The Power of Death: Contemporary Reflections on Death in Western Society

Author:   Maria-Jose Blanco ,  Ricarda Vidal
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781782384335


Pages:   272
Publication Date:   01 October 2014
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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The Power of Death: Contemporary Reflections on Death in Western Society


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Overview

The social and cultural changes of the last century have transformed death from an everyday fact to something hidden from view. Shifting between the practical and the theoretical, the professional and the intimate, the real and the fictitious, this collection of essays explores the continued power of death over our lives. It examines the idea and experience of death from an interdisciplinary perspective, including studies of changing burial customs throughout Europe; an account of a dying party in the Netherlands; examinations of the fascination with violent death in crime fiction and the phenomenon of serial killer art; analyses of death and bereavement in poetry, fiction, and autobiography; and a look at audience reactions to depictions of death on screen. By studying and considering how death is thought about in the contemporary era, we might restore the natural place it has in our lives.

Full Product Details

Author:   Maria-Jose Blanco ,  Ricarda Vidal
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.535kg
ISBN:  

9781782384335


ISBN 10:   1782384332
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   01 October 2014
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction Ricarda Vidal and Maria-Jose Blanco PART I: DEATH IN SOCIETY Chapter 1. Life Extension, Immortality and the Patient Voice Catherine Jenkins Chapter 2. Beyond 'Mourning and Melancholia' Lynne M. Simpson Chapter 3. War and Requiem Compositions in the Twentieth Century Wolfgang Marx PART II: DEATH IN LITERATURE Chapter 4. Understanding Death/Writing Bereavement: The writer's experience Maria-Jose Blanco Lopez de Lerma Chapter 5. A Way of Sorrows for the Twentieth Century: Margherita Guidacci's LaVia Crucis dell'umanita Eleanor David Chapter 6. From Self-Erasure to Self-Affirmation: Communally Acknowledged 'Good Death' in Ernest Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying Corina Crisu Chapter 7. Habeas Corpse. The Dead Body of Evidence in John Grisham's The Client Fiorenzo Iuliano Chapter 8. The Fascination with Torture and Death in Twenty-first-Century Crime Fiction Rebecca Shillabeer PART III: DEATH IN VISUAL CULTURE Chapter 9. The Power of Negative Creation - Why Art by Serial Killers Sells Ricarda Vidal Chapter 10. Screening the Dying Individual: Film, Mortality and the Ethics of Spectatorship John Horne Chapter 11. The Broken Body as Spectacle: Looking at Death and Injury in Sport Julia Banwell Chapter 12. Death on Display: The Ideological Function of the Mummies of the World Exhibit Diana York Blaine PART IV: CEMETERIES AND FUNERALS Chapter 13. The Romanian Carnival of Death and the Merry Cemetery of Sapanta Marina Cap Bun Chapter 14. In the Dead of Night: a Nocturnal Exploration of Heterotopia in the Graveyard Bel Deering Chapter 15. Scenarios of Death in Contexts of Mobility: Guineans and Bangladeshis in Lisbon Clara Saraiva and Jose Mapril Chapter 16. Karaoke Death: Intertextuality in Active Euthanasia Practices Natasha Lushetich PART V: PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON DEATH Chapter 17. Death isn't what it used to be Lala Isla Chapter 18. The Dad Project Briony Campbell Index

Reviews

The extraordinary impact of loss is discussed in a number of contexts including war and the complexities of dealing with that experience in a socially and culturally dynamic contemporary society. Contributors are drawn from a range of disciplines and international academic contexts, which makes for rich empirical fare - as well as covering socially important topics. * Avril Maddrell, University of the West of England The conceptual and methodological concerns contained within this collection are very wide ranging and - there is something for every reader who hails from an arts and humanities or social science background. * Hannah Rumble, University of Bath


The extraordinary impact of loss is discussed in a number of contexts including war and the complexities of dealing with that experience in a socially and culturally dynamic contemporary society. Contributors are drawn from a range of disciplines and international academic contexts, which makes for rich empirical fare - as well as covering socially important topics. * Avril Maddrell, University of the West of England The conceptual and methodological concerns contained within this collection are very wide ranging and - there is something for every reader who hails from an arts and humanities or social science background. * Hannah Rumble, University of Bath


Author Information

Maria-Jose Blanco is a Lecturer and Language teacher in the Department of Spanish Portuguese and Latin American Studies (SPLAS) at King's College London. She is the author of Life-writing in Carmen Martin Gaite's Cuadernos de todo and her Novels of the 1990s (2013), and the editor of a special issue of Journal of Romance Studies, Airing the Private: Women's Diaries in the Luso-Hispanic World (2009) and the forthcoming Feminine Singular: Growing up through life-writing in the Luso-Hispanic World (2014).

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