Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines the dialectic between fictional death as depicted in the media and real death as it is experienced in a hospital setting.
Using a Terror Management theoretical lens, Davis and Crane explore the intersections of life and death, experience and fiction, to understand the relationship between them. The authors use complementary perspectives to examine what it means when we speak and think of death as it is conceived in cultural media and as it is constructed by and circulates between patients, health professionals, and supportive family members and friends.
Layering analysis with evocative narrative and an intimate tone, with characters, plot, and action that reflect the voices and experiences of all project participants, including the authors' own, Davis and Crane reflect on what it means to pass away. Their medical humanities approach bridges health communication, cultural studies, and the arts to inform medical ethics and care.
Table of Contents1. A Mortality Tale: Narrative Management of Death 2. Death as Vertigo: The Day Time Stood Still 3. Death as Disequilibrium: Things that Go ‘Bump’ in the Night 4. Death as a Cry for Help: An Unimaginable Prayer 5. Death as a Horrible Other: A Relationship with the Other Side 6. An Ode to Childhood’s Joy: An Antidote to the Hyperreality of Death 7. Death as a Jokester: The Last Laugh 8. Death as a Relationship: Death, Love, and Loss 9. Death as a Lover: Eternal Flame 10. Death as a Weapon: Dying for a Cause 11. Death as a Foe: Waging War on Death 12. Death as a Roommate: Living with Death 13. Death as a Way of Life: Living Death 14. Death as a Threshold: Letting Go Coda
