring demography, the circumstances of dying people, and public policy affecting dying people and their families. In exploring these interconnected factors, the author also proposes means of making "bad death" an avoidable event. As one of the first books to explore the social consequences of end of life practice, Dying in Old Age will be of great interest to graduate and advanced undergraduate students in sociology, social work, and public health, as well as scholars and policymakers in these areas.

Human beings are grieving animals. 'Consolation', or an attempt to assuage grief, is an age-old response to loss which has various expressions in different cultural contexts. Over the past century, consolation has dropped off the West's cultural radar. The contributions to this volume highlight this neglect of consolation in popular and academic discourses and explore the usefulness of the concept of consolation for analysing spatio-temporal constellations. Consolationscapes in the Face of Loss brings together scholars from geography, philosophy, history, anthropology and religious studies. The chapters use spatial and conceptual mappings of grief and consolation to analyse a range of spaces and phenomena around grief, bereavement and remembrance, comfort and resilience, including battlefield memorials, crematoria, graveyards and natural burial sites in Europe. Authors shift the discussion beyond the Global North by including responses to traumatic grief in post-conflict African societies, as well as Australian Aboriginal traditions of ritual consolation. The book focuses on the relationship between space/place and consolation. In so doing, it offers a new lens for research on death, grief and bereavement. It offers new insights for students and researchers interrogating contemporary bereavement, as well as those interested in meaning-making, emerging socio-cultural practices and their role in personal and collective resilience.

Tangible remains play an important role in our relationships with the dead; they are pivotal to how we remember, mourn and grieve. The chapters in this volume analyse a diverse range of objects and their role in the processes of grief and mourning, with contributions by scholars in anthropology, history, fashion, thanatology, religious studies, archaeology, classics, sociology, and political science. The book brings together consideration of emotions, memory and material agency to inform a deeper understanding of the specific roles played by objects in funerary contexts across historical and contemporary societies.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a two-ton truck bomb that felled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. On June 11, 2001, an unprecedented 242 witnesses watched him die by lethal injection. In the aftermath of the bombings, American public commentary almost immediately turned to "closure" rhetoric. Reporters and audiences alike speculated about whether victim's family members and survivors could get closure from memorial services, funerals, legislation, monuments, trials, and executions. But what does "closure" really mean for those who survive-or lose loved ones in-traumatic acts? In the wake of such terrifying events, is closure a realistic or appropriate expectation? In Killing McVeigh, Jody Lynee Madeira uses the Oklahoma City bombing as a case study to explore how family members and other survivors come to terms with mass murder. The book demonstrates the importance of understanding what closure really is before naively asserting it can or has been reached.

The untimely deaths of Amy Winehouse (2011) and Whitney Houston (2012), and the 'resurrection' of Tupac Shakur for a performance at the Coachella music festival in April 2012, have focused the media spotlight on the relationship between popular music, fame and death. If the phrase 'sex, drugs and rock'n'roll' ever qualified a lifestyle, it has left many casualties in its wake, and with the ranks of dead musicians growing over time, so the types of death involved and the reactions to them have diversified. Conversely, as many artists who fronted the rock'n'roll revolution of the 1950s and 1960s continue to age, the idea of dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse (which gave rise, for instance, to the myth of the '27 Club') no longer carries the same resonance that it once might have done. This edited collection explores the reception of dead rock stars, 'rock' being taken in the widest sense as the artists discussed belong to the genres of rock'n'roll (Elvis Presley), disco (Donna Summer), pop and pop-rock (Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse), punk and post-punk (GG Allin, Ian Curtis), rap (Tupac Shakur), folk (the Dutchman Andre Hazes) and 'world' music (Fela Kuti). When music artists die, their fellow musicians, producers, fans and the media react differently, and this book brings together their intertwining modalities of reception. The commercial impact of death on record sales, copyrights, and print media is considered, and the different justifications by living artists for being involved with the dead, through covers, sampling and tributes. The cultural representation of dead singers is investigated through obituaries, biographies and biopics, observing that posthumous fame provides coping mechanisms for fans, and consumers of popular culture more generally, to deal with the knowledge of their own mortality. Examining the contrasting ways in which male and female dead singers are portrayed in the media, the book

City sextons are a dying breed and in this book sextons from throughout the United States share their experiences as a city's chief death expert. With a view to investigating their role in local governance processes, how they contribute to public engagement in cities, and what are some misconceptions about this role, Staci M. Zavattaro sheds light on unique public servants that are rarely - if at all - discussed in public administration research. Themes discussed include: background stories on each sexton interviewed; vignettes of their most interesting stories that can be used as case studies in public administration practice and teaching; public history functions; self-care strategies they use to deal with the stress of the position. City Sextons: Tales from Municipal Leaders will be of key interest to scholars studying public management, emotional labor, and leadership.

Few issues apply universally to people as poignantly as death and dying. All religions address concerns with death from the handling of human remains, to defining death, to suggesting what happens after life. The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying provides readers with an overview of the study of death and dying. Questions of death, mortality, and more recently of end-of-life care, have long been important ones and scholars from a range of fields have approached the topic in a number of ways. Comprising over fifty-two chapters from a team of international contributors, the companion covers: funerary and mourning practices; concepts of the afterlife; psychical issues associated with death and dying; clinical and ethical issues; philosophical issues; death and dying as represented in popular culture. This comprehensive collection of essays will bring together perspectives from fields as diverse as history, philosophy, literature, psychology, archaeology and religious studies, while including various religious traditions, including established religions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as well as new or less widely known traditions such as the Spiritualist Movement, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and Raelianism. The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, philosophy and literature.

Everyone has questions about death. In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, best-selling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty answers the most intriguing questions she's ever received about what happens to our bodies when we die. In a brisk, informative, and morbidly funny style, Doughty explores everything from ancient Egyptian death rituals and the science of skeletons to flesh-eating insects and the proper depth at which to bury your pet if you want Fluffy to become a mummy. Now featuring an interview with a clinical expert on discussing these issues with young people-the source of some of our most revealing questions about death-Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? confronts our common fear of dying with candid, honest, and hilarious facts about what awaits the body we leave behind.

Suicide attacks have become the defining act of political violence of our age. From New York City to Baghdad, from Sri Lanka to Israel, few can doubt that they are a terrifying feature of an increasing number of violent conflicts. Since 1981, around 30 organizations throughout the world - some of them secular and others affiliated to radical Islam - have carried out more than 600 suicide missions. Although a tiny fraction of the overall number of guerrilla and terrorist attacks occurring in the same period, the results have proved significantly more lethal. This book is the first to shed real light on these extraordinary acts, and provide answers to the questions we all ask. Are these the actions of aggressive religious zealots and unbridled, irrational radicals or is there a logic driving those behind them? Are their motivations religious or has Islam provided a language to express essentially political causes? How can the perpetrators remain so lucidly effective in the face of certain death? And do these disparate attacks have something like a common cause? For nearly three years, this team of internationally distinguished scholars has pursued an unprejudiced inquiry, investigating organizers and perpetrators alike of this extraordinary phenomenon. Close comparisons between a whole range of cases raise challenging further questions: if suicide missions are so effective, why are they not more common? If killing is what matters, why not stick to 'ordinary' violent means? Or, if dying is what matters, why kill in the process? Making Sense of Suicide Missions contains a wealth of original information and innovative analysis which further our understanding of this chilling feature of the contemporary world in radically new and unexpected ways.

Death has been around for as long as life, yet when it happens, no one really knows how to deal with death or its consequences. Death should not be treated as a taboo subject instead, individuals must learn the techniques necessary to assist others in coping with such a loss.; In a practical format, this guide shows what to do and what not to do for a person who has suffered the death of a loved one. Using the language of the lay person, the book contains over 100 tips for caregivers or loved ones - a simple step is presented on each page, followed by reasons and instructions for each step.; After these steps are mastered, it will be possible to educate others so that death becomes more familiar and maybe a little easier to deal with.

This book examines research on death, dying and bereavement, and how our approaches, perceptions and expectations shapes what we can know about the end of life. The contributions include personal and professional reflections, and practical suggestions for conducting research in this field. The volume stems from the resurgence of the international and interdisciplinary study of death in the last 20 years. Within this, empirical research is often viewed as sensitive, but little has been written about the experience of conducting research in this area. There has thus been little reflection on the opportunities and challenges faced in undertaking research as the field of death studies grows, including the accommodation and recognition of cultural differences. This volume seeks to in part address this gap. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Mortality journal and the Death Studies journal.

There is something unsettling, but also powerful, in the encounter with individual and collective experiences of human suffering. Intensive Media explores the discomfort and fascination initiated by instances of pain and suffering, their 'aversive affects', as they trouble but also vitalise contemporary media environments. In the contexts of crisis, conflict and suffering explored throughout this book, aversive affect operates micropolitically to make explicit or hide the material conditions that surround instances of pain in all its specificity. That is, in so many scenarios, personal, social and political stakes are set around the thresholds of intensity that give rise to a 'sense' of pain and the unpredictable valences of its aversive affects. It is in this sense that McCosker and his case studies develop outwards from the middle of what has been referred to as 'the problem of pain', a problem that traverses media, communication, art, sociality and politics in their confrontation with affect, biology and neurophysiology.

New infections with HIV remain an urgent problem among young people in Africa, but many young Africans pursue sexual relationships with little thought about the epidemic. This book examines young people's sexual relationships in a region typical of rural sub-Saharan Africa and investigates why the risk of HIV infection generally was not a salient concern for them. It is based on an extraordinarily large and representative qualitative study that was affiliated with an adolescent sexual health intervention trial and included three person-years of participant observation conducted by young East Africans in nine Tanzanian villages. The book describes typical patterns of sexual relationship formation in adolescence and early adult life, the variety of young people's relationships and practices, and the contradictory social ideals and expectations that led premarital and extramarital relationships to be concealed. Young men's main motivations for sex were pleasure and masculine identity, while young women's was to receive money or materials to meet their basic needs, such as soap or a daytime meal. By their late teens most young people had experienced one-time sexual encounters, open-ended opportunistic relationships, and "main" sometimes semi-public partnerships. Relationships could involve desire, possessiveness, and affection, but romantic idealization of a partner was rare. Many young people expected their partners to be monogamous, but themselves had had concurrent relationships by age 20. The practice of hiding premarital sexual relationships from adults often also concealed them from other sexual partners, which helped maintain concurrency and inhibited realistic risk perception. Understanding of the biology of HIV/AIDS was very limited. Condoms were rarely used because they were associated with reduced pleasure, infection and promiscuity. Sexually transmitted infections were common, but several factors hindered young people from seeking biomedical treatment for them. Many instead relied on tradit

For some, life's introduction to death and grief comes early, and when it does it can take many forms. Not only does Dealing with Dying, Death, and Grief during Adolescence tackle them all, it does so with David Balk's remarkable sensitivity to and deep knowledge of the pressures and opportunities adolescents face in their transition from childhood to adulthood. In seamless, jargon-free language, Balk brings readers up to date with what we know about adolescent development, because over time such changes form the backstory we need to comprehend the impact of death and bereavement in an adolescent's life. The book's later chapters break down the recent findings in the study of life-threatening illness and bereavement during adolescence. And, crucially, these chapters also examine interventions that assist adolescents coping with these difficulties. Clinicians will come away from this book with both a grounded understanding of adolescent development and the adolescent experience of death, and they'll also gain specific tools for helping adolescents cope with death and grief on their own terms. For any clinician committed to supporting adolescents facing some of life's most difficult experiences, this integrated, up-to-date, and deeply insightful text is simply the book to have. David E. Balk is professor in the department of health and nutrition sciences at Brooklyn College (CUNY), where he directs the graduate program in thanatology. He is the author of Adolescent Development: Early Through Late Adolescence, Helping the Bereaved College Student, and several other books on death and bereavement. He is also co-editor of the 2nd edition of the Handbook of Thanatology (Routledge, 2013).

A description of the anthology DEATH AND ANTI-DEATH, VOLUME 5: THIRTY YEARS AFTER LOREN EISELEY (1907-1977) follows: Volume 5, as indicated by the anthology's subtitle, is in honor of Loren Eiseley (1907-1977). The chapters do not necessarily mention him. The chapters (by professional philosophers and other professional scholars) are directed to issues related to death, life extension, and anti-death. 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. (With Volume 5, you will also find a new section entitled BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS.) The 17 chapter titles are as follows: 1. Asking The Unaskable Question - Do People Have The Right NOT To Die? (by Marcus Barber) ----- 2. Deadly Economics: Reflections On The Neoclassical Paradigm (by Giorgio Baruchello) ----- 3. A Frozen Future? Cryonics As A Gamble (by Gregory Benford) ----- 4. Three Big Problems (by Nick Bostrom and Rebecca Roache) ----- 5. A World Of Exception: Exploring The Thought Of Loren Eiseley (by Marcus Bussey) ----- 6. Knowledge And Death: Return To The Garden (by Harry Hillman Chartrand) ----- 7. Is It Safe For A Biologist To Support Cryonics Publicly? (by Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey) ----- 8. Taking The Defeat Of Aging Seriously: The Time Is Now (by Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey) ----- 9. Choosing Death In Cases Of Anorexia Nervosa - Should We Ever Let People Die From Anorexia? (by Simona Giordano) ----- 10. Technologies Don't Die (by Kevin Kelly) ----- 11. Intimate Moments Among The Dead: Death And Time In The Work Of Loren Eiseley (by Lawrence Kimmel) ----- 12. No Turning Back: Past-Directed Time Travel Is Scientifically Unlikely, Though Virtual Alternatives May Still Offer Solace (by R. Michael Perry) ----- 13. Embodiments Of Paradise: Symbolism Of Death As Existential Mastery In Jihadism (by Arthur Saniotis) ----- 14. On Death And Dying: Summing Up At 70 (by Arthur B. Shostak) ----- 15. Once Upon A Time (by Stanley Shostak) ----- 16. Teleological Causes And The Possibilities Of Personhood (by Charles Tandy) ----- 17. Terrestrial Peoples, Extraterrestrial Persons (by Charles Tandy) ----- ----- The TITLE of the anthology is: Death And Anti-Death, Volume 5: Thirty Years After Loren Eiseley (1907-1977). It's EDITOR is: Charles Tandy, Ph.D. It's ISBN is: 978-1-934297-02-5. It's PUBLISHER is: Ria University Press. It's DISTRIBUTOR is: Ingram.

This book offers the first account of the dead as an imagined community in the early nineteenth-century. It examines why Romantic and Victorian writers (including Wordsworth, Dickens, De Quincey, Godwin, and D'Israeli) believed that influencing the imaginative conception of the dead was a way to either advance, or resist, social and political reform. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the burgeoning field of Death Studies by drawing on the work of both canonical and lesser-known writers, reformers, and educationalists to show how both literary representation of the dead, and the burial and display of their corpses in churchyards, dissecting-rooms, and garden cemeteries, responded to developments in literary aesthetics, psychology, ethics, and political philosophy. Imagining the Dead in British Literature and Culture, 1790-1848 shows that whether they were lauded as exemplars or loathed as tyrants, rendered absent by burial, or made uncannily present through exhumation and display, the dead were central to debates about the shape and structure of British society as it underwent some of the most radical transformations in its history.

This book explores the cultural meanings of the criminal body in the west through historical and multidisciplinary frameworks, examining both how the criminal corpse was viewed as a repository of power and how it held significant cultural meaning as material relic. Authors situate the criminal body at different historical junctures to examine ways in which the criminal corpse was displayed and managed for social, political, magical and medicinal powers and purposes. They explain how this legacy persists in significant ways in the contemporary west, primarily through the commodification of criminal bodies in popular and public displays. The role of notorious criminal bodies in contemporary culture also reverberates in political and scientific realms in which criminal bodies often carry symbolic meanings related to ambivalence over interpretations of death. Drawing on examples from history as well as more contemporary criminal bodies, the book will be of interest to those studying death and criminology, and show how the criminal body can retain an iconic status in the collective memory of the living. This book was originally published as a special issue of Mortality.

In The Realistic Joneses, we meet Bob and Jennifer and their new neighbors, John and Pony, two suburban couples who have even more in common than their identical homes and their shared last names. As their relationships begin to irrevocably intertwine, the Joneses must decide between their idyllic fantasies and their imperfect realities.