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Death in the Early Twenty-first Century

Authority, Innovation, and Mortuary Rites

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Editors:
  1. Sébastien Penmellen Boret

    1. IRIDeS Bureau, Tohoku University, Aoba, Sendai, Japan

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  2. Susan Orpett Long

    1. John Carroll University , University Heights, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  3. Sergei Kan

    1. Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA

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  • Expands the literature on contested, mundane, and comparative perspectives of human responses to death
  • Reflects the shifting interests of contemporary anthropologists in the contested nature of dying and death
  • Includes dynamic interdisciplinary contributions

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Sébastien Penmellen Boret, Susan Orpett Long, Sergei Kan
    Pages 1-27

  3. Culture, Religion, and the Uses of Tradition

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 29-29
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    2. Fear and Prayers: Negotiating with the Dead in Apiao, Chiloé (Chile)

      • Giovanna Bacchiddu
      Pages 31-62

    3. Quelling the “Unquiet Dead”: Popular Devotions in the Borderlands of the USSR

      • Catherine Wanner
      Pages 63-84

    4. Life After Death/Life Before Death and Their Linkages: The United States, Japan, and China

      • Gordon Mathews, Miu Ying Kwong
      Pages 85-111

  5. Individual, Choice, and Identity

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 215-215
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    2. Agency and the Personalization of the Grave in Japan

      • Sébastien Penmellen Boret
      Pages 217-253

    3. Remembering the Dead: Agency, Authority, and Mortuary Practices in Interreligious Families in the United States

      • Susan Orpett Long, Sonja Salome Buehring
      Pages 255-289

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 291-295
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Keywords

About this book

Focusing on tradition, technology, and authority, this volume challenges classical understandings that mortuary rites are inherently conservative. The contributors examine innovative and enduring ideas and practices of death, which reflect and constitute changing patterns of social relationships, memorialisation, and the afterlife. This cross-cultural study examines the lived experiences of men and women from societies across the globe with diverse religious heritages and secular value systems. The book demonstrates that mortuary practices are not fixed forms, but rather dynamic processes negotiated by the dying, the bereaved, funeral experts, and public institutions. In addition to offering a new theoretical perspective on the anthropology of death, this work provides a rich resource for readers interested in human responses to mortality: the one certainty of human existence.

Reviews

“This book is an analysis of how this generation views death and the remembering of those who have left this earth through death. … This was a very interesting book with different perspectives on death.” (Justin Dilliplane, Resolved for Christ, resolvedfc.blogspot.de, January, 2018)

Editors and Affiliations

  • IRIDeS Bureau, Tohoku University, Aoba, Sendai, Japan

    Sébastien Penmellen Boret

  • John Carroll University , University Heights, USA

    Susan Orpett Long

  • Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, USA

    Sergei Kan

About the editors

Sébastien Penmellen Boret is an anthropologist at the International Research Institute of Disaster Sciences of Tohoku University, Japan. 

 
Susan Orpett Long is Professor of Anthropology at John Carroll University, USA. 
 
Sergei Kan is Professor of Anthropology and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, USA.



Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Death in the Early Twenty-first Century

  • Book Subtitle: Authority, Innovation, and Mortuary Rites

  • Editors: Sébastien Penmellen Boret, Susan Orpett Long, Sergei Kan

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52365-1

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-52364-4Published: 28 July 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-84886-0Published: 09 September 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-52365-1Published: 18 July 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 295

  • Number of Illustrations: 15 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Social Anthropology, Religion and Society

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