Description
Book SynopsisIn Afterlives, Nancy Mandeville Caciola explores this extraordinary phenomenon of the living's relationship with the dead in Europe during the five hundred years after the year...
Trade ReviewAfterlives is an enlivening read for anyone tickled by ghost stories or the recurrent need to represent the social unconscious; its occasional repetitions notwithstanding, it delivers on the author's promise to "chart... a history of the unknown: of pure, unslaked curiosity," a quest as true of its illumination of medieval afterlives as it is of resourcing the medieval period itself.
* MAKE Literary Magazine *
A reader wishing to be informed of the theories and responses governing the returned dead in the Middle Ages should look no further than here. The book is a pleasure to read: elegantly written and well produced (with an excellent index). The book acts as a timely and lucid appraisal of recent work in the area of the premodern ghost, and is a stimulating survey of the varieties of its representation and understanding. It is a powerful and rewarding reading of surviving evidence, and of a cultural fascination that shows no sign of resting quietly.
* American Historical Review *
Whatever interpretative standpoint one brings to belief in revenance in the Middle Ages, Afterlives provides a wealth of evidence combined with insightful commentary and discussion. This book is a major contribution to scholarship, and a highly recommended read.
* The Folklore Society *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part One: Imagining Mortality
1. Mors, A Critical Biography
2. Diagnosing Death
Part Two: Corporeal Revenants
3. Revenants, Resurrection, and Burnt Sacrifice
4. The Ancient Army of the Undead
5. Flesh and Bone: The Semiotics of Mortality
Part Three: The Disembodied Dead
6. Psychopomps, Oracles, and Spirit Mediums
7. Spectral Possession
Conclusion
