Death, Ritual, and Belief: The Rhetoric of Funerary RitesBloomsbury Publishing, 2002 M06 1 - 272 pages Describing a great variety of funeral ritual from major world religions and from local traditions, this book shows how cultures not only cope with corpses but also create an added value for living through the encouragement of afterlife beliefs. The explosion of interest in death in recent years reflects the key theme of this book - the rhetoric of death - the way cultures use the most potent weapon of words to bring new power to life. This new edition is one third longer than the original with new material on the death of Jesus, the most theorized death ever which offers a useful case study for students. There is also empirical material from contemporary/recent events such as the death of Diana and an expanded section on theories of grief which will make the book more attractive to death counsellors. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 86
Page viii
... fact of serious epidemics , whether of HIV - AIDS in numerous African contexts or of animal and human diseases in Britain . Globalization , rooted in a media - filled world of information and fostered by a post - modern context in which ...
... fact of serious epidemics , whether of HIV - AIDS in numerous African contexts or of animal and human diseases in Britain . Globalization , rooted in a media - filled world of information and fostered by a post - modern context in which ...
Page 1
... fact of death , an adaptation underlying not only the major world religions but also local religious practice ... facts together we argue , from an evolutionary perspective , that death is part of the environment to which the human ...
... fact of death , an adaptation underlying not only the major world religions but also local religious practice ... facts together we argue , from an evolutionary perspective , that death is part of the environment to which the human ...
Page 6
... fact about death is that human beliefs seem to contradict what meets the eye . Despite the obvious fact that an actively self - motivated agent becomes a passive corpse subjected to decay , human cultures have universally asserted that ...
... fact about death is that human beliefs seem to contradict what meets the eye . Despite the obvious fact that an actively self - motivated agent becomes a passive corpse subjected to decay , human cultures have universally asserted that ...
Page 7
... fact that , in terms of death rites , it is difficult to draw distinctions between the well - known salvation religions of the world and the traditional religions of small ethnic groups . All show a concern with death , and most ...
... fact that , in terms of death rites , it is difficult to draw distinctions between the well - known salvation religions of the world and the traditional religions of small ethnic groups . All show a concern with death , and most ...
Page 13
... fact that some sociologists like Anthony Giddens have cast serious doubts on its usefulness in sociology ( 1979 : 117 ) . In this book I largely avoid talking about roles and prefer to speak of embodiment or of social status and ...
... fact that some sociologists like Anthony Giddens have cast serious doubts on its usefulness in sociology ( 1979 : 117 ) . In this book I largely avoid talking about roles and prefer to speak of embodiment or of social status and ...
Contents
1 | |
Impurity Fertility and Fear | 24 |
3 Theories of Grief | 43 |
4 Violence Sacrifice and Conquest | 62 |
5 Eastern Destiny and Death | 81 |
6 Ancestors Cemeteries and Local Identity | 91 |
7 Jewish and Islamic Destinies | 118 |
8 Christianity and the Death of Jesus | 125 |
10 Somewhere to Die | 155 |
11 Souls and the Presence of the Dead | 163 |
12 Pet and Animal Death | 182 |
13 Book Film and Building | 196 |
14 Offending Death Grief and Religions | 211 |
15 Secular Death and Life | 224 |
Bibliography | 240 |
Index | 258 |
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Common terms and phrases
afterlife amongst ancestors animals anthropologist argued ashes aspects associated become belief bereavement Bloch body Britain British British Humanist Association Buddhism burial buried cemeteries cent Chapter Christian church concerned contemporary context corpse cremated remains crematoria cultures D. J. Davies death rites deceased described dying emotion emphasize especially euthanasia example existence express fact fact of death focused funeral rites funerary rites grave grief groups human idea identity important increasingly individual interpreted involved issue Jesus kind living major memory modern Mormon mortuary mummification nature near-death experience offending death particular performative utterance period pet death popular post-modernity practice psychological realm rebounding violence reflects reincarnation relationship relatively religion religious response resurrection rhetoric ritual sacrifice salvation secular sense shamanism significance social society sociological soul speak spiritual status stress stupa symbolic theological theory tomb traditional transcendence twentieth century words against death Zoroastrians