The Dominion Of The Dead (Paperback)

How do the living maintain relations to the dead? Why do we bury people when they die? And what is at stake when we do? In "The Dominion of the Dead," Robert Pogue Harrison considers the supreme importance of these questions to Western civilization, exploring the many places where the dead cohabit the world of the living--the graves, images, literature, architecture, and monuments that house the dead in their afterlife among us.
This elegantly conceived work devotes particular attention to the practice of burial. Harrison contends that we bury our dead to humanize the lands where we build our present and imagine our future. As long as the dead are interred in graves and tombs, they never truly depart from this world, but remain, if only symbolically, among the living. Spanning a broad range of examples, from the graves of our first human ancestors to the empty tomb of the Gospels to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Harrison also considers the authority of predecessors in both modern and premodern societies. Through inspired readings of major writers and thinkers such as Vico, Virgil, Dante, Pater, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Rilke, he argues that the buried dead form an essential foundation where future generations can retrieve their past, while burial grounds provide an important bedrock where past generations can preserve their legacy for the unborn.
"The Dominion of the Dead" is a profound meditation on how the thought of death shapes the communion of the living. A work of enormous scope, intellect, and imagination, this book will speak to all who have suffered grief and loss.

General

Imprint:	University of Chicago Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	May 2005
First published:	May 2005
Authors:	Robert Pogue Harrison
Dimensions:	212 x 138 x 15mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	208
ISBN-13:	978-0-226-31793-9
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Death & dying > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology > General
LSN:	0-226-31793-5
Barcode:	9780226317939

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!