Sociology: death and dying Books

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewDeborah van den Hoonaard has succeeded in combining sociological theory with her use of autobiographical accounts to produce an accessible, refreshingly jargon free insight into the lives of those under investigation here.... It is a pleasure to read a book about olderwomenand widowhood, which is not primarily depressing and doom laden.... I would strongly recommend it for students of gerontology as an excellent example of the successful intersection of theory and methodology, symbolic interaction and qualitative research. However, the special strength of this book is that it also speaks to older widowed women and their families in a language that is accessible and meaningful with a story that has true relevance to their lives.'' -- Kate Davidson, University of Surrey, England``By allowing widows to express their ownstories in their ownway, this book significantly expands our knowledge of the experience of the loss of a spouse. Importantly,we learn that widowhood is not just about loss but about the possibility for growth through diminishment and the strength of the human spirit. We also learn that the experience of widowhood initiates changes in the entire biography of a person, that is, in all areas of life, including relationships with men and family, money, community, and religion. Dr. Kestin van den Hoonaard provides us with both a scholarly work and a very practical source of healing.... This book gives widows the freedom to travel their own journey through grief and hopefully to a new self.'' -- Gary M. Kenyon, St. Thomas University, New Brunswick``Sociologists will find an excellent methodological appendix and a solid theoretical foundation of symbolic interactionism.'' -- Helena Z. Lopata, Loyola University Chicago``Selected features of this book, such as the way it enables widows to give voice to their own experiences, and its recognition of the important larger social context of 'community' in shaping the context of widowhood, are noteworthy.... This book contributes to our understanding of diversity in older women's experiences of loss of a spouse in later life and of how women understand and renegotiate their own lives in widowhood.'' -- Anne Martin-Matthews, University of British ColumbiaTable of Contents The Widowed Self: The Older Woman's Journey through Widowhood by Deborah Kestin van den Hoonaard Acknowledgements Introduction Part One: Embarking on the Journey The End of the Old Way of Life The Journey Begins Part Two: Experiencing Relationships They Have Their Own Life: Relationships with Children Relationships with Friends Part Three: Discovering New Paths Speaking of Money Connections to the Community Conclusion: Discovering New Paths Part Four Appendix A: Methodology Appendix B: Interview Guide Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the development of tombs as a cultural phenomenon in ancient Egypt and examines what tombs reveal about ancient Egyptian culture and Egyptians'' belief in the afterlife. Investigates the roles of tombs in the development of funerary practices Draws on a range of data, including architecture, artifacts and texts Discusses tombs within the context of everyday life in Ancient Egypt Stresses the importance of the tomb as an eternal expression of the self Trade Review"This work is a rather ambitious attempt to summarize not only the development of the burial place in ancient Egypt and its architecture, but also the complex religious significance of the tomb, the attendant rituals and ritual objects as well as funerary texts. Admittedly, there is a great deal to be said about each of these aspects of the burial rite in ancient Egypt and the author has essayed a survey that includes a good deal of significant information as well as observation."(Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 12 November 2011)Table of ContentsList of Figures ix Preface xiii Acknowledgements xv Introduction 1 1 Nameless Lives at Tarkhan and Saqqara 7 Early Tombs and the Ka 2 Pits, Palaces and Pyramids 24 Royal Cemeteries of the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom 3 Non-Royal Cemeteries of Dynasty 4 35 4 Unas, Teti and Their Courts 51 The Late Old Kingdom at Saqqara 5 The Tombs of Qar and Idu 68 Families and Funerals in the Late Old Kingdom 6 A Growing Independence 86 Court and Regional Cemeteries in the Late Old Kingdom 7 Ankhtify 105 A Time of Change 8 Osiris, Lord of Abydos 117 9 ‘Lords of Life’ 136 Coffins 10 Strangers and Brothers 148 The Middle Kingdom in Middle Egypt 11 North and South 166 Middle Kingdom Tombs at the Royal Residence 12 Ineni, Senenmut and User-Amun 176 New Tombs for Old 13 Rekhmire and the Tomb of the Well-Known Soldier 190 Foreigners and Funerals in the Age of Empire 14 Huya and Horemheb 207 Amarna and After 15 Samut and the Ramesside Private Tomb 223 16 Sennedjem 233 Building and Buying at Deir el-Medina 17 Petosiris 245 A Dying Tradition References 260 Further Reading 276 Index 281

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Book SynopsisA frank portrayal of the medical care of dying people past and present, The Inevitable Hour helps to explain why a movement to restore dignity to the dying arose in the early 1970s and why its goals have been so difficult to achieve.Trade ReviewA powerful assessment of medicine's involvement with death and dying: a history highly recommended for any medical or ethical issues holding. Midwest Book Review Few libraries specializing in the history of medicine will not find this a valuable book to include in their collections. Watermark This is an important book that sets current debates over end-of-life care in their historical context, and reminds readers of the numerous historical decisions that shape the current situation. Choice Abel's book is a strong and welcome addition to the historiography of death and dying. Journal of American History An invaluable contribution. Abel does an admirable job uncovering a topic that was mostly absent in the medical literature. She successfully highlights a striking consequence of medicine's curative paradigm while also recovering the vital work that family and faith performed to fill the gap left by medical professionals in the twentieth century. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Lively and engaging. The Inevitable Hour offers a sensitive, patient-centered view of end-of-life experiences. Abel's gift for biography, of both the eminent and the obscure, provides a glimpse into a rich yet private world. It makes an important contribution to American medical history and to our understanding of human responses to suffering and adversity. Bulletin of the History of Medicine Through her in-depth analyses of hundreds of letters, articles, and books from the mid-eighteenth century to 1965 in the United States, the author of this book provides a very sobering and enlightening perspective on the perennial challenge of caring for the dying and the history of medical science's own avoidance of it even while trying to treat it. Historian The US way of dying is costly, conflicted, and confused, and apparently has long been so, according to Emily Abel's deeply researched and carefully argued The Inevitable Hour ... The book is richly researched with an impressive range of documentation. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History Emily Abel's thoroughly researched book steps into [a] broad historical narrative and gives context, detail, and definition. Reviews in American History While the work's narrative structure makes it ideal to read as a whole, each chapter could be excerpted in both upper- and lower-level classes in history, health policy, bioethics and religion. The work's accessible style makes it accommodating to undergraduates and laypeople, while its rigorous, inventive methods and ambitious claims ensure its value for scholars... Ultimately, Abel's book is of great importance to not only historical scholarship but also contemporary bioethics and health policy. -- Harold Braswell Social History of MedicineTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Good Death at Home2. Medical Professionals (Sometimes) Step In3. Cultivating Detachment, Sidetracking Care4. Institutionalizing the Incurable5. "All Our Dread and Apprehension"6. "Nothing More to Do"7. A Place to Die8. The Sacred and the SpiritualConclusionNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisA frank portrayal of the medical care of dying people past and present, The Inevitable Hour helps to explain why a movement to restore dignity to the dying arose in the early 1970s and why its goals have been so difficult to achieve.Trade ReviewA powerful assessment of medicine's involvement with death and dying: a history highly recommended for any medical or ethical issues holding. Midwest Book Review Few libraries specializing in the history of medicine will not find this a valuable book to include in their collections. Watermark This is an important book that sets current debates over end-of-life care in their historical context, and reminds readers of the numerous historical decisions that shape the current situation. Choice Abel's book is a strong and welcome addition to the historiography of death and dying. Journal of American History An invaluable contribution. Abel does an admirable job uncovering a topic that was mostly absent in the medical literature. She successfully highlights a striking consequence of medicine's curative paradigm while also recovering the vital work that family and faith performed to fill the gap left by medical professionals in the twentieth century. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Lively and engaging. The Inevitable Hour offers a sensitive, patient-centered view of end-of-life experiences. Abel's gift for biography, of both the eminent and the obscure, provides a glimpse into a rich yet private world. It makes an important contribution to American medical history and to our understanding of human responses to suffering and adversity. Bulletin of the History of Medicine Through her in-depth analyses of hundreds of letters, articles, and books from the mid-eighteenth century to 1965 in the United States, the author of this book provides a very sobering and enlightening perspective on the perennial challenge of caring for the dying and the history of medical science's own avoidance of it even while trying to treat it. Historian The US way of dying is costly, conflicted, and confused, and apparently has long been so, according to Emily Abel's deeply researched and carefully argued The Inevitable Hour ... The book is richly researched with an impressive range of documentation. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History Emily Abel's thoroughly researched book steps into [a] broad historical narrative and gives context, detail, and definition. Reviews in American History While the work's narrative structure makes it ideal to read as a whole, each chapter could be excerpted in both upper- and lower-level classes in history, health policy, bioethics and religion. The work's accessible style makes it accommodating to undergraduates and laypeople, while its rigorous, inventive methods and ambitious claims ensure its value for scholars... Ultimately, Abel's book is of great importance to not only historical scholarship but also contemporary bioethics and health policy. -- Harold Braswell Social History of MedicineTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. The Good Death at Home2. Medical Professionals (Sometimes) Step In3. Cultivating Detachment, Sidetracking Care4. Institutionalizing the Incurable5. "All Our Dread and Apprehension"6. "Nothing More to Do"7. A Place to Die8. The Sacred and the SpiritualConclusionNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisGo behind the scenes to discover why the Colosseum was the king of amphitheaters in the Roman worlda paragon of Roman engineering prowess. Early one morning in 80 CE, the Colosseum roared to life with the deafening cheers of tens of thousands of spectators as the emperor, Titus, inaugurated the new amphitheater with one hundred days of bloody spectacles. These games were much anticipated, for the new amphitheater had been under construction for a decade. Home to spectacles involving exotic beasts, elaborate executions of criminals, gladiatorial combats, and evenwhen floodedsmall-scale naval battles, the building itself was also a marvel. Rising to a height of approximately 15 stories and occupying an area of 6 acresmore than four times the size of a modern football fieldthe Colosseum was the largest of all amphitheaters in the Roman Empire. In A Monument to Dynasty and Death, Nathan T. Elkins tells the story of the Colosseum's construction under Vespasian, its dedication under Titus,Trade ReviewElkins' focus on the political and ideological importance of the Flavian amphitheater and the events it housed offers a valuable addition to the growing body of general audience resources on Rome's Colosseum.—Elisha Ann Dumser, University of Akron, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsPrologue. Opening Day at the Colosseum I. The Rise of a New Dynasty II. A Modern Amphitheater in Ancient RomeIII. An Amphitheater in the Heart of RomeIV. A Hundred Days of GamesV. The Colosseum and Its First Games in Flavian Art and LiteratureEpilogue. The End of the "Flavian" AmphitheaterAcknowledgmentsNotesSuggested Further ReadingIndex

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Book SynopsisA vital roadmap to planning your own end-of-life care. While modern Americans strive to control nearly every aspect of their lives, many of us abandon control of life's final passage. But the realities of twenty-first-century medicine will allow most of us to have a say in how, when, and where we die, so we need to make decisions surrounding death, too. Or those decisions may be made for us. Threading compelling real-life stories and practical guidance throughout, this book helps readers navigate end-of-life care for themselves and their loved ones. In this practical guidebook, Dr. Dan Morhaim and Shelley Morhaim offer readers hope, empowerment, and inspiration. What we choose for our end-of-life care, they assert, depends on accurate information and on our personal values. We need these not only to understand new medical advances but also to appreciate the wisdom of humanity's past and present. Dan Morhaim, an emergency medicine physician and former Maryland state legislator, guidTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction. Why Not the Best of Both Worlds? Chapter 1. My Dog Got Better Care Than My Mother Chapter 2. Taking Charge: Advance Directives and Choosing the Care You WantChapter 3. A Different Choice: Do EverythingChapter 4. Cure vs. Healing: Palliative Care and HospiceChapter 5. Whom Do You Trust? Choosing Your Health Care AgentChapter 6. It's Not Just about Old People: When Tragedy Strikes the YoungChapter 7. No Easy Answers: Dementia, the System, and Getting It RightChapter 8. Assisted Suicide, Assisted Dying, and VSEDChapter 9. Pain, Anxiety, and Drugs, Drugs, DrugsChapter 10. What's Stopping UsChapter 11. Gifts of Life: Organ Donation, Funerals, and CemeteriesChapter 12. No Job Is Complete Until the Paperwork Is Done: Making It LegalChapter 13. Help, We Need Somebody: Providing SupportChapter 14. The Better End: Surviving (and Dying) on Your Own Terms in Today's Modern Medical WorldChapter 15. Speaking PersonallyGlossaryResourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisThis exploration of Richmond's burial landscape over the past 300 years reveals in illuminating detail how racism and the color line have consistently shaped death, burial, and remembrance in this storied Southern capital. Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation. Its burial grounds show the sweep of Southern history on an epic scale, from the earliest English encounters with the Powhatan at the falls of the James River through slavery, the Civil War, and the long reckoning that followed. And while the region's deathways and burial practices have developed in surprising directions over these centuries, one element has remained stubbornly the same: the color line. But something different is happening now. The latest phase of this history points to a quiet revolution taking place in Virginia and beyond. Where white leaders long bolstered their heritage and authority with a disregard for the graves of theTrade ReviewUndoubtedly, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City is an invaluable resource for understanding deathways in Richmond and the region more broadly. At a time when the city's memorial practices are coming under increasing scrutiny, Smith's powerful text provides residents with a primer that might help us construct a more inclusive practice of memory.—Erin Krutko Devlin, University of Mary Washington., Virginia MagazineDeeply researched and focused as much on the voices of those in the past and present who have used and engaged with these cemeteries as on the physical landscapes themselves, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City offers an important new framework for engaging with burial sites as part of the constantly evolving dynamics of race, class, and religion in American society.—Joy M. Giguere, Penn State, York, author of Characteristically American: Memorial Architecture, National Identity, & the Egyptian Revival, Journal of the Early RepublicDeath and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries engages audiences on the relevance of public history as studied through the preservation of white and Black burying grounds in a city that was once the capital of the Confederacy.—Eleanor Breen, The Public HistorianThis is a timely and compelling book that combines the strands of history, archaeology, ethnography, and preservation. Most importantly, it provides credibility for the voices of descendants and other community members who care deeply about these sacred and historic sites. The author has done a masterful job of providing the historic context for centuries of burials and helping the reader understand why these sites still matter today.—Lynn Rainville, Washington and Lee University, author of HiddenHistory: African American Cemeteries in CentralVirginia, and Invisible Founders: HowTwo Centuries of African American FamiliesTransformed a Plantation into a College, Buildings and LandscapesTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Southern Dead and the Present MomentChapter 1. The ChurchyardChapter 2. The African Burial GroundChapter 3. The New Burying Ground Chapter 4. Grounds for the Free People of Color and the EnslavedChapter 5. The Hebrew CemeteriesChapter 6. The Confederate CemeteriesChapter 7. The National CemeteriesChapter 8. The Post-Emancipation Uplift CemeteriesEpilogueAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisOffers new ways of thinking about our longer lives.Trade Review"Erickson has chosen a timely topic. As technological brinkmanship enables people to stay alive for many more years than previously, the quality of life during these extra years is being called into question... Erickson's call for better treatment of the elderly during these waning years and the need to make more informed decisions about extending life is an important one... VERDICT: A well-meaning contribution to an extremely important subject." --Library Journal "As part of her research for How We Die Now: Intimacy and the Work of Dying (Temple University Press, 2013), Erickson, an ethnographer of labor, trained as a nurse's aide in order to develop a deep understanding of the daily lives of workers and elders in a Midwestern retirement community. Erickson's research investigates why workers are attracted to their occupations, what they learn from their work, and what sustains and challenges them. For her book, she spent more than two years observing and interviewing chaplains, nurses, residents and family caregivers in the retirement community." - Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine "How We Die Now attempts to make observations regarding the work of death for Americans in the 21st century. Clearly, death experiences are as unique as lives... Erickson bases the greater part of the text upon a multilevel extended care facility and its residents and staff... The brief glimpses into these data were the bright spots of the work. The author touches on why aging Americans may want to avoid extended care facilities, racial disparities, and fears that surround nursing care facilities for the aged. The sort of multileveled facility that is the center of the study is often seen as desirable and preferable to traditional nursing home facilities...Summing Up: Recommended." - ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments1 How We Die Now: Americans Aging and Dying in the Twenty-First Century2 The Paradox of Long-Term Care: We Need It; We Fear It3 Transitioning Together: Living, Working, Aging, and Dying at Winthrop House4 Lessons from the End of Life: What Workers Learn from Helping Others Die5 Mutual Interdependency: Belonging, Recognition, and the Rewards of Caring for One AnotherAfterwordGlossaryReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisWhat leads us to respond politically to the deaths of some citizens and not others? This is one of the critical questions Heather Pool asks inPolitical 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 historythe Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the lynching of Emmett Till, the September 11 attacks, and the Black Lives Matter movementthat 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 Mourninghelps explain why Americans recognize the names of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland; activists took those cases public while many similar victims have been ignoredTrade Review“Heather Pool’s philosophically rich, insightful, and moving book asks us to see political mourning as a practice of placing ordinary deaths in the service of political change and thus potentially binding us together in a practice of collective responsibility that acknowledges our complicity in those deaths. By the end of Political Mourning, one cannot help but feel that Pool has offered us something more beyond the cases she examines. She has provided us with nothing short of an ethical-political orientation for reckoning with the tragedy of our past. For anyone interested in the health of democracy, this is a book you must read!” —Melvin Rogers, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University, and coeditor of African American Political Thought: A Collected History“With rigorous argumentation and compelling examples, Political Mourning shows how publics and political identities are formed by responses to loss. It is a stunning work of political theory that will appeal to the field as a whole. Pool makes an exciting contribution to the existing literature on mourning and politics. It is an essential text that all those working in this area will have to engage.” —Simon Stow, Marshall Professor of Government and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, and author of American Mourning: Tragedy, Democracy, and Resilience

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Book SynopsisWhat leads us to respond politically to the deaths of some citizens and not others? This is one of the critical questions Heather Pool asks inPolitical 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 historythe Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the lynching of Emmett Till, the September 11 attacks, and the Black Lives Matter movementthat 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 Mourninghelps explain why Americans recognize the names of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland; activists took those cases public while many similar victims have been ignoredTrade Review“Heather Pool’s philosophically rich, insightful, and moving book asks us to see political mourning as a practice of placing ordinary deaths in the service of political change and thus potentially binding us together in a practice of collective responsibility that acknowledges our complicity in those deaths. By the end of Political Mourning, one cannot help but feel that Pool has offered us something more beyond the cases she examines. She has provided us with nothing short of an ethical-political orientation for reckoning with the tragedy of our past. For anyone interested in the health of democracy, this is a book you must read!” —Melvin Rogers, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brown University, and coeditor of African American Political Thought: A Collected History“With rigorous argumentation and compelling examples, Political Mourning shows how publics and political identities are formed by responses to loss. It is a stunning work of political theory that will appeal to the field as a whole. Pool makes an exciting contribution to the existing literature on mourning and politics. It is an essential text that all those working in this area will have to engage.” —Simon Stow, Marshall Professor of Government and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, and author of American Mourning: Tragedy, Democracy, and Resilience

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Book SynopsisInUndoing Suicidism,Alexandre Baril argues that suicidal people are oppressed by what he calls structural suicidism, a hidden oppression that, until now, has been unnamed and under-theorized. Each year, suicidism and its preventionist script and strategies reproduce violence and cause additional harm and death among suicidal people through forms of criminalization, incarceration, discrimination, stigmatization, and pathologization. This is particularly true for marginalized groups experiencing multiple oppressions, including queer, trans, disabled, or Mad people. Undoing Suicidismquestions the belief that the best way to help suicidal people is through the logic of prevention. Alexandre Baril presents the thought-provoking argument that supporting assisted suicide for suicidal people could better prevent unnecessary deaths. Offering a new queercrip model of (assisted) suicide, he invites us to imagine what could happen if we started thinking about (assisted) suicide from an anti-suicidTrade Review“Undoing Suicidism is a tremendous contribution to theorizations of living and dying. It is unsettling in the most productive manner and driven by a profound abolitionist philosophy of desires for death as the grounds for a richer, more responsive politics of life. Baril offers a compelling vision of justice for suicidal people that demands rethinking some of the most cherished ideals of liberal personhood.”—Jasbir K Puar, author of The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability“In this important book Alexandre Baril offers a queercrip reframing of (assisted) suicide that explains and critically intervenes in suicidism (the oppression of suicidal people) and ableist, sanist, and ageist arguments about assisted suicide. Justice, care, and support for suicidal people requires questioning what Baril calls ‘compulsory aliveness’ and listening to, rather than criminalizing and pathologizing, suicidal people. This is an extraordinary and well-researched book. Baril’s care-full approach to this difficult topic makes a crucial contribution to queer, trans, feminist, and crip theories and challenges readers to rethink dominant responses to suicide.”—Kim Q. Hall, Professor of Philosophy, Appalachian State University, and author of Queering Philosophy“Undoing Suicidism is a daring, original, and paradigm-shifting book that directly challenges the taken-for-granted idea that suicidal thoughts and actions are unnatural, undesirable states that should always be prevented. Grounded in queer, trans, Mad, and crip theoretical frameworks, and deeply informed by the author’s first-hand experience as a suicidal person, Baril imagines a radically different world where the well-documented harms caused by suicidism and preventionist logic are replaced with practices of compassion and solidarity, which grant all people the freedom to explore, express, live with, and sometimes die by, suicide.”—Jennifer White, Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, and lead editor of Critical Suicidology: Transforming Research and Prevention for the 21st Century"[A] provocative critique of 'suicidism,' a form of 'structural oppression' that stigmatizes people who want to die.... Baril argues that the desire to die is valid and that assisted suicide should be available in some form to all 'suicidal people, regardless of their dis/abilities, health or age.'... Readers may agree with some of the author’s carefully argued points about the structural obstacles suicidal people face, and yet struggle to accept both his contention that 'there are no good or bad reasons for wanting to die' and his jarring critiques of 'compulsory aliveness.' This is sure to spark debate."—Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisInUndoing Suicidism,Alexandre Baril argues that suicidal people are oppressed by what he calls structural suicidism, a hidden oppression that, until now, has been unnamed and under-theorized. Each year, suicidism and its preventionist script and strategies reproduce violence and cause additional harm and death among suicidal people through forms of criminalization, incarceration, discrimination, stigmatization, and pathologization. This is particularly true for marginalized groups experiencing multiple oppressions, including queer, trans, disabled, or Mad people. Undoing Suicidismquestions the belief that the best way to help suicidal people is through the logic of prevention. Alexandre Baril presents the thought-provoking argument that supporting assisted suicide for suicidal people could better prevent unnecessary deaths. Offering a new queercrip model of (assisted) suicide, he invites us to imagine what could happen if we started thinking about (assisted) sTrade Review“Undoing Suicidism is a tremendous contribution to theorizations of living and dying. It is unsettling in the most productive manner and driven by a profound abolitionist philosophy of desires for death as the grounds for a richer, more responsive politics of life. Baril offers a compelling vision of justice for suicidal people that demands rethinking some of the most cherished ideals of liberal personhood.”—Jasbir K Puar, author of The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability“In this important book Alexandre Baril offers a queercrip reframing of (assisted) suicide that explains and critically intervenes in suicidism (the oppression of suicidal people) and ableist, sanist, and ageist arguments about assisted suicide. Justice, care, and support for suicidal people requires questioning what Baril calls ‘compulsory aliveness’ and listening to, rather than criminalizing and pathologizing, suicidal people. This is an extraordinary and well-researched book. Baril’s care-full approach to this difficult topic makes a crucial contribution to queer, trans, feminist, and crip theories and challenges readers to rethink dominant responses to suicide.”—Kim Q. Hall, Professor of Philosophy, Appalachian State University, and author of Queering Philosophy“Undoing Suicidism is a daring, original, and paradigm-shifting book that directly challenges the taken-for-granted idea that suicidal thoughts and actions are unnatural, undesirable states that should always be prevented. Grounded in queer, trans, Mad, and crip theoretical frameworks, and deeply informed by the author’s first-hand experience as a suicidal person, Baril imagines a radically different world where the well-documented harms caused by suicidism and preventionist logic are replaced with practices of compassion and solidarity, which grant all people the freedom to explore, express, live with, and sometimes die by, suicide.”—Jennifer White, Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria, and lead editor of Critical Suicidology: Transforming Research and Prevention for the 21st Century"[A] provocative critique of 'suicidism,' a form of 'structural oppression' that stigmatizes people who want to die.... Baril argues that the desire to die is valid and that assisted suicide should be available in some form to all 'suicidal people, regardless of their dis/abilities, health or age.'... Readers may agree with some of the author’s carefully argued points about the structural obstacles suicidal people face, and yet struggle to accept both his contention that 'there are no good or bad reasons for wanting to die' and his jarring critiques of 'compulsory aliveness.' This is sure to spark debate."—Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisBringing 25 years of research and teaching in the sociology of death and dying to this important book, Tony Walter engages critically with key questions around this universal fact.Trade Review"In this new work, Walter's encyclopaedic and critical gaze has produced another volume of analysis to be reckoned with." Allan Kellehear, University of Bradford"Tony Walter brings scholarship and personal experience to this work, resulting in a book which offers a thought provoking read, suitable for both general readers and those with specialist knowledge." Glenys Caswell, University of Nottingham"Tony Walter's intelligent and fascinating analysis of dying, disposal and our continuing relationship with the dead will make us all think again." Colin Murray Parkes, President of Cruse Bereavement Care"An essential read...accessible, informative and critical, this pithy book challenges scholars and general readers alike to interrogate popular ideas about contemporary death and dying." Julie Ellis, University of Sheffield“…an insightful and erudite exploration of death and dying, in a manner accessible to a general readership or those with a more specialist background… a strength of the text is how it incorporates a necessarily broad and holistic understanding of society’s approach to death and dying… an engaging and thoughtful exploration of contemporary Western attitudes towards death and dying.” MortalityTable of ContentsIntroduction; What’s the problem?; Good to talk?; A better way to die?; What are professionals good at?; Why hold a funeral?; How to dispose of bodies?; How to mourn?; Distance & the digital: how to connect?; Pervasive death.

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Book SynopsisExamining the development of death registration systems in the United States - from the first mortality census in 1850 to the development of the death certificate at the turn of the century - this book argues that mortality data transformed life on Earth, proving critical to the systemization of public health, casualty reporting, and human rights.

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Book SynopsisExamining the development of death registration systems in the United States - from the first mortality census in 1850 to the development of the death certificate at the turn of the century - this book argues that mortality data transformed life on Earth, proving critical to the systemization of public health, casualty reporting, and human rights.

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Book SynopsisAn illuminating book that how the public funerals of major figures from the Civil War era shaped public memories of the war and allowed a diverse set of people to contribute to changing American national identities.

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to Passages and Afterworlds explore death and mortuary rituals across the Caribbean, showing how racial, cultural and class differences have been deployed in ritual practice and how such rituals have been governed in the colonial and postcolonial Caribbean.Trade Review"Passages and Afterworlds embraces a range of religious traditions that includes Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and a variety of Afro-Caribbean syncretic faiths. . . . Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." -- R. Berleant-Schiller * Choice *"In Passages and Afterworlds, editors Yanique Hume and Maarit Forde have assembled a compelling set of essays on Caribbean deathways—mortuary ritual, memorialization, and the colonial and postcolonial management of beings alive and dead in the Greater Caribbean world. Across diverse contexts, the chapters do an excellent job of examining the ways in which communities use separations between those dead and alive to come closer together, making new life from death (including living well with the dead)." -- Alexander Rocklin * Reading Religion *"Passages and Afterworlds deftly examines death, dying, and afterworlds in the Caribbean region. Chapters—written in accessible language and in vivid detail—evidence a deep appreciation of the region's history, a history characterized by violent encounters and exploitation. This is an extraordinary book." -- Stephen D. Glazier * Religion *“Passages and Afterworlds is a hugely important volume to the study of life and death in the circum-Caribbean.... This volume brings together groups from the Caribbean that are rarely placed in the same collection, which provides an innovative approach to Caribbean studies....” -- Alejandro Escalante * Anthropology Book Forum *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction / Maarit Forde 1 I. Relations 1. "The Dead Don't Come Back Like the Migrant Comes Back": Many Returns in the Garifuna Dügü / Paul Christopher Johnson 31 2. Of Vital Spirit and Precarious Bodies in Amerindian Socialities / George Mentore 54 3. The Making of Ancestors in a Surinamese Maroon Society / Ineke (Wilhelmina) van Wetering and Bonno (H. U. E.) Thoden van Velzen 80 4. Death and the Construction of Social Space: Land, Kinship, and Identity in the Jamaican Mortuary Cycle / Yanique Hume 109 5. Mortuary Rights and Social Dramas in Léogâne, Haiti / Karen Richman 139 II. Transformations 6. From Zonbi to Samdi: Late Transformations in Haitian Eschatology / Donald Cosentino 159 7. Governing Death in Trinidad and Tobago / Maarit Forde 176 8. Death and the Problem of Orthopraxy in Caribbean Hinduism: Reconsidering the Politics and Poetics of Indo-Trinidadian Mortuary Ritual / Keith E. McNeal 199 9. Chasing Death's Left Hand: Personal Encounters with Death and Its Rituals in the Caribbean / Richard Price 225 Afterword. Life and Postlife in Caribbean Religious Traditions / Aisha Khan 243 References 261 Contributors 283 Index 287

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to Passages and Afterworlds explore death and mortuary rituals across the Caribbean, showing how racial, cultural and class differences have been deployed in ritual practice and how such rituals have been governed in the colonial and postcolonial Caribbean.Trade Review"Passages and Afterworlds embraces a range of religious traditions that includes Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and a variety of Afro-Caribbean syncretic faiths. . . . Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." -- R. Berleant-Schiller * Choice *"In Passages and Afterworlds, editors Yanique Hume and Maarit Forde have assembled a compelling set of essays on Caribbean deathways—mortuary ritual, memorialization, and the colonial and postcolonial management of beings alive and dead in the Greater Caribbean world. Across diverse contexts, the chapters do an excellent job of examining the ways in which communities use separations between those dead and alive to come closer together, making new life from death (including living well with the dead)." -- Alexander Rocklin * Reading Religion *"Passages and Afterworlds deftly examines death, dying, and afterworlds in the Caribbean region. Chapters—written in accessible language and in vivid detail—evidence a deep appreciation of the region's history, a history characterized by violent encounters and exploitation. This is an extraordinary book." -- Stephen D. Glazier * Religion *“Passages and Afterworlds is a hugely important volume to the study of life and death in the circum-Caribbean.... This volume brings together groups from the Caribbean that are rarely placed in the same collection, which provides an innovative approach to Caribbean studies....” -- Alejandro Escalante * Anthropology Book Forum *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction / Maarit Forde 1 I. Relations 1. "The Dead Don't Come Back Like the Migrant Comes Back": Many Returns in the Garifuna Dügü / Paul Christopher Johnson 31 2. Of Vital Spirit and Precarious Bodies in Amerindian Socialities / George Mentore 54 3. The Making of Ancestors in a Surinamese Maroon Society / Ineke (Wilhelmina) van Wetering and Bonno (H. U. E.) Thoden van Velzen 80 4. Death and the Construction of Social Space: Land, Kinship, and Identity in the Jamaican Mortuary Cycle / Yanique Hume 109 5. Mortuary Rights and Social Dramas in Léogâne, Haiti / Karen Richman 139 II. Transformations 6. From Zonbi to Samdi: Late Transformations in Haitian Eschatology / Donald Cosentino 159 7. Governing Death in Trinidad and Tobago / Maarit Forde 176 8. Death and the Problem of Orthopraxy in Caribbean Hinduism: Reconsidering the Politics and Poetics of Indo-Trinidadian Mortuary Ritual / Keith E. McNeal 199 9. Chasing Death's Left Hand: Personal Encounters with Death and Its Rituals in the Caribbean / Richard Price 225 Afterword. Life and Postlife in Caribbean Religious Traditions / Aisha Khan 243 References 261 Contributors 283 Index 287

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Book SynopsisAnne Allison examines the emergence of new death practices surrounding grieving, burial, and ritual in Japan as the old custom of family-based graves and mortuary care is coming undone.Trade Review"This is an extraordinary book. . . . Startling stories of mortician contests, robot Buddhist priests, and clean-up crews dealing with the odor of death illustrate change and the crisis of care in a society where good health care has made very old age a common experience, yet family and community have not kept up to provide solatia and death care for the increasing population of those in need. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- M. White * Choice *Table of ContentsPrelude ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Histories 1. Ambiguous Bones: Dead in the Past 25 2. The Popular Industry of Death: From Godzilla to the Ending Business 47 Preparations 3. Caring (Differently) for the Dead 73 4. Preparedness: A Biopolitics of Making Life Out of Death 99 Departures 5. The Smell of Lonely Death and the Work of Cleaning It Up 123 6. De-parting: The Handling of Remaindered Remains 149 Machines 7. Automated Graves: The Precarity and Prosthetics of Caring for the Dead 173 Epilogue 191 Notes 197 Bibliography 215 Index 231

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Book SynopsisA fascinating exploration of the social meaning of digital deathFrom blogs written by terminally ill authors to online notes left by those considering suicide, technology has become a medium for the dead and the dying to cope with the anxiety of death. Services like artificial intelligence chatbots, mind-uploading, and postmortem blog posts offer individuals the ability to cultivate their legacies in a bid for digital immortality. The Digital Departed explores the posthumous internet world from the perspective of both the living and the dead. Timothy Recuber traces how communication beyond death evolved over time. Historically, the methods of mourning have been characterized by unequal access to power and privilege. However, the internet offers more agency to the dead, allowing users accessibility and creativity in curating how they want to be remembered. Based on hundreds of blog posts, suicide notes, Twitter hashtags, and videos, Recuber examines the ways we die online, and the dTrade Review"The Digital Departed offers the first comprehensive treatment of death and dying online through the voices of those who have passed. At times moving and always beautifully written, the book is at once a theory of self in the digital age and a focused statement on the nature of life, death, community, and society." * Jenny L. Davis, author of How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things *"An innovative and timely study of digital approaches to commemorating, coping with, and avoiding death. Timothy Recuber manages to link seemingly disparate rituals and activities where the digital, ephemeral, and algorithmic meet questions of power, selfhood, and ontological frailty. Highly recommended." * Karla A. Erickson, author of How We Die Now: Intimacy and the Work of Dying *"Uncovers a compelling web of complex relationships among digital technologies, broad cultural shifts, and the most intimate of human experiences, death. At once peculiar and profound, it is a memorable read bound to leave readers doing some digital soul searching." * Sarah Sobieraj, author of Credible Threat: Attacks Against Women Online and the Future of Democracy *"Recuber’s exploration of death-related digital platforms is an exemplary work of digital sociology, which combines classical sociological theory with empirical work on a variety of technologies. I look forward to using this accessibly written book in my sociology classes." * Jessie Daniels, author of Nice White Ladies: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It *

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Book SynopsisThe first full-length examination of the evolution of the superhero through the lens of disability studies.

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Book SynopsisThe dead of Paris, before the French Revolution, were most often consigned to mass graveyards that contemporaries described as terrible and terrifying, emitting "putrid miasmas" that were a threat to both health and dignity. In a book that is at once wonderfully macabre and exceptionally informative, Erin-Marie Legacey explores how a new burial...Trade ReviewMaking Space for the Dead,[is] a book that will make a deep and long-lasting impact on the cultural history of the French Revolution. * Leonardo Reviews *Legacey advances a focused and unusually powerful argument about the changes in Parisian cemetery culture during the Revolution and in its lingering aftermath. [Her] book draws attention to a fascinating aspect of French history, and,,, it holds its place among recent works on material culture in nineteenth-century Paris. * H-France *The book is written beautifully and with a light touch, in spite of its somber subject... Legacey is to be congratulated for making a significant contribution to our understanding of how Parisians struggled to reimagine their social and moral worlds after the Revolution. * Journal of Modern History *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Revolution of the Dead 1. The Problem of the Dead: In which the French Revolution interrupts and intervenes in Paris's preexisting burial crisis. 2. The Solution of the Dead: In which a range of experts and amateurs imagine a new burial culture for Paris after the Terror. 3. The City of the Dead: In which Parisians visit and respond to their city's new burial space, Père Lachaise Cemetery. 4. The Empire of the Dead: In which thousands of visitors descend ninety feet below the city to tour the newly opened Paris Catacombs. 5. The Museum of the Dead: In which the artist and administrator Alexandre Lenoir displays the dead as history in the Museumof French Monuments. Conclusion: The Historian of the Dead: In which the Romantic historian Jules Michelet resurrects the history of France in Parisian spaces for the dead. Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction Part 1: The Funeral Industry and the Making of Market Subjects 1. Civil Governance 2. Market Governance 3. The Fragile Middle Part 2: Death Ritual and Pluralist Subjectivity 4. Individualism, Interrupted 5. Dying Socialist in "Capitalist" Shanghai 6. Dying Religious in a Socialist Ritual 7. Pluralism, Interrupted Conclusion

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Book SynopsisGoverning Death, Making Persons tells the story of how economic reforms and changes in the management of death in China have affected the governance of persons. The Chinese Communist Party has sought to channel the funeral industry and death rituals into vehicles for reshaping people into modern citizens and subjects. Since the Reform and Opening period and the marketization of state funeral parlors, the Party has promoted personalized funerals in the hope of promoting a market-oriented and individualistic ethos. However, things have not gone as planned.Huwy-min Lucia Liu writes about the funerals she witnessed and the life stories of two kinds of funeral workers: state workers who are quasi-government officials and semilegal private funeral brokers. She shows that end-of-life commemoration in urban China today is characterized by the resilience of social conventions and not a shift toward market economy individualization. Rather than seeing a rise of indTable of ContentsIntroduction Part 1: The Funeral Industry and the Making of Market Subjects 1. Civil Governance 2. Market Governance 3. The Fragile Middle Part 2: Death Ritual and Pluralist Subjectivity 4. Individualism, Interrupted 5. Dying Socialist in "Capitalist" Shanghai 6. Dying Religious in a Socialist Ritual 7. Pluralism, Interrupted Conclusion

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Book SynopsisAn ethnographic exploration of technoscientific immortality Immortality has long been considered the domain of religion. But immortality projects have gained increasing legitimacy and power in the world of science and technology. With recent rapid advances in biology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, secular immortalists hope for and work toward a future without death.On Not Dying is an anthropological, historical, and philosophical exploration of immortality as a secular and scientific category. Based on an ethnography of immortalist communities—those who believe humans can extend their personal existence indefinitely through technological means—and an examination of other institutions involved at the end of life, Abou Farman argues that secular immortalism is an important site to explore the tensions inherent in secularism: how to accept death but extend life; knowing the future is open but your future is finite; that life has meaning but the universe is meaningless. As secularism denies a soul, an afterlife, and a cosmic purpose, conflicts arise around the relationship of mind and body, individual finitude and the infinity of time and the cosmos, and the purpose of life. Immortalism today, Farman argues, is shaped by these historical and culturally situated tensions. Immortalist projects go beyond extending life, confronting dualism and cosmic alienation by imagining (and producing) informatic selves separate from the biological body but connected to a cosmic unfolding.On Not Dying interrogates the social implications of technoscientific immortalism and raises important political questions. Whose life will be extended? Will these technologies be available to all, or will they reproduce racial and geopolitical hierarchies? As human life on earth is threatened in the Anthropocene, why should life be extended, and what will that prolonged existence look like?Trade Review"If Bruno Latour once argued that we have never been modern, then Abou Farman shows convincingly that we have also never, really, been secular. On Not Dying challenges we secularists to recognize that distinctions between mind and matter, ghost and machine, religion and science have only ever been provisional grounds for a secular world that is increasingly in question."—David Valentine, University of Minnesota"For atheists, death is the end of the human being, but for religious believers, there is an afterlife in another world. Abou Farman describes the ambition of secular immortalists as abolitioning death (assumed to be an intrinsic fact of life) through means of technoscience. In this brilliant study of the cryonics movement, Farman has taken the anthropology of science in a highly original and mind-widening direction."—Talal Asad, Graduate Center, City University of New York"Unmissable and vital reading."—Neural"This is no celebration of cryonic ‘immortalism’ but rather a fascinating appraisal of certain existential binds into which we secularists have gotten ourselves and of immortalists’ exploitation of those binds to advance a techno‐utopian vision of a very particular posthuman future."—American Anthropologist"On Not Dying is a wonderfully crafted ethnography which will appeal to a wide array of audiences including, but not restricted to, those interested in STS, anthropology and the history of science."—Somatosphere "The absence of characterological complexity opens a space for both an intensive history of secularist perspectives on mortality, and a cornucopia of philosophical provocations on humanism, temporality, cosmos, and more."—Medical Anthropology Quarterly Table of ContentsContentsPreface: Realm of the PossibleAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Problems of Discontinuity and Indeterminacy in a Secular World1. After Life: Varieties of Immortality in the Secular World2. Immortalism: The History of a Futuristic Movement3. Suspension: Stretching Time between the Finite and the Infinite4. Deanimation: Matter, Materialism, and Personhood beyond Death5. Convergence: Secular Solipsism and the Mind of the Cosmos6. Progress and Despair: The Perverse Dialectics of Immortality as Techno-Civilizing MissionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAn ethnographic exploration of technoscientific immortality Immortality has long been considered the domain of religion. But immortality projects have gained increasing legitimacy and power in the world of science and technology. With recent rapid advances in biology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, secular immortalists hope for and work toward a future without death.On Not Dying is an anthropological, historical, and philosophical exploration of immortality as a secular and scientific category. Based on an ethnography of immortalist communities—those who believe humans can extend their personal existence indefinitely through technological means—and an examination of other institutions involved at the end of life, Abou Farman argues that secular immortalism is an important site to explore the tensions inherent in secularism: how to accept death but extend life; knowing the future is open but your future is finite; that life has meaning but the universe is meaningless. As secularism denies a soul, an afterlife, and a cosmic purpose, conflicts arise around the relationship of mind and body, individual finitude and the infinity of time and the cosmos, and the purpose of life. Immortalism today, Farman argues, is shaped by these historical and culturally situated tensions. Immortalist projects go beyond extending life, confronting dualism and cosmic alienation by imagining (and producing) informatic selves separate from the biological body but connected to a cosmic unfolding.On Not Dying interrogates the social implications of technoscientific immortalism and raises important political questions. Whose life will be extended? Will these technologies be available to all, or will they reproduce racial and geopolitical hierarchies? As human life on earth is threatened in the Anthropocene, why should life be extended, and what will that prolonged existence look like?Trade Review"If Bruno Latour once argued that we have never been modern, then Abou Farman shows convincingly that we have also never, really, been secular. On Not Dying challenges we secularists to recognize that distinctions between mind and matter, ghost and machine, religion and science have only ever been provisional grounds for a secular world that is increasingly in question."—David Valentine, University of Minnesota"For atheists, death is the end of the human being, but for religious believers, there is an afterlife in another world. Abou Farman describes the ambition of secular immortalists as abolitioning death (assumed to be an intrinsic fact of life) through means of technoscience. In this brilliant study of the cryonics movement, Farman has taken the anthropology of science in a highly original and mind-widening direction."—Talal Asad, Graduate Center, City University of New York"Unmissable and vital reading."—Neural"This is no celebration of cryonic ‘immortalism’ but rather a fascinating appraisal of certain existential binds into which we secularists have gotten ourselves and of immortalists’ exploitation of those binds to advance a techno‐utopian vision of a very particular posthuman future."—American Anthropologist"On Not Dying is a wonderfully crafted ethnography which will appeal to a wide array of audiences including, but not restricted to, those interested in STS, anthropology and the history of science."—Somatosphere "The absence of characterological complexity opens a space for both an intensive history of secularist perspectives on mortality, and a cornucopia of philosophical provocations on humanism, temporality, cosmos, and more."—Medical Anthropology Quarterly Table of ContentsContentsPreface: Realm of the PossibleAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Problems of Discontinuity and Indeterminacy in a Secular World1. After Life: Varieties of Immortality in the Secular World2. Immortalism: The History of a Futuristic Movement3. Suspension: Stretching Time between the Finite and the Infinite4. Deanimation: Matter, Materialism, and Personhood beyond Death5. Convergence: Secular Solipsism and the Mind of the Cosmos6. Progress and Despair: The Perverse Dialectics of Immortality as Techno-Civilizing MissionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA provocative study that explores medical, social, cultural, and aesthetic customs and practices of treating the dead body in Sweden in an era of modernization. Originally published in Swedish in 2002, Death, Modernity, and the Body explores the impact of modernization on customs and practices of treating the dead body in Sweden in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,when intense social and cultural change transformed the country from an agricultural society to a modern industrial state. The book focuses on five arenas: medical research and education, displays of the dead body for entertainment purposes, funerary preparations of the body, memorial photography, and cremation. Åhrén takes an original approach to the history of death in modern society by focusing on the dead body in intersecting cultural domains. Medical, scientific and technological history are thereby connected to popular culture, social and political history, as well as ethnography and anthropology. The scholarly literature on the history of death is disproportionately focused on the Anglophone world, France, and Germany; this study contributes to the scholarship by examining the case of Sweden, where modernization was exceptionally rapid and pervasive, and full of interesting particularities. Eva Åhrén is a Research Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department for the History of Science and Ideas at Uppsala University, Sweden, and a Research Associate at Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.Trade ReviewAdds attention-grabbing and pertinent materials, gathered from Swedish archives, to the growing body of critical works on death in the Western world. * AMERICAN HISTORY REVIEW *Provides an invaluable source of knowledge about attitudes toward the dead during modernisation. One by one, the chapters offer important insights in customs and thoughts and show how modernity profoundly changed the ways we deal with the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns. * SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE *An imaginative and sophisticated study of death practices around the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on the handling of the cadaver through such cultural practices as dissection, display, photography, and cremation, Eva Åhrén has given us a richly textured exploration of how the living made meaning through the management of the dead. This is a fascinating contribution to medical history, the history of the body, and the wider history of death in modern Western societies. -- -- John Harley Warner, Avalon Professor and Chair, History of Medicine, Department of History, Yale UniversityEva Åhrén's book contributes significantly to our knowledge of the modern history of death. The focus on Sweden adds an important case with some distinctive features, and the emphasis on the treatment and uses of the dead body generates fascinating conclusions. Well-researched and written, the book maintains a commendably high level of analysis. -- -- Peter N. Stearns, Provost, George Mason UniversityTable of ContentsThe Modernization of Death On the Usefulness of the Dead Death on Display Preparing the Dead Body Picturing the Dead Purifying Flames Abjection and Modern Rituals Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisStates are thought only to exercise power over the land of the living. Benjamin Ginsberg argues otherwise, exploring the state's reach into the realm of the Grim Reaper, bureaucratizing death to strengthen the state's hold on life. He notes that increasingly institutions are using the regulation of death as an essential source of power.

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Book SynopsisStates are thought only to exercise power over the land of the living. Benjamin Ginsberg argues otherwise, exploring the state's reach into the realm of the Grim Reaper, bureaucratizing death to strengthen the state's hold on life. He notes that increasingly institutions are using the regulation of death as an essential source of power.

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Book SynopsisAn old man learns how to die from a poet facing death For the entire six months that Mark Dowie became friends with Judith Tannenbaum, they both knew she was going to die. In fact, for most of that time they knew the exact hour she would go: sometime between 11:00 AM and noon, December 5, 2019, which she did. Judith was a poet, writer, activist, and artist who worked for decades teaching and collaborating with imprisoned lifers. Beloved by her community, Judith told almost no one when she was diagnosed with an incurable disease that would cause her immeasurable pain. Instead she chose to end life on her own terms. When they met, Mark Dowie had already been working for years to advocate for physician assistance in dying for terminally ill people in his home state of California. He helped many friends along this path, but it wasn't until he was introduced to Judith through a mutual friend that he came to a profound new understanding of death. Mark and Judith created a two-person "death café," a group devoted to discussions of death. They talked about many things during Judith's final months, but the rapidly approaching moment of her death came to inform and shape their entire conversation. Death was, as she said, “the undercurrent and the overstory of our relationship.” Judith Letting Go supports the right to plan one’s death, but it is ultimately about the lost human art of releasing everything that matters to the living in preparation for the inevitable.Trade ReviewFor decades I’ve admired Mark Dowie’s fearlessness as an investigative reporter. But it’s a different kind of bravery he shows in this book: the courage to take on a subject that most of us tiptoe around—and to do so in a way that is compassionate, sensitive, and deeply moving. -- Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight, King Leopold’s Ghost, and many other booksFor decades I’ve admired Mark Dowie’s fearlessness as an investigative reporter. But it’s a different kind of bravery he shows in this book: the courage to take on a subject that most of us tiptoe around—and to do so in a way that is compassionate, sensitive, and deeply moving. -- Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis and other booksDying well is one of life’s greatest challenges. In this short but poignant memoir Mark Dowie finds the method where he least expected it to be, and shares it with the world. -- Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor; Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, BerkeleyBy the end of this book, readers will have a repository of questions and ideas with which to open a Death Café of their own, or to approach the subject with some aplomb instead of fear. -- Doris Ober * Point Reyes Light *

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Book SynopsisAn old man learns how to die from a poet facing death For the entire six months that Mark Dowie became friends with Judith Tannenbaum, they both knew she was going to die. In fact, for most of that time they knew the exact hour she would go: sometime between 11:00 AM and noon, December 5, 2019, which she did. Judith was a poet, writer, activist, and artist who worked for decades teaching and collaborating with imprisoned lifers. Beloved by her community, Judith told almost no one when she was diagnosed with an incurable disease that would cause her immeasurable pain. Instead she chose to end life on her own terms. When they met, Mark Dowie had already been working for years to advocate for physician assistance in dying for terminally ill people in his home state of California. He helped many friends along this path, but it wasn't until he was introduced to Judith through a mutual friend that he came to a profound new understanding of death. Mark and Judith created a two-person "death café," a group devoted to discussions of death. They talked about many things during Judith's final months, but the rapidly approaching moment of her death came to inform and shape their entire conversation. Death was, as she said, “the undercurrent and the overstory of our relationship.” Judith Letting Go supports the right to plan one’s death, but it is ultimately about the lost human art of releasing everything that matters to the living in preparation for the inevitable.Trade ReviewFor decades I’ve admired Mark Dowie’s fearlessness as an investigative reporter. But it’s a different kind of bravery he shows in this book: the courage to take on a subject that most of us tiptoe around—and to do so in a way that is compassionate, sensitive, and deeply moving. -- Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight, King Leopold’s Ghost, and many other booksFor decades I’ve admired Mark Dowie’s fearlessness as an investigative reporter. But it’s a different kind of bravery he shows in this book: the courage to take on a subject that most of us tiptoe around—and to do so in a way that is compassionate, sensitive, and deeply moving. -- Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis and other booksDying well is one of life’s greatest challenges. In this short but poignant memoir Mark Dowie finds the method where he least expected it to be, and shares it with the world. -- Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor; Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, BerkeleyBy the end of this book, readers will have a repository of questions and ideas with which to open a Death Café of their own, or to approach the subject with some aplomb instead of fear. -- Doris Ober * Point Reyes Light *

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Book SynopsisWhat can a cemetery tell us about the social and cultural dynamics of a place and time? Anthropologist Alison Bell suggests that cemeteries participate in the grassroots cultural work of crafting social connections, even as they test the transcendental durability of the deceased person and provide a measure of a culture's values. In The Vital Dead, Bell applies this framework to the communities of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and the cemeteries that have both claimed them and, paradoxically, sustained them.Bell surveys objects left on graves, images and epitaphs on grave markers, and other artifacts of material culture to suggest a landscape of symbols maintaining relationships across the threshold of death. She explores cemetery practice and its transformation over time and largely presents her interpretations as a struggle against alienation. Rich in evocative examples both contemporary and historical, Bell's analysis stems from fieldwork interviews, archival sources, and recent anthropological theory. The book's chapters range across cemetery types, focusing on African American burials, the grave sites of institutionalized individuals, and modern community memorials. Ultimately, The Vital Dead is an account of how lives, both famous and forgotten, become transformed and energized through the communities and things they leave behind to produce profound and unexpected narratives of mortality. Bell's deft storytelling coupled with skill for scholarly analysis make for a fascinating and emotionally moving read.Groundbreaking in its approach, The Vital Dead makes important contributions to cemetery and material culture studies, as well as the fields of anthropology, archaeology, history, geography, and folklore.

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Book SynopsisThe Dark Eclipse is a book of personal essays in which author A.W. Barnes seeks to come to terms with the suicide of his older brother, Mike. Using source documentation—police report, autopsy, suicide note, and death certificate—the essays explore Barnes’ relationship with Mike and their status as gay brothers raised in a large conservative family in the Midwest. In addition, the narrative traces the brothers’ difficult relationship with their father, a man who once studied to be a Trappist monk before marrying and fathering eight children. Because of their shared sexual orientation, Andrew hoped he and Mike would be close, but their relationship was as fraught as the author’s relationship with his other brothers and father. While the rest of the family seems to have forgotten about Mike, who died in 1993, Barnes has not been able to let him go. This book is his attempt to do so. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.Trade ReviewBarnes brilliantly understands the memoirist’s spiritual prerogative—we are able to bring the dead back to life in our prose. We can take the pictures off the wall and make them dance; we can take the facts of dry documents and make them into vivid stories. The Dark Eclipse is a beautiful example of this. — Susan Cheever, author of Home Before Dark and Note Found in a Bottle: My Life as a Drinker "Powerful, often devastating, and proof if proof were needed that personal essays can be immensely intelligent and profoundly moving."— Peter Trachtenberg, author of The Book of Calamities and Another Insane Devotion "Hard-won knowledge is the kind that matters most. In The Dark Eclipse, Andrew Barnes tracks the reverberations of his brother’s suicide through the long decades of aftermath. This is honest work—the bubble in the spirit-level rides at dead center."— Sven Birkerts, author of Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age A.W. Barnes radio interview with KMA Land (Iowa)— KMA Land KUCI 'Get the Funk Out Show' interview with A.W. Barnes— KUCI "Get the Funk Out Show" Interview on WRKF's "Talk Louisiana" interview with A.W. Barnes— WRKF "Talk Louisiana" "The story Barnes weaves in this memoir—a story of suicidal desires and success, of what drives siblings apart and could, at turns, bring them back together—is a lyric noir of family instability, personal revelation, and queer inheritance both genealogical and literary....Our job, as Barnes beautifully demonstrates here, is to take the ashes of our lives—not only our lived lives, but our lives as readers, too—and sculpt them into a new art."— Lambda Literary "Barnes' unencumbered language make this shortish book a breezy read. The subject matter, however--the exploration of death, family history, and the discovery of self--are not so easy; bu they are necessary." — Gay & Lesbian ReviewTable of Contents 1. A Complaint 2. The Letter 3. Salient Facts 4. Familial Bodies 5. Prospero's Books 6. Holiday Inn 7. Morta Sicura Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisThe 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.

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Book SynopsisEstablishing a new set of international perspectives from around the world on experiences of death, disposition and remembrance in urban environments, this book brings deathscapes – material, embodied and emotional places associated with dying and death – to life. It pushes the boundaries of established empirical and conceptual understandings of death in urban spaces through anthropological, geographical and ethnographic insights.Chapters reveal how urban deathscapes are experienced, used, managed and described in specific locales in varied settings; how their norms and values intersect and at times conflict with the norms of dominant and assumed practices; and how they are influenced by the dynamic practices, politics and demographics typical of urban spaces. Case studies from across Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America highlight the differences between deathscapes, but also show their clear commonality in being as much a part of the world of the living as they are of the dead.With a people- and space-centred approach, this book will be an interesting read for human geography, death studies and urban studies scholars, as well as social and cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its international and interdisciplinary nature will also make this a beneficial book for planning and landscape architecture, religious studies and courses on death practices.Trade Review‘This volume challenges us to rethink the diversity of deathscapes – not just cemeteries and columbaria but also retirement homes, hospitals, museums and Facebook pages. Through the fraught terrain of death, the window on life is turned upside-down, giving us a ground-up view of contestations across social-political, familial and technological spheres.’ -- Brenda Yeoh, National University of Singapore‘Focussing on the urban areas where most humans now live and where conflict, insecurity, migration and violence can characterise death as well as life, this fascinating, disturbing yet hopeful book re-sets the agenda for research into deathscapes.’ -- Tony Walter, University of Bath, UKTable of ContentsContents: 1 Introduction: continuity, change, and contestation in urban deathscapes 1 Mariske Westendorp and Danielle House PART I SOCIO-POLITICAL DEATHSCAPES 2 Informal deathscapes in metropolitan Lima as cultural knowledge systems 21 Christien Klaufus 3 Between life, death, and modernity at Bukit Brown Cemetery, Singapore 42 See Mieng Tan and Benedict J.W. Yeo 4 There’s no place like home: minority-majority dialogue, contestation, and ritual negotiation in cemeteries and crematoria spaces 61 Katie McClymont, Yasminah Beebeejaun, Avril Maddrell, Brenda Mathijssen, Danny McNally, and Sufyan Dogra PART II FAMILIAL DEATHSCAPES 5 Negotiating the aesthetics of mourning in Luxembourg: on pre-modern forms in post-modern spaces 83 Elisabeth Boesen 6 “The crocodile is stronger in the water”: Swakopmund jetty as a place of death in Namibia 107 Jack Boulton 7 Adapting to ‘one-size-fits-all’: constructing appropriate Islamic burial spaces in Northwestern Europe 124 Danielle House, Mariske Westendorp, Vevila Dornelles, Helena Nordh, and Farjana Islam PART III TECHNOLOGISED DEATHSCAPES 8 Mechanical grievability: urban graves for the solo dead in Japan 145 Anne Allison 9 Being existed by another through the sensory: the ungrievable deaths of industrial pigs in slaughterhouse tours 162 Eimear Mc Loughlin 10 Mexico City’s exceptional deathscapes: the disappeared, (digital) bodies, molecular speculations 180 Arely Cruz-Santiago 11 Afterword: urban deathscapes – bodies, ritual spaces, urban inequalities, pressures, and opportunities 198 Avril Maddrell Index 204

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Book SynopsisMusic gives specific meanings to our lives, but also to how we experience death; it forms a central part of death rituals, consoles survivors, and celebrates the deceased. Music & Death investigates different musical engagements with death. Its eleven essays examine a broad range of genres, styles and periods of Western music from the Middle Ages until the present day. This volume brings a variety of methodological approaches to bear on a broad, but non-exhaustive, range of music. These include musical rituals and intercessions on behalf of the departed. Chapters also focus on musicians' reactions to death, their ways of engaging with grief, anger and acceptance, and the public's reaction to the death of musicians. The genres covered include requiem settings, operas and ballets, arts songs, songs by Leonard Cohen and the B-52s, and instrumental music. There are also broader reflections regarding the psychological links between creative musical practice and the overcoming of grief, music's central role in shaping a specific lifestyle (of psychobillies) and the supposed universalism of Western art music (as exemplified by Brahms). The volume adds many new facets to the area of death studies, highlighting different aspects of "musical thanatology". It will appeal to those interested in the intersections between western music and theology, as well as scholars of anthropology and cultural studies. CONTRIBUTORS: Matt BaileyShea, Alexandra Buckle, Peter Edwards, Richard Elliott, Nicole Grimes, Mieko Kanno, Kimberly Kattari, Wolfgang Marx, Fred E. Maus, Jillian C. Rogers, UtaSailer and Miriam Wendling.Table of ContentsIntroduction Wolfgang Marx Part I. Facets of Ritual: Requiems and Other Funeral Music 1 Construction and Instruction: Medieval and Early Modern Masses for the Dead Miriam Wendling 2 Commemorating the Elite Body in the Fifteenth Century Alexandra Buckle 3 Types of Mercy and Non-liturgical Dramaturgy: The Musical Requiem as a Concert Piece Wolfgang Marx Part II. Negotiating Memory and Loss 4 'Aber auf einmal...': Death, Distance, and Intimacy in Song Matt BaileyShea 5 Manifestations of Death in the Music of Johannes Brahms Nicole Grimes 6 Through the Tears of Others: Staging Grief and French Identity in Interwar Musical Theatre Jillian C. Rogers 7 Leaving the Table: Intimations of Mortality in Leonard Cohen's Late and Posthumous Work Richard Elliott Part III. Reflecting Death to Re-Evaluate Life 8 Death in Music and Music in Death: Reflections on Mortality and Listening in the Performances of Marino Formenti Peter Edwards and Uta Sailer 9 The Day the Music Died: Searching for New Practices of Sharing in the Aftermath of the Death of a Composer in Western Art Music Mieko Kanno 10 Imagining an Undead Carnival: Psychobilly Fantasies of an Idealistic Afterlife Kimberly Kattari 11 The B-52s, Loss, and Defiance Fred E. Maus Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisPurposeful suicide in contemporary Islam and the deep pathos in its frequency for religious ends is the main impulse to the topic of Faith at Suicide. The Islamic phenomenon needs to be set in a wider context which reckons with suicide's incidence elsewhere, with its uneasy associations in martyrdom and with how it interrogates -- or is interrogated by -- the ethics of religious faith. The enigma of wilful suicide is no less a challenge to sanity or compassion when such faith is absent from the deed or dimly yearned for by it. I am pregnant with my cause', orators may boast. But they were never pregnant with themselves. Our birth was unsolicited on our part. We have all to reach a philosophy about our living, which is perpetually at stake and which we are free to curtail. Dark cynics have said that life is no more than forbearing not to commit suicide. While the sheer mystery of birth demands we disavow all such self-refusal, what then of those who resolve to make it forfeit for an end they must also abdicate in doing so? Selves are banished and betrayed' when weary despair registers what ill-fate itself has done to them. It is more darkly so when the precious human frame, the body's wonder, by self-bombing' encases lethal death in and for and from itself. This book sets out to explain how the issue of suicide belongs with the conscience of Islam today, and how suicide in all circumstances, with or without religious overtones -- be they Islamic or Christian or other faith -- is an inherent contradiction of our common humanity, as expressed in human birth which expressly involves us in mankind.

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Book SynopsisThe authors provide a comprehensive picture of burial, mourning rituals, commemoration practices and veneration of the dead among the Negev Bedouin. A primary emphasis is the pivotal linkages between the living and the dead embodied in the intermediary role of healers, sorcerers, seers and other arbitrators between heaven and earth, who supplicate -- publicly and privately -- at the gravesite of chosen awliyah (deceased saints). This book brings together integrated findings of three scholars, based on decades of field work that combine close to 65 years of scrutiny. It maps out the locations and particularities of venerated tombs, the identity of the occupants and their individual abilities vis-a-vis the Almighty. Attitudes, beliefs and customs surrounding each gravesite, when combined on a longitudinal scale, reveal changes over time in beliefs and practices in grave worship and burial, mourning and condolence customs. Analysis of the data reveals that the dynamic of grave worship among the Negev Bedouin throws light on ancient traditions in a complex relationship with mainstream Islamic doctrine and the impact of modernity on Bedouin conduct and belief. The authors' observations and interviews with practitioners about their beliefs are compared and augmented with references that exist in the professional literature, including grave worship elsewhere in the Arab world. The Charm of Graves is essential reading for anthropologists, scholars of the sociology of religion, and students of Islam at university and popular levels. The topic has received only marginal attention in existing anthropological works and has been keenly awaited.

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Book SynopsisAn up-to-date review of recent research into suicide and self-injury in prisons, making links between the research, the prison context, and related practise-based issues. It covers all the key issues for those working in the Prison ServiceTable of ContentsSuicide prevention - policy and practice; suicide in prisons - a critique of UK research; intentional self-injury; risk assessment and management; working with suicidal prisoners; the role of formalized peer support in helping the suicidal; training staff in suicide awareness; the aftermath of a death in prison custody; future directions.

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Book SynopsisThis is a comprehensive account of the psychology of death and bereavement, which places the subject within the contexts of the major world religions and their associated mourning and funeral customs. Clearly written, well referenced and carefully organized, the book examines the thinking of Freud and Jung and of modern psychiatrists, and also discusses those aspects of death - bereavement visions, euthanasia, grief for a pet and suicide - which are not covered elsewhere.The second edition has enabled the contents to be updated and enlarged. There are five new chapters, including one dealing with the scientific assessment of death: another looks at the psychological insights provided by Shakespeare, whilst a third deals with the beliefs and customs of minority groups - the Bahais, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Quakers, Spiritualists and Seventh-day Adventists. The text is highly accessible and uses case histories to bridge the gap between theory and experience in an novel and creative way.Table of Contents1 - What is Death? 2 - Western Attitudes to Death. 3 - Reincarnation and Rebirth. 4 - The Cult of The Ancestors. 5 - African and Afro-caribbean beliefs and Customs. 6 - Jewish and Muslim Funeral and Mourning Customs. 7 - The funeral Rites of Christians. 8 - New Religions and new Sects. 9 - The Reburial issue. 10 - Freud, Mourning and Death. 11 - Jung and Self-realization. 12 - Shakespeare, Death and Grief . 13 - Dying, The Last Months . 14 - Caring for The dying. 15 - Bereavement, The Basics. 16 - Bereavement, Medical and Social Issues. 17 - The Death of a Child. 18 - A Child's Response to Death. 19 - Suicide. 20 - Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. 21 - The Death of a pet. 22 - The Bereaved and the Living Dead. 23 - Near Death Experiences. 24 - The Significance of death.

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Book SynopsisLast Landscapes is an exploration of the cult and celebration of death, loss and memory. It traces the history and design of burial places throughout Europe and the USA, ranging from the picturesque tradition of the village churchyard to tightly packed cities of the dead', such as the Jewish Cemetery in Prague and Pere Lachaise in Paris. Other landscapes that feature in this book include the war cemeteries of northern France, Viking burial islands in central Sweden, Etruscan tombs and early Christian catacombs in Italy, the 17th-century Portuguese Jewish cemetery 'Beth Haim' at Ouderkerk in the Netherlands, Forest Lawns in California, Derek Jarman's garden in Kent and the Stockholm Woodland Cemetery. It is a fact that architecture began with the tomb', yet, as Ken Worpole shows us in Last Landscapes, many historic cemeteries have been demolished or abandoned in recent times (notably the case with Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe), and there has been an increasing loss of inscription and memorialization in the modern urban cemetery. Too often cemeteries today are both poorly designed and physically and culturally marginalized. Worse, cremation denies a full architectural response to the mystery and solemnity of death. The author explores how modes of disposal burial, cremation, inhumation in mausoleums and wall tombs vary across Europe and North America, according to religious and other cultural influences. And Last Landscapes raises profound questions as to how, in an age of mass cremation, architects and landscape designers might create meaningful structures and settings in the absence of a body, since for most of history the human body itself has provided the fundamental structural scale. This evocative book also contemplates other forms of memorialization within modern societies, from sculptures to parks, most notably the extraordinary Duisberg Park, set in a former giant steelworks in Germany's Ruhr Valley.Trade Review'One of the most thought-provoking books of the year.' - The Independent 'A richly humane and engrossing book ... a work that is warm, compassionate, intelligent and thought-provoking.' - Building Design 'A remarkably beautiful book ... As a long-time professor of worship, I spent many years talking with seminarians and pastors about theological and liturgical aspects of rites related to death. Last Landscapes shows that such conversations would be enriched if they were to address topics that Worpole discusses with such sensitivity and insight.' - Anglican Theological Review 'Reading this book is a pleasure. The book is beautifully illustrated with photography by Larraine Worpole ... It spends time with architectural and landscape history, makes tracks through sociology and economics, ponders theological and philosophical positions, and lingers before some remarkable aesthetic achievements.' - The Twentieth Century Society Journal

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Book SynopsisDeath and the Idea of Mexico is the first social, cultural, and political history of death in a nation that has made death its tutelary sign. Examining the history of death and of the death sign from the sixteenth-century holocaust to contemporary Mexican American identity politics, anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz's innovative study marks a turning point in understanding Mexico's rich and unique use of death imagery. Unlike contemporary Europeans and Americans, whose denial of death permeates their cultures, the Mexican people display and cultivate a jovial familiarity with death. This intimacy with death has become the cornerstone of Mexico's national identity.It is tempting to view this rich elaboration of death imagery as yet another example of an invented tradition, that is, a cult shaped by the modern state's cultural policies or by the narrow interests of contemporary identity politics. Lomnitz takes a different approach. Rather than flattening out the tradition by insisting only on the ways it is willfully manipulated, this book focuses on the dialectical relationship between dying, killing, and the administration of death, and the very formation of the colonial state, of a rich and variegated popular culture, and of the Mexican nation itself. The elevation of Mexican intimacy with death to the center of national identity is but a moment within that history within a history in which the key institutions of society are built around the claims of the fallen.Based on a wide range of sources from missionary testimonies to newspaper cartoons, from masterpieces of artistic vanguards to accounts of public executions and political assassinations Death and the Idea of Mexico moves beyond the limited methodology of traditional historiographies of death to probe the depths of a people and a country whose fearless acquaintance with death shapes the very terms of their social compact. This work effects a novel turn in the classical historiography of death a turn that can be characterized by a move from social and cultural history to political history. The move toward the politics of death gives readers a unique insight into the peculiar story of death in the Americas.

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Book SynopsisThe slow violence being inflicted on our environment—through everything from carbon emissions to plastic pollution—also represents an impending public health catastrophe. Yet standard health care practices are more concerned with short-term outcomes than long-term sustainability. Every resource used to deliver medical care, from IV tubes to antibiotics to electricity, has a significant environmental impact. This raises an urgent ethical dilemma: in striving to improve the health outcomes of individual patients, are we damaging human health on a global scale? In Dying Green, award-winning educator Christine Vatovec offers an engaging study that asks us to consider the broader environmental sustainability of health care. Through a comparative analysis of the care provided to terminally ill patients in a conventional cancer ward, a palliative care unit, and an acute-care hospice facility, she shows how decisions made at a patient’s bedside govern the environmental footprint of the healthcare industry. Likewise, Dying Green offers insights on the many opportunities that exist for reducing the ecological impacts of medical practices in general, while also enhancing care for the dying in particular. By envisioning a more sustainable approach to care, this book offers a way forward that is better for both patients and the planet.Trade Review“This remarkable book covers a lot of ground, and does it with rigor, compassion, and humanity. Dying Green will get you to think not just about the greening of health care, but also about how you want to handle the eventual end of your own life–you will want to read this book.”— Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature “Dying Green has the potential to break through the superficial “greening of hospitals” mindset and to address deeper levels of the relationship between health and sustainability. Vatovec has a strong understanding of sustainability and resources.” — Tee L. Guidotti, author of Health and Sustainability: An IntroductionTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 Focal Point: End-of-Life Medical Care 2 Medical Waste 3 Medical Supplies 4 Pharmaceuticals 5 Patients 6 Conclusions and Practical Implications Acknowledgments Appendix A A Note on Methods Appendix B A Note on Theory Appendix C Institutional Data on Materials Used at Hopewell Hospital and Baluster Hospice Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisThe slow violence being inflicted on our environment—through everything from carbon emissions to plastic pollution—also represents an impending public health catastrophe. Yet standard health care practices are more concerned with short-term outcomes than long-term sustainability. Every resource used to deliver medical care, from IV tubes to antibiotics to electricity, has a significant environmental impact. This raises an urgent ethical dilemma: in striving to improve the health outcomes of individual patients, are we damaging human health on a global scale? In Dying Green, award-winning educator Christine Vatovec offers an engaging study that asks us to consider the broader environmental sustainability of health care. Through a comparative analysis of the care provided to terminally ill patients in a conventional cancer ward, a palliative care unit, and an acute-care hospice facility, she shows how decisions made at a patient’s bedside govern the environmental footprint of the healthcare industry. Likewise, Dying Green offers insights on the many opportunities that exist for reducing the ecological impacts of medical practices in general, while also enhancing care for the dying in particular. By envisioning a more sustainable approach to care, this book offers a way forward that is better for both patients and the planet.Trade Review“This remarkable book covers a lot of ground, and does it with rigor, compassion, and humanity. Dying Green will get you to think not just about the greening of health care, but also about how you want to handle the eventual end of your own life–you will want to read this book.” -- Bill McKibben * author of The End of Nature *“Dying Green has the potential to break through the superficial “greening of hospitals” mindset and to address deeper levels of the relationship between health and sustainability. Vatovec has a strong understanding of sustainability and resources.” -- Tee L. Guidotti * author of Health and Sustainability: An Introduction *Table of Contents Introduction 1 Focal Point: End-of-Life Medical Care 2 Medical Waste 3 Medical Supplies 4 Pharmaceuticals 5 Patients 6 Conclusions and Practical Implications Acknowledgments Appendix A A Note on Methods Appendix B A Note on Theory Appendix C Institutional Data on Materials Used at Hopewell Hospital and Baluster Hospice Notes References Index

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Book Synopsis

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