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
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Page 2
... periods of history . As will be argued below , Maurice Bloch's anthropological development of the notion of rebounding conquest has been particularly influential in framing this argument ( 1992 ) . Rhetoric A brief explanation of the ...
... periods of history . As will be argued below , Maurice Bloch's anthropological development of the notion of rebounding conquest has been particularly influential in framing this argument ( 1992 ) . Rhetoric A brief explanation of the ...
Page 15
... periods of potential fragmentation , including loss of members through death . While this kind of sociological argument may be acceptable as a fairly abstract discussion on the nature of society , it can easily be criticized as ignoring ...
... periods of potential fragmentation , including loss of members through death . While this kind of sociological argument may be acceptable as a fairly abstract discussion on the nature of society , it can easily be criticized as ignoring ...
Page 16
... period of their distress as well as expressing the social loss of a member of society . In fact Malinowski adds , in a simple yet telling way , that to lose somebody in a society made up of a relatively small number of people is an ...
... period of their distress as well as expressing the social loss of a member of society . In fact Malinowski adds , in a simple yet telling way , that to lose somebody in a society made up of a relatively small number of people is an ...
Page 18
... period of transition to help in learning aspects of the new identity and , finally , a reincorporation into new status . So the rite might begin with someone being a boy or girl and end with them being a man or a woman . Similarly they ...
... period of transition to help in learning aspects of the new identity and , finally , a reincorporation into new status . So the rite might begin with someone being a boy or girl and end with them being a man or a woman . Similarly they ...
Page 19
... period and explored the dynamics of what happens to people when thrown together in periods of stress and change of identity ; he developed the concept of communitas to describe this shared fellow - feeling and we will explore this in ...
... period and explored the dynamics of what happens to people when thrown together in periods of stress and change of identity ; he developed the concept of communitas to describe this shared fellow - feeling and we will explore this in ...
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