Overview

Departing from a persisting current in Western thought, which conceives of time in the abstract, and often reflects upon death as occupying a space at life's margins, this book begins from position that it is in fact through the material and perishable world that we experience time. As such, it is with death and our encounters with it, that form the basis of human conceptions of time. Presenting rich, interdisciplinary empirical studies of death rituals and practices across the globe, from the US and Europe, Asia, The Middle East, Australasia and Africa, Taming Time, Timing Death explores the manner in which social technologies and rituals have been and are implemented to avoid, delay or embrace death, or communicate with the dead, thus informing and manifesting humans' understanding of time. It will therefore be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, philosophy, sociology and social theory, human geography and religion.

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9781409450689

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Reviews

'The most important and original treatment in decades of a perennial and widely investigated ethnographic topic: the key importance within many cultures of orientations toward the death of their members as the social technology structuring so many aspects of life. It is the counterweight to the fashion for focusing exclusively on the temporality of emergence. Through rich cases and meticulous, ingenious comparative framing, this volume vibrantly renews classic issues for contemporary anthropological thinking.' George E. Marcus, University of California, Irvine, USA

This stimulating volume materialises the promising future of a book series exclusively dedicated to the study of Death, Materiality and Time that readers will enjoy to follow. - Cristian Simonetti, Mortality: Promoting the interdisciplinary study of death and dying

Author Information

Dorthe Refslund Christensen is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark. Rane Willerslev is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is author of Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs and On the Run in Siberia. Rane Willerslev, Dorthe Refslund Christensen, Lotte Meinert, Stuart McLean, Knut Rio, Michael C. Kearl, Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Kjetil Sandvik, Piers Vitebsky, Mikkel Bille, Jesper Ostergaard, Lotte Meinert, Susan Reynolds-Whyte, Rune Nyord, Kristian Bjorkdahl, Karen Lykke Syse, Henrik Hvenegaard Mikkelsen, Murray Last.

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