Thanatology - Death Studies

Der Artikel stellt zentrale Ergebnisse des DFG-Projekts "Kommunikatbildungsprozesse Jugendlicher zur Todesthematik und filmische Instruktionsmuster“ vor. Die Autoren untersuchten, wie Jugendliche mit der Todesthematik in dem Spielfilm „The Others“ umgehen, welche unterschiedlichen Lesarten sich feststellen lassen und auf welche persönlichen sowie sozialen Einflüsse diese Lesarten zurückgeführt werden können.

This paper explores an issue raised by psychologist Robert Lifton in The Broken Connection. Lifton believes the present threat of total extinction through nuclear war has drastically affected humanity's ability to reconnect life and death, and to make individual death meaningful. The death of everyone-as an imaginable possibilitydefeats all expressions of "symbolic immortality," affirmations of continuity and hope. How has Christian theology met this predicament? Twentiethcentury history has been so menacing and overwhelming that some theologians have found in apocalyptic-eschatological imagery the most appropriate framework to encounter that history and discern its spiritual meaning. Yet this imagery, even when de-lit e rali zed, pro vides at best ambiguous answers. Early twentieth-century theology-Schweitzer, Case-recognized the importance of apocalyptic thought for the New Testament, but easily repudiated this for contemporary life. In contrast, later thinkers such as Cullman, Brunner, and Moltmann make extensive use of eschatological imag ery. However, they face the problem raised by Lifton: how to make "hope" vivid to readers already gripped by a future of possible uni versal catastrophe.

CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION "THE LIFE AFTER DEATH" IN THE FRAME OF THE CULTURAL CAPITAL OF EUROPE PAFOS2017 AND AARHUS2017. A CULTURAL APPROACH TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE DEAD'S MEMORY THROUGH ART AND BURIAL CUSTOMS IN CYPRUS AND DENMARK FROM ANTIQUITY TILL NOWADAYS/ ΚΑΤΑΛΟΓΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΚΘΕΣΗΣ "Η ΖΩΗ ΜΕΤΑ ΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ" ΣΤΑ ΠΛΑΙΣΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΤΙΚΩΝ ΠΡΩΤΕΥΟΥΣΩΝ ΤΗΣ ΕΥΡΩΠΗΣ ΠΑΦΟΣ2017 ΚΑΙ ΩΡΧΟΥΣ2017. ΜΙΑ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΙΚΗ ΠΡΟΣΕΓΓΙΣΗ ΣΤΗ ΔΙΑΤΗΡΗΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΝΑΜΝΗΣΗΣ ΤΩΝ ΤΕΘΝΕΩΤΩΝ ΜΕΣΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΤΕΧΝΗ ΚΑΙ ΤΙΣ ΤΑΦΙΚΕΣ ΠΑΡΑΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΚΥΠΡΟ ΚΑΙ ΤΗ ΔΑΝΙΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΤΗΤΑ ΕΩΣ ΤΙΣ ΗΜΕΡΕΣ ΜΑΣ

As Howard notes, 'heritage can be regarded as anything that someone wishes to conserve', while, according to Lowenthal, 'heritage expands especially because more people now have a share in it'. What is it, then, that we conserve in our cemeteries and that we wish to share with our public? What aspires to be the cultural heritage of cemeteries? This paper critically reflects on the cultural heritage of cemeteries, commenting on the financial results, content, products, and strategies of the public engagement that follows. In cemeteries that are more open to the wider public, we will see that their important memorial monuments are well-conserved and that their natural environment is well-maintained. We will also find museums and museum-shops, while we will have the chance to attend themed tours and take part in various other events. However, does this whole heritagization of the cemetery express the 'spirit of the place', or does it just express the infinite possibilities of the cemetery as space? In other words, do all these manage to deliver to the public the theme of death and to showcase the special identity of burial places? By simply acting at the behest of the heritage cult and cultural marketing, what we seem to produce is a 'dissonant heritage' and this is indeed a 'heritage at risk'. This is why it is time to assess our strategies and collectively reflect on the cultural heritage of cemeteries, not just as managers or academics, but also as the dedicated public of cemeteries. This presentation and interpretation of modern cultural activities in cemeteries is mainly based on the study of primary sources (interviews with cemetery representatives, field research, archival research), that were collected during the summer of 2016 on four UK cemeteries, as well as on data collected from various European cemeteries, which I have visited the past five years. Finally, based on the interpretation of the collective data, possible ways to wade through the contradictions of the cultural heritage of cemeteries are proposed.

Based on the research on continuing bonds (CB) with a deceased person to date, the reports of clinicians, and the contemporary theory of attachment, two dimensions of CB were distinguished: (i) a concrete CB, essentially characteristic of unresolved and prolonged grief, and (ii) a symbolic CB, specific to grief resolution. The psychometric properties of the Continuing Bonds Scale (CBS) were examined in a sample of persons from Poland (N = 244) bereaved after the death of a family member from 0.5 to 18 years before the survey (M = 3.45, SD = 2.25). In the first sub-sample (n = 141), the exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure of the CBS: the concrete and the symbolic dimension of the CB with the deceased. In the second sub-sample (n = 103), a good fit of this two-factor model of the CBS was determined by confirmatory factor analysis. At the bivariate analysis level, the concrete CB with the deceased positively correlated with attachment anxiety, and negatively with grief resolution and time since loss; the symbolic CB negatively correlated with attachment avoidance. When predicting grief resolution for two dimensions of CB (controlling for adult attachment, and sociodemographic and loss-related variables), concrete CB was a negative predictor, and symbolic CB was a positive predictor of the outcome variable. The reliability of the CBS subscales was acceptable. The CBS is a valid and reliable measure of two different CB dimensions. The model of concrete and symbolic CB with the deceased was discussed in the light of the current results and contemporary attachment theory.

"THERE ARE CERTAIN THEMES OF WHICH THE INTEREST IS ALL-ABSORBING, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he do not wish to offend, or to disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the severity and majesty of truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill, for examp]e, with the most intense of "pleasurable pain", over the accounts of the Passage of the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But, in these accounts, it is the fact-it is the reality-it is the history which excites. As inventions, we should regard them with simple abhorrence. I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august calamities on record, but in these it is the extent, not less than the character of the calamity, which so vividly impresses the fancy. I need not remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster." - Edgar Allan Poe

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv10crdt6.8
This chapter examines the local and international politics of disaster response and disaster aid after the 1960 earthquake in Agadir, Morocco.  It emphasizes that decolonization was a multivalent process that took on specific local forms and that extended long after political independence in 1956.  The 1960 earthquake shaped the exodus of French settlers, the expatriation of settlers’ remains, and the efforts of the Moroccan state to utilize disaster diplomacy to lessen its dependence on France and to break from colonial patterns of urban planning and architecture.  The earthquake also exposed tensions and divergences of interests between French settlers and the French state, and provided an opportunity for the Moroccan monarchy to consolidate its own authority within the Moroccan state while fostering rivalry between France and the United States.  The chapter demonstrates how disaster shaped political contestation over the meaning of decolonization.

How adolescents use the social networking site Facebook to express grief is a growing area of research. In reviewing current literature, it is evident that many questions still remain unanswered. Additionally, this ever-evolving platform for grief, mourning and bereavement may hold many implications for educators, policy developers and school counsellors and how they manage and support adolescents dealing with the sudden death of a peer. This article explores the reasons why Facebook memorials may appeal to a grieving adolescent, conventions in online grief, and challenges for schools in the context of policies for social networking.

This article, originally published years ago in the Laughing Man, a journal of contemporary spirituality, examines accounts of the extraordinary manners of death attributed to mystics, saints and sages of numerous spiritual traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Controversy about museums’ possession and exhibition of human remains has usually affected those identified as ancestral remains by indigenous peoples. Egyptian mummies, with their long tradition of exhibition, seemed exempt from such considerations until the covering of unwrapped remains in the Egyptian gallery at The Manchester Museum in 2008. The museum’s representatives argued that this covering responded to visitors’ objections, but subsequent widespread protest against the measure suggested that it had been carried out with inadequate public consultation. With reference to the Manchester case, I will present two arguments to expand the scope of current debates about human remains display. The first argument favours the consideration of museum visitors from cultures other than those represented by exhibited remains as legitimate stakeholders in the remains’ management, including consideration of their personal reasons and historical precedents for favouring display. The second argument, which reveals the spurious bases of many objections to Egyptian mummies’ display and demonstrates their derivation from misconceptions promulgated by the media, shows that the grounds for public objections to human remains display should be more critically examined. If perpetuated rather than halted, the display of mummies could be used to actively combat disparaging media stereotypes. Human remains exhibition is not inherently offensive, but can be regarded as such by visitors whose cultural backgrounds fail to prepare them for encounters with the dead. Removing the dead from display avoids engagement with ethics debates rather than facing the challenge of finding ways to respect the dead by facilitating encounters with them.

This is a Sample Extract from Paul-Louis Landsberg's 'The Experience of Death', the Kerr translation revised and edited by Edouard d'Araille. Paul-Louis Landsberg's 'The Experience of Death' is an extended essay philosophical essay on the nature of Death by a key Existentialist Philosopher who died in a German concentration camp. Part of the group embracing Sartre, Camus and de Beauvoir, Landsberg's essay is worth readin alongside the sections on death from Martin Heidegger's 'Being and Time' ('Sein und Zeit'). It is perhaps the most impactful analysis of death by any of the existentialist philosopher if not by all known authors. This extract includes a page which providesd more biographical information on Landsberg and a brief bibliography of his most significant works. The very first chapter from this essay is included in this sample. The actual essay (as published) is followed by an equally trenchant essay on the nature of suicide. Landsberg approaches his subject from the Christian point-of-view as well as that of a secular existentialist. He was himself a Christian yet he did not force this belief upon readers through his writing. A book that makes a deep impact upon anyone who dares to accompany the author on his dark yet exciting exploration of the ultimate 'end'.

When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes, they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. - Tecumseh

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven do not want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. - Steve Jobs

Tanatoturystyka, czyli podróże do miejsc upamiętniających śmierć, zyskuje popularność na świecie, a możliwości jej wykorzystania na rynku polskim jest ciekawą perspektywą badawczą. Jako przykład do niniejszych rozważań nad możliwościami implementacji tanatoturystyki w Polsce posłużył Wrocław, warto się bowiem zastanowić, czy w mieście, które określane jest jako „Miasto Spotkań”, jest również przestrzeń na groby.
W artykule ukazana została analiza wybranych cmentarzy Wrocławia oraz ocena ich potencjału turystycznego. Praca oferuje zarówno analizę poszczególnych przypadków, jak i zbiorczą analiza SWOT. Rozważania te pozwoliły odpowiedzieć na pytanie czy, a jeżeli tak to w jakiej formie tanatoturystyka jest możliwa do implementacji w stolicy Dolnego Śląska.

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Thanatotourism, or travel to places commemorating death, is gaining popularity in the world, and the possibilities of its use on the Polish market is an interesting prospect. Wrocław is an example of the possibilities of implementing tanatotourism in Poland, because it is worth considering whether the city, which is referred as the „Meeting Place”, have also a space for graves. The article presents an analysis of selected cemeteries of Wrocław and an assessment of their tourism potential.
The work offers both case-by-case analysis and a collective SWOT analysis. This approach allowed to answer the question if, and if so in what form, thanatotourism is possible to implement in the capital of Lower Silesia.

This paper presents the major findings of the first anthropological study of British and American mummymania, the public fascination with ancient Egyptian mummies, and its associated myth, the mummy’s curse: a belief that those who interfere with Egyptian tombs will be punished. The study incorporates museum based field research, textual sources, film analysis and material culture studies. Originally lay critiques of archaeological ethics, curses were appropriated by the mass media, which reduced public sympathy for them by associating them with evil living mummy characters. Fictional mummies’ abject traits later came to symbolise old age, decay, pollution, death and difference – negative concepts with which museum visitors now associate real mummies. Museum displays inadvertently remind visitors of stereotypes and museums may exploit stereotypes for profit or employ staff who elaborate curse myths. In my view, museums could do more to counter stereotyping by addressing visitors’ predisposition to regard mummies with abhorrence and derision.

Dariusz Piotr Klimczak
"The Mystic of Blue. The Eugenio Ionesco’s Dramatic Eschatology of The Absurd"

In the last scene of the play Exit the King by Eugenio Ionesco the hero Bérenger called „Blue, blue!”. It' s the primary experience of the Buddhist way to the border of life and death. At the final hour of the human life the soul vanishes in the blue-grey light. This poetical scene helped the author of Exit the King in formulating on the original mysticism. The starting point of the book by Dariusz Piotr Klimczak is the qualification of the eschatology of the absurd. This problem ties in with the anthropological aspects of eschatology, that is the sphere of final things of the human. In the Misterium Mortis of the Absurd in Ionesco's plays, the eschatology of the absurd characterizes the kind of the deconstruction of immortality, but this problem coexists with the construction of mortality in relation to the creation of the space of drama, the form, the dramatic situation and in dialogues, also with the philosophy and archetypes. The dramatic eschatology in Ionesco’s plays Klimczak explain in the way of the analysis and interpretation of the chosen plays: Chairs; Exit the King; Amadee or How to Get Rid of...The Mystical space of the theatre by Ionesco changes into the swelling corpse of Amadee... and growing mushrooms in the room of dying King (Exit the King). The whole intellectual message of the eschatological code of The Theatre of The Absurd can be imported in the following statement: „No society has ever been successful in getting rid of unhappiness; no political system can free our lives from grief and the fear of death” (Ionesco).
The analysis of the thanatical motives in the drama and The Theatre of The Absurdi is the kind of a test, helping us to exit from the prison of words to the mysticism and poetry. In spite of numerous elements of farces, grotesques, „the tragedy of used language” the plays by Ionesco return to mythical and religious function of the theatre.The revelation of the Ionesco’s attitude in confrontation with the face of Death is, after the first, originally and consistently unroll the existentialism philosophy, after the second, define the drama technique. This is not only the naked truth about life, but the post-Baudelair obsession of ugliness, anti-aesthetic of the vapours of the rot all around old men and heros of Chairs, strengthened additionally of „the song about rotting together”, whether the shoking metaphor „the hen's shit in jelly to take a sip of the horse’s urine” (The Bald soprano). It will explode into the turpism, which with whole power in Amadee... and it will become softened the Buddhist experience „The Blue of Death” in the play Exit the King. This is the incessant dialectics of Memento, which Klimczak every time calls, wants to „hit”, to shake us and awake from „the nap” in the mass consumption of hypnotic mechanized vulgarity.

In the ancient confraternity of San Niccolò del Ceppo, Florence - one of the rare lay companies still in existence thereat - is preserved an unusual vanitas. The macabre theme of death is represented by a skeleton smashing musical instruments. Both partbooks (with legible notation) and scrolls provide a rich set of paratexts, with the overall motto according to Psalm 45 [46] ("He breaks the bow and shatters the spear"), and a clue to the painting's original function ("A group of musicians assembled for the sake of salvation"). Erroneously considered up till now a seventeenth-century anonymous work, the stylistic impact of Jacopo Ligozzi, a master of the vanitas genre, is strong. Among the iconographic models, a drawing recently attributed to Ligozzi can be identified, furthermore Federico Zuccari's Giudizio universale for the dome of Florence Cathedral. Based on archival evidence, the original context of the vanitas painting as 'apparatus'nwithin the collective rituals of a musicians' confraternity can now be determined, furthermore its author (Michele Lepri) as well as the year of tis creation (1721). Compliant with the new dating are also organological details, such a s the characteristic features of the early eighteenth-century oboe.

The author of "Mortals. Samuel Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd in the Space of Misterium Mortis" presented some interesting and stimulating questions, refered to the eschatological and also apocalyptical sourses of the Theatre of the Absurd. The main objective of this treatise is to discuss the topos of Death, especially created by Samuel Beckett’s plays. Because the subject has not been ex-plored enough so far, Dariusz Piotr Klimczak tries to triangulate the Theatre of the Absurd within the genre of drama first, and then moves to the reflection of the chosen plays of Beckett: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy days, concentrating on the role that eschatological elements, funereal objects and thoposes in them. The starting point of this Klimczak’s treatise could be called eschatology of the Absurd or immortality deconstructed.
The obsession of the end and the inevitability of Death, according to Martin Heidegger’s Sein-zum-Tode , are the main unifying ideas of content and form in the Theatre of the Absurd. Death is given leitmotif significance. It has a great influence on the atmosphere and the composition of the plays. Moreover, it functions as the biological determinant and the only point of reference.
In a world created by the authors of the absurd, „women give birth astride a grave” (Beckett) and everyone approaches Death beyond which there is only nothingness. This paradox of existence is an intrinsic feature of the „dissolving structure” of Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape, the enigmatic waiting for Godot (Waiting for Godot) and Winnie buried in a mount (Happy days). It is an inherent attribute of Beckett’s obsession par excellence of our planet getting cool and empty.
An analysis of funeral, mortuary, and eschatological elements that represent the topos of Death in the Theatre of the Absurd, is the subject of mainly thesis. There is a stimulating question that needs to be answered, what is the area covered by the meaning of Death, starting with Winnie’s mount (Beckett). The meaning of Death made concrete by the presence of specific artifacts, symbols, marks, objects, absurd dialogues, and paradoxes; the components that build up the absurd macrocosm of the heatre. Besides, it would be worthwhile to examine the philosophizing with form in the Absurd Theatrum Mundi and in Misterium Mortis, where the discourse on Death becomes a peculiar form of „the worn-out language tragedy”.
This thesis is an aspiration of creating a more general horizon of eschatological problems in  Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd by examining them in a specific perspective.
The main purpose of Klimczak is to reveal the presence of Death in the Theatre of the Absurd, especially by Samule Beckett. By doing so, a range of specific ideas and terms should emerge. They can be used in reinterpreting the old, theoretic approach to modern drama and the problem of Death therein. Klimczak refers to the rich sources of literary criticism, the experience of the scientific and method-ological contribution to the problem.
In fact, the creators of the absurd always move within Death, supporting the idea of getting rid of soteriological and transcendent perspectives. The starting point of Klimczak’s work is about defining the called the eschatology of the Absurd or immortality deconstructed, related to anthro-pological aspects of eschatology, concerning the final, ultimate issues important for a human being (on a condition that this „finality” refers to the vain waiting and being on the verge of Death as exemplified in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot or Endgame).
Per saldo, meaninglessness has the value of absolute meaning, which is crucial for the philoso-phy of the absurd and a part of the quia per absurdum. The material of this reflection is immensely rich. Klimczak tries to be very innovative to relate drama of the Absurd.
The definition of the Theatre of the Absurd is the first questionable issue. Klimczak is quite sure, that it should be the first step in further exploration and research on the subject, including a range of ideas that had been emerging in philosophy and art not only during the 50s and the 60s, but also those of the earlier time.
The great developments in the theatre all around the world that have taken place since the first performance of Waiting for Godot may be symbolized by the name of Samuel Beckett. These devel-opments evolved from the atmosphere of the period , characterized by moral anxiety and the conviction that „after Auschwitz metaphysics is impossible”  (Adorno’s famous thesis), the threat of a nuclear war and the existence of totalitarian systems.
Beckett’s early dramas convey a farcical diagnosis of existence. Relativism of time and empty space, as well as disconnected plots are most visible in Waiting for Godot. One can say that they constitute the very core of the poetics of the genre. Anti-logic, admiration of nonsense and farce, poetic imagery and metaphysics of reductio ad absurdum most deeply express the meaning of Beck-ett’s plays. The metaphysics of Beckett’s dramas and his heroes’ symbolism (which he repeatedly stressed and demanded to be present from the directors of his plays; with Waiting for Godot, for example, he emphasized, “Estragon stands on earth; belongs to the stone. Vladimir is light; thinks of heaven; belongs to the tree” – all this outlines fairly original message of his philosophy, rendering man suspended in space between life and Death).
Symbolism of his characters is enriched by symbolism of objects. Garbage cans (Endgame), the huge mount in Happy days are only a few elements that form the metaphor of constant transgres-sion the purpose of which is unknown. The dynamics of the plot in many of his plays or novels (e.g., Malone Dies) results from the confrontation of two values: metaphysical and aesthetic, and from the juxtapositions of life and imagination, ending and acting, linear and circular times. Thus, life gives the impression of being an unrepeated process of ceasing and dying. A man present in this process is one of the objects predestined to the never-ending destruction.
The Theatre of the Absurd or the Theatre of Cruelty, or most often, the „anti-theatre” or the „counter-theatre”, although it is, perhaps, the most „eschatolotheatrical” (term of Dariusz Piotr Klimczak) one in the whole history of drama.
Beckett’s plays of the Absurd focus also on man’s downfall in a sense that a human being has been relegated from subject to object in an industrialized and materialistic world. In this way, the playwrights of the Absurd portray post-modern models of the individual, one who is devoid of personality and resembles, in Erich Fromm’s words, a „sea anemone”. They do not idealize the reality; on the other hand, they peacefully look at the world devoid of metaphysical basis, meaning or purpose. This Theatre Nouveau accounts for somebody who struggles with the absurdity of the world. It is not a medium through which anathemas could be cast upon immorality or cruelties of social injustice done, nor could it bring about a revolution. The authors expressing themselves consistently with the poetics of the Theatre of the Absurd show the dramatic absurdity of the world, considering the Absurd as a „spiritual suffering that gives birth to man” . The question is, how can we, in an academic way, classify and bring to the surface this spiritual suffering?
As a result of Klimczak’s researches, one should be able to come up with a perfect morphology of the Phenomenon of Death in the Beckett’s Theatre; a profound survey of its origin and structure, shared by many specific, substantial expressions of eschatological and death-related subject matter in the Theatre of the Absurd by Samuel Beckett . 
To outline the eschatological reflection or, just as importantly, the vision of „de-eschato-logizing” is also a major objective of Klimczak’s reflection. It is also important to emphasize two different aspects of dying mentioned above: its meaning and, secondly, its significance. Examining of Death on a phenomenological-existential basis, we will try to find one and objective meaning of all the discussed plays, that is to say, their tragic message.
To demonstrate the tragic meaning of Death in the Theatre of the Absurd, one has to specify the categories of Death such as: suicide, murder, and Existence leading to Death after Heidegger’s Sein-zum-Tode.
In Mortals Klimczak presented the kind of a panoramic research with reference to the pattern of eschatological problems in the Theatre of the Absurd, especially – Samuel Beckett’s Absurd.

The riddle of the “curse of the pharaohs” is finally solved via a radical anthropological treatment of the legend as a cultural concept rather than a physical phenomenon. The most penetrating study of the curse ever conducted shows that its structure and meaning changed over time, as public attitudes toward archaeology and the Middle East were transformed by events such as the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Victorian women writers likened unwrapping to rape, but to exploit the growing popularity of Egyptology, Hollywood turned mummies from victims into monsters, destroying the curse’s power to challenge abuses of human remains. So mummies came to symbolise everything wrong and rotten: pollution, age, death, difference and defiance of authority, becoming imaginary friends or cautionary examples for children.

The Mummy’s Curse uncovers forgotten nineteenth century fiction and poetry, revolutionises the study of mummy horror films and reveals the prejudices embedded in children’s toys. Original surveys and field observations of museum visitors demonstrate that media stereotypes — to which museums inadvertently contribute — promote vilification of mummies, which can invalidate demands for their removal from display. The Mummy’s Curse asks: must we debase other cultures in order to practise our own?

“Of Blood and Bone: An Ethnographic Study of Death in Relation to the Trauma Scene Cleaning Industry” This research examines the trauma scene cleaning industry and what aspects influenced its development as a form of employment, as well as the field and those involved in it. The goal is to show how shifting patterns in dealing with loss beginning with early hominids have lead up to the present and examine whether increased urbanization, industrialization, and medical advances have contributed the creation of this form of  business. This research draws mostly on books written about crime scene cleaning personnel in a journalistic context, texts concerning related fields such as the mortuary science, studies on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Autoimmune Deficiency Syndrome, and the Hepatitis C Virus, figures in relation to mortality provided by the Centers for Disease Control, as well as a research survey conducted in December of 2013 as part of Academic Cooperatives in Anthropology taught by Dr. Carleen Sanchez. By looking at the trauma cleaning industry, we are able to view changing trends in how Americans deal with death and public health.

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

In contemporary popular culture, Egyptian mummies tend to be portrayed as villains or clowns. This has developed from Hollywood's presentation of these characters as dragon-like figures - evil and wasteful hoarders of maidens and treasure. In contrast, nineteenth century poems, romance fiction and even non-fiction travelogues interpreted mummies as romantic female figures all too willing to yield their treasures to male unwrappers. Elaborating upon my earlier discussion of fictional mummies (Day 2006), I will show that a European folkloric archetype that Joseph Campbell called the 'Dragon Principle' was first applied to both real and fictional mummies long before Hollywood's horror classics, albeit differently: the Victorian mummy was not a waster of treasure, but a wasted treasure herself, awaiting (symbolic sexual) liberation by an archaeologist. She was not a dragon, but the prisoner of a dragon - hidden in a tomb, neglected by a collector (Lynch, "The Lady Isis in Bohemia") or denied marriage to the hero of a narrative by her jealous father, the pharaoh (as in Gautier's "The Mummy's Foot" and Haggard's "Smith and the Pharaohs"). Ultimately, time is the dragon imprisoning the mummy; a contradictory figure who is ages old yet perpetually youthful, she cannot abide forever with her lover from the modern world, and disappears like a ghost or crumbles into dust. In contrast to cursed mummies who carried deadly flower seeds to avenge the figurative rape of themselves and their tombs by intruders (Alcott's "Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy's Curse"), imprisoned mummies advertised their scientific, aesthetic and implied sexual availability with an inviting array of flowers that alluded to virginity ("The Lady Isis in Bohemia"). Unlike male mummies (Smith's poem "Address to the Mummy at Belzoni's Exhibition"), they even obligingly responded to interrogations about their past lives (Copland's 1834 poems "The Mummy Awaked" and "The Mummy's Reply", analysed here for the first time). The method by which cinema abjected mummies and privileged "the mummy's curse" over romance as the predominant mummy genre of the twentieth century can now be understood in terms of Hollywood's reattribution (not unprecedented application) of the dragon role in mummy lore: its conversion of mummies from damsels in distress into damsel-destroying monsters.

Controversy about museums ’ possession and exhibition of human remains has usually affected those identified as ancestral remains by indigenous peo-ples. Egyptian mummies, with their long tradition of exhibition, seemed exempt from such considerations until the covering of unwrapped remains in the Egyptian gallery at The Manchester Museum in 2008. The museum’s rep-resentatives argued that this covering responded to visitors ’ objections, but sub sequent widespread protest against the measure suggested that it had been carried out with inadequate public consultation. With reference to the Manc-hester case, I will present two arguments to expand the scope of current deba-tes about human remains display. The first argument favours the consideration of museum visitors from cultures other than those represented by exhibited remains as legitimate stakeholders in the remains ’ management, including consideration of their personal reasons and historical precedents for favouring display. The...

Ground-breaking analysis of Death by the key Existentialist philosopher Paul-Louis Landsberg who died in a German concentration camp during the Second World War. A part of the group of philosophers embracing Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, Paul-Louis Landsberg was published in the journal 'Les Temps Modernes' and released several works before his premature death at the hands of the Nazis. The present work 'The Experience of Death' is coupled with an equally forceful study of the 'Moral Problem of Suicide'. The portion of the work on death is perhaps the most perceptive and searching existentialist analysis of death apart from that of Martin Heidegger which features in his magnum opus 'Being and Time'. Landsberg was a Christian yet although he expresses some Christian views in his work he does not force any of his beliefs on his readers. In fact, as a Christian philosopher he is a controversial figure because of his liberal and forward-thinking views on suicide. This is a book that makes a deep impact upon anyone who dares to accompany the author on his honest explorations of Death and Suicide. - Brief biographical details and a bibliography are provided as well as full textual annotations and an Editor's Note as introduction. The volume is edited by the Historian of Thought Edouard d'Araille and has been provided as a complete text on Academia.edu for the last twelve months, courtesy of Living Time Global, the publishers. In place of the complete text, a key extract from the work is now provided at this web location.

El concepto de muerte asistida comprende una heterogénea variedad de prácticas, cuyo denominador común es garantizar al ciudadano su derecho a participar en las decisiones relacionadas con su propio proceso de muerte, para que sea tan acorde a sus preferencias como sea posible. Se trata de uno de los temas más polémicos y discutidos en las últimas décadas, tanto en el ámbito académico como en la opinión pública. En este artículo se examinan las dos principales justificaciones favorables a su legalización: garantizar la autonomía individual como en los demás ámbitos de la vida y evitar un sufrimiento innecesario al moribundo. Se argumentará que, si bien ambas se encuentran relacionadas y en las dos se anudan la ética del cuidado con la de la autonomía del sujeto, la justificación por la autonomía es más sólida y resiste mejor las objeciones de los contrarios a la legalización de este derecho. Palabras clave: proceso de muerte, eutanasia, suicidio asistido, justificaciones, autonomía individual , sufrimiento.

Abstract The concept of assisted death includes a heterogeneous variety of practices, whose common denominator is to guarantee citizens their right to participate in decisions related to their own death process, to make it as consistent with their preferences as possible. It's one of the most controversial and discussed topics in recent decades, both in the academic field and in public opinion. This paper examines the two main justifications for its legaliza-tion: to guarantee individual autonomy as in other areas of life, and to avoid unnecessary suffering to the dying. It will be argued that, although both are related and both tie the ethics of care with the autonomy of the subject, the justification for autonomy is stronger and resists better the objections of those opposed to the legalization of this right.

In June 2016, the Canadian government passed Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying, allowing for medically assisted suicide when ‘death has become reasonably foreseeable.’ While available for ill or physically disabled people at the end-of-life, medically assisted suicide is denied in cases where people are perceived to have a mental disability and whose suffering is strictly emotional/psychological, like suicidal people. I argue that this results in constructing two classes of suicidal subjects by considering physically disabled or ill people as legitimate subjects who should receive assistance in dying and suicidal people as illegitimate subjects who must be kept alive through what I call the ‘injunction to live’ and ‘somatechnologies of life’. Analysing discourses on suicide targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ) people in LGBTQ scholarship, I argue that, based on the silencing of suicidal subjects through the injunction to live, suicidal people constitute an oppressed group whose claims remain unintelligible within society, law, medical/psychiatric systems and LGBTQ scholarship. This essay calls for listening to suicidal people’s voices and developing an accountable response to their suffering and claims.

Keywords: Suicide; Medically assisted suicide; LGBTQ scholarship; Ableism/Sanism; Injunction to live; Stigmatisation


Baril, Alexandre (2017). “The Somatechnologies of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Law: LGBTQ Discourses on Suicide and the Injunction to Live,” Special Issue: Sexuality in Canada, Somatechnics, 7 (2): 201-217.

Bu çalışmamızda, ölüm hakkında yapılan araştırmaların bir bölümünün verileri ışığında ölümsüzlük arzusu ve ölüme ilişkin olarak, maskeleme, bastırma, korku, kaygı, meydan okuma, kabullenme, ölümü isteme,... gibi tutumlar hakkında bilgi vermeye çalışacağız.

Aristocratic and civic burial rituals and memoria of the dead in the Late Middle Ages as reflected in diplomatic sources – the charters of the Lower Austrian provincial archives as a case study

This paper deals with the evidence of burial rituals and
memoria of the dead in the late Middle Ages found in
charters from the Lower Austrian provincial archives. The
majority of the charters selected as examples are testaments
from aristocrats or burghers. These records demonstrate
that sepulchral ceremonial was very standardised among
the nobility and that testaments only rarely include provisions
providing details about the exequies. However, when
this is the case the requirements are very intriguing, involving
for instance the request for the symbolic sacrifice of
a horse – with or without an armour-clad rider serving
as an emblematic substitute for the decedent. Moreover,
these charters include various endowments for churches
and monasteries for the sake of memoria, representation
and the salvation of the soul. These donations offer valuable
clues relevant to archaeology, art history, building research
and cultural history in the broadest sense about the
type, design and location of tombs, be it in sacral buildings
or in an exactly designated area of the graveyard, and about
the establishment or the continued use of family tombs as
well as the foundation of altars and chapels associated with
them. Furthermore, late medieval testaments are a precious
information reservoir and in many cases an exclusive record
of artistic treasures long-lost or fallen into oblivion,
for instance memorial media such as gravestones, stained
glass, sculptures, liturgical equipment and paraments decorated
with inscriptions, coats of arms or with actual depictions
of benefactors concerned about their afterlife. In addition,
the testaments are often able to highlight both piety
and liturgy and not least the financial expenditure involved
in such memorial endowments.
Keywords: burial rituals, memoria of the dead, representation,
endowments, charters