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Death, Dying and Bereavement in a Changing World
by Alan R KempThis title takes a comprehensive approach, exploring the physical, social, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of death, dying, and bereavement.Through personal stories from real people, Death, Dying, and Bereavement provides readers with a context for understanding their changing encounters with such difficult concepts.
The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills
by David A. AnsellWe hear plenty about the widening income gap between the rich and the poor in America and about the expanding distance separating the haves and the have-nots. But when detailing the many things that the poor have not, we often overlook the most critical—their health. The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. In nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, David Ansell has witnessed firsthand the lives behind these devastating statistics. In The Death Gap, he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients. While the contrasts and disparities among Chicago’s communities are particularly stark, the death gap is truly a nationwide epidemic—as Ansell shows, there is a thirty-five-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and wealthiest and the poorest and sickest American neighborhoods. If you are poor, where you live in America can dictate when you die. It doesn’t need to be this way; such divisions are not inevitable. Ansell calls out the social and cultural arguments that have been raised as ways of explaining or excusing these gaps, and he lays bare the structural violence—the racism, economic exploitation, and discrimination—that is really to blame. Inequality is a disease, Ansell argues, and we need to treat and eradicate it as we would any major illness. To do so, he outlines a vision that will provide the foundation for a healthier nation—for all. Inequality is all around us, and often the distance between high and low life expectancy can be a matter of just a few blocks. But geography need not be destiny, urges Ansell. In The Death Gap he shows us how we can face this national health crisis head-on and take action against the circumstances that rob people of their dignity and their lives.
Death, Gender and Ethnicity
by David Field Jenny Hockey Neil SmallDeath, Gender and Ethnicity examines the ways in which gender and ethnicity shape the experiences of dying and bereavement, taking as its focus the diversity of ways through which the universal event of death is encountered. It brings together accounts of how these experiences are actually managed with analyses of a range of representations of dying and grieving in order to provide a more theoretical approach to the relationship between death, gender and ethnicity. Though death and dying have been an increasingly important focus for academics and clinicians over the last thirty years, much of this work provides little insight into the impact of gender and ethnicity on the experience. The result is often a universalising representation which fails to take account of the personally unique and culturally specific experiences associated with a death. Drawing on a range of detailed case studies, Death, Gender and Ethnicity develops a more sensitive theoretical approach which will be invaluable reading for students and practitioners in health studies, sociology, social work and medical anthropology.
Death, Grief and Loss in the Context of COVID-19
by Panagiotis PentarisThis book provides detailed analysis of the manifold ways in which COVID-19 has influenced death, dying and bereavement. Through three parts: Reconsidering Death and Grief in Covid-19; Institutional Care and Covid-19; and the Impact of COVID-19 in Context, the book explores COVID-19 as a reminder of our own and our communities’ fragile existence, but also the driving force for discovering new ways of meaning-making, performing rites and rituals, and conceptualising death, grief and life. Contributors include scholars, researchers, policymakers and practitioners, accumulating in a multi-disciplinary, diverse and international set of ideas and perspectives that will help the reader examine closely how Covid-19 has invaded social life and (re)shaped trauma and loss. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of death studies, biomedicine, and end of life care as well as those working in sociology, social work, medicine, social policy, cultural studies, anthropology, psychology, counselling and nursing more broadly.
Death in a Consumer Culture (Routledge Interpretive Marketing Research)
by Susan DobschaDeath has never been more visible to consumers. From life insurance to burial plots to estate planning, we are constantly reminded of consumer choices to be made with our mortality in mind. Religious beliefs in the afterlife (or their absence) impact everyday consumption activities. Death in a Consumer Culture presents the broadest array of research on the topic of death and consumer behaviour across disciplinary boundaries. Organised into five sections covering: The Death Industry; Death Rituals; Death and Consumption; Death and the Body; and Alternate Endings, the book explores topics from celebrity death tourism, pet and online memorialization; family history research, to alternatives to traditional corpse disposal methods and patient-assisted suicide. Work from scholars in history, religious studies, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies sits alongside research in marketing and consumer culture. From eastern and western perspectives, spanning social groups and demographic categories, all explore the ubiquity of death as a physical, emotional, cultural, social, and cosmological inevitability. Offering a richly unique anthology on this challenging topic, this book will be of interest to researchers working at the intersections of consumer culture, marketing and mortality.
Death in Contemporary Popular Culture (The Cultural Politics of Media and Popular Culture)
by Adriana Teodorescu Michael Hviid JacobsenWith intense and violent portrayals of death becoming ever more common on television and in cinema and the growth of death-centric movies, series, texts, songs, and video clips attracting a wide and enthusiastic global reception, we might well ask whether death has ceased to be a taboo. What makes thanatic themes so desirable in popular culture? Do representations of the macabre and gore perpetuate or sublimate violent desires? Has contemporary popular culture removed our unease with death? Can social media help us cope with our mortality, or can music and art present death as an aesthetic phenomenon? This volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the discussion of the social, cultural, aesthetic, and theoretical aspects of the ways in which popular culture understands, represents, and manages death, bringing together contributions from around the world focused on television, cinema, popular literature, social media and the internet, art, music, and advertising.
Death in Hamburg: Society And Politics In The Cholera Years, 1830-1910
by Richard J. Evans"A tremendous book, the biography of a city which charts the multifarious pathways from bacilli to burgomaster." - Roy Porter, London Review of Books Why were nearly 10,000 people killed in six weeks in Hamburg, while most of Europe was left almost unscathed? As Richard J. Evans explains, it was largely because the town was a “free city” within Germany that was governed by the “English” ideals of laissez-faire. The absence of an effective public-health policy combined with ill-founded medical theories and the miserable living conditions of the poor to create a scene ripe for tragedy. The story of the “cholera years” is, in Richard Evans’s hands, tragically revealing of the age’s social inequalities and governmental pitilessness and incompetence; it also offers disquieting parallels with the world’s public-health landscape today, including the current coronavirus crisis.
Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic
by Eric EyreFrom a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter from the smallest newspaper ever to win the prize in the investigative reporting category, an urgent, riveting, and heartbreaking investigation into the corporate greed that pumped millions of pain pills into small Appalachian towns, decimating communities. <P><P>Death in Mud Lick is the story of a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, that distributed 12 million opioid pain pills in three years to a town with a population of 382 people—and of one woman, desperate for justice, after losing her brother to overdose. Debbie Preece’s fight for accountability for her brother’s death took her well beyond the Sav-Rite Pharmacy in coal country, ultimately leading to three of the biggest drug wholesalers in the country. She was joined by a crusading lawyer and by local journalist, Eric Eyre, who uncovered a massive opioid pill-dumping scandal that shook the foundation of America’s largest drug companies—and won him a Pulitzer Prize. <P><P>Part Erin Brockovich, part Spotlight, Death in Mud Lick details the clandestine meetings with whistleblowers; a court fight to unseal filings that the drug distributors tried to keep hidden, a push to secure the DEA pill-shipment data, and the fallout after Eyre’s local paper, the Gazette-Mail, the smallest newspaper ever to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, broke the story. Eyre follows the opioid shipments into individual counties, pharmacies, and homes in West Virginia and explains how thousands of Appalachians got hooked on prescription drugs—resulting in the highest overdose rates in the country. <P><P>But despite the tragedy, there is also hope as citizens banded together to create positive change—and won. A work of deep reporting and personal conviction, Eric Eyre’s intimate portrayal of a national public health crisis illuminates the shocking pattern of corporate greed and its repercussions for the citizens of West Virginia—and the nation—to this day.
A Death in Texas: Race, Murder and a Small Town's Struggle for Redemption
by Dina Temple-RastonFrom the initial investigation through the trials and their aftermath, A Death in Texas tells the story of the infamous Byrd murder as seen through the eyes of enlightened Sheriff Billy Rowles. What he sees is a community forced to confront not only a grisly crime but also antebellum traditions about race. Drawing on extensive interviews with key players, journalist Dina Temple-Raston introduces a remarkable cast of characters, from the baby-faced killer, Bill King, to Joe Tonahill, Jasper's white patriarch who can't understand the furor over the killing. There's also James Byrd, the hard-drinking victim with his own dark past; the prosecutor and defense attorneys; and Bill King's father, who is dying of a broken heart as he awaits his son's execution.
Death in the Modern World
by Tony WalterDeath comes to all humans, but how death is managed, symbolised and experienced varies widely, not only between individuals but also between groups. What then shapes how a society manages death, dying and bereavement today? Are all modern countries similar? How important are culture, the physical environment, national histories, national laws and institutions, and globalization? This is the first book to look at how all these different factors shape death and dying in the modern world. Written by an internationally renowned scholar in death studies, and drawing on examples from around the world, including the UK, USA, China and Japan, The Netherlands, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. This book investigates how key factors such as money, communication technologies, economic in/security, risk, the family, religion, and war, interact in complex ways to shape people’s experiences of dying and grief. Essential reading for students, researchers and professionals across sociology, anthropology, social work and healthcare, and for anyone who wants to understand how countries around the world manage death and dying.
Death in the Modern World
by Tony WalterDeath comes to all humans, but how death is managed, symbolised and experienced varies widely, not only between individuals but also between groups. What then shapes how a society manages death, dying and bereavement today? Are all modern countries similar? How important are culture, the physical environment, national histories, national laws and institutions, and globalization? This is the first book to look at how all these different factors shape death and dying in the modern world. Written by an internationally renowned scholar in death studies, and drawing on examples from around the world, including the UK, USA, China and Japan, The Netherlands, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. This book investigates how key factors such as money, communication technologies, economic in/security, risk, the family, religion, and war, interact in complex ways to shape people’s experiences of dying and grief. Essential reading for students, researchers and professionals across sociology, anthropology, social work and healthcare, and for anyone who wants to understand how countries around the world manage death and dying.
Death Makes the News: How the Media Censor and Display the Dead
by Jessica M FishmanWinner of the 2018 Media Ecology Association's Erving Goffman Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Social InteractionWinner of the Eastern Communication Association's Everett Lee Hunt AwardA behind-the-scenes account of how death is presented in the mediaDeath is considered one of the most newsworthy events, but words do not tell the whole story. Pictures are also at the epicenter of journalism, and when photographers and editors illustrate fatalities, it often raises questions about how they distinguish between a “fit” and “unfit” image of death.Death Makes the News is the story of this controversial news practice: picturing the dead. Jessica Fishman uncovers the surprising editorial and political forces that structure how the news and media cover death. The patterns are striking, overturning long-held assumptions about which deaths are newsworthy and raising fundamental questions about the role that news images play in our society.In a look behind the curtain of newsrooms, Fishman observes editors and photojournalists from different types of organizations as they deliberate over which images of death make the cut, and why. She also investigates over 30 years of photojournalism in the tabloid and patrician press to establish when the dead are shown and whose dead body is most newsworthy, illustrating her findings with high-profile news events, including recent plane crashes, earthquakes, hurricanes, homicides, political unrest, and war-time attacks. Death Makes the News reveals that much of what we think we know about the news is wrong: while the patrician press claims that they do not show dead bodies, they are actually more likely than the tabloid press to show them—even though the tabloids actually claim to have no qualms showing these bodies. Dead foreigners are more likely to be shown than American bodies. At the same time, there are other unexpected but vivid patterns that offer insight into persistent editorial forces that routinely structure news coverage of death. An original view on the depiction of dead bodies in the media, Death Makes the News opens up new ways of thinking about how death is portrayed.
Death Matters: Cultural Sociology of Mortal Life
by Fredrik Palm Tora Holmberg Annika JonssonThis book investigates death as part of contemporary everyday experience and practices. Through a cultural sociological lens, it studies death as it remains constantly at the edge of our consciousness, shaping the ways in which we move through social reality. As such, Death Matters is a significant contribution to death studies, going beyond traditional parameters of the field by addressing the cultural omnipresence of death.The contributions analyse several death-related meaning-making processes, arguing that meanings emerging from culturally shared narratives, social institutions, and material conditions, are just as important as ’death practices’ in understanding the role of death in society. Drawing on the related themes of places of absence and presence, disease and bodies, and persons and non-persons, the authors explore a variety of areas of social life, from haunting to celebrity deaths, to move the notion of death from the margins of social reality to ongoing everyday life.This far-reaching collection will be of use to scholars and students across death studies, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, culture, media and communication studies.
Death of a Nation: Plantation Politics and the Making of the Democratic Party
by Dinesh D'SouzaIn Death of a Nation, Dinesh D'Souza tackles the biggest lie of the left—that America is a society based on white supremacy. Now a major motion picture. Who is killing America? Is it really Donald Trump and a GOP filled with white supremacists? In a major new work of historical revisionism, Dinesh D’Souza makes the provocative case that Democrats are the ones killing America by turning it into a massive nanny state modeled on the Southern plantation system. This sweeping alternative history of the Democratic Party goes back to its foundations in the antebellum South. The slaveholding elite devised the plantation as a means of organizing labor and political support. It was a mini welfare state, a cradle to grave system that bred dependency and punished any urge to independence. This model impressed northern Democrats, inspiring the political machines that traded government handouts for votes from ethnic immigrant blocs. Today's Democrats have expanded to a multiracial plantation of ghettos for blacks, barrios for Latinos, and reservations for Native Americans. Whites are the only holdouts resisting full dependency, and so they are blamed for the bigotry and racial exploitation that is actually perpetrated by the left. Death of a Nation's bracing alternative vision of American history explains the Democratic Party's dark past, reinterprets the roles of figures like Van Buren, FDR and LBJ, and exposes the hidden truth that racism comes not from Trump or the conservative right but rather from Democrats and progressives on the left.
Death of a Suburban Dream
by Emily E. StrausCompton, California, is often associated in the public mind with urban America's toughest problems, including economic disinvestment, gang violence, and failing public schools. Before it became synonymous with inner-city decay, however, Compton's affordability, proximity to manufacturing jobs, and location ten miles outside downtown Los Angeles made it attractive to aspiring suburbanites seeking single-family homes and quality schools. As Compton faced challenges in the twentieth century, and as the majority population shifted from white to African American and then to Latino, the battle for control over the school district became symbolic of Compton's economic, social, and political crises.Death of a Suburban Dream explores the history of Compton from its founding in the late nineteenth century to the present, taking on three critical issues--the history of race and educational equity, the relationship between schools and place, and the complicated intersection of schooling and municipal economies--as they shaped a Los Angeles suburb experiencing economic and demographic transformation. Emily E. Straus carefully traces the roots of antagonism between two historically disenfranchised populations, blacks and Latinos, as these groups resisted municipal power sharing within a context of scarcity. Using archival research and oral histories, this complex narrative reveals how increasingly racialized poverty and violence made Compton, like other inner-ring suburbs, resemble a troubled urban center. Ultimately, the book argues that Compton's school crisis is not, at heart, a crisis of education; it is a long-term crisis of development.Avoiding simplistic dichotomies between urban and suburban, Death of a Suburban Dream broadens our understanding of the dynamics connecting residents and institutions of the suburbs, as well as the changing ethnic and political landscape in metropolitan America.
The Death of Idealism: Development and Anti-Politics in the Peace Corps
by Meghan Elizabeth KallmanPeace Corps volunteers seem to exemplify the desire to make the world a better place. Yet despite being one of history’s clearest cases of organized idealism, the Peace Corps has, in practice, ended up cultivating very different outcomes among its volunteers. By the time they return from the Peace Corps, volunteers exhibit surprising shifts in their political and professional consciousness. Rather than developing a systemic perspective on development and poverty, they tend instead to focus on individual behavior; they see professions as the only legitimate source of political and social power. They have lost their idealism, and their convictions and beliefs have been reshaped along the way.The Death of Idealism uses the case of the Peace Corps to explain why and how participation in a bureaucratic organization changes people’s ideals and politics. Meghan Elizabeth Kallman offers an innovative institutional analysis of the role of idealism in development organizations. She details the combination of social forces and organizational pressures that depoliticizes Peace Corps volunteers, channels their idealism toward professionalization, and leads to cynicism or disengagement. Kallman sheds light on the structural reasons for the persistent failure of development organizations and the consequences for the people involved. Based on interviews with over 140 current and returned Peace Corps volunteers, field observations, and a large-scale survey, this deeply researched, theoretically rigorous book offers a novel perspective on how people lose their idealism, and why that matters.
The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization
by Diana West"WHERE HAVE ALL THE GROWN-UPS GONE?" That is the provocative question Washington Times syndicated columnist Diana West asks as she looks at America today. Sadly, here's what she finds: It's difficult to tell the grown-ups from the children in a landscape littered with Baby Britneys, Moms Who Mosh, and Dads too "young" to call themselves "mister. " Surveying this sorry scene, West makes a much larger statement about our place in the world: "No wonder we can't stop Islamic terrorism. We haven't put away our toys!" As far as West is concerned, grown-ups are extinct. The disease that killed them emerged in the fifties, was incubated in the sixties, and became an epidemic in the seventies, leaving behind a nation of eternal adolescents who can't say "no," a politically correct population that doesn't know right from wrong. The result of such indecisiveness is, ultimately, the end of Western civilization as we know it. This is because the inability to take on the grown-up role of gatekeeper influences more than whether a sixteen-year-old should attend a Marilyn Manson concert. It also fosters the dithering cultural relativism that arose from the "culture wars" in the eighties and which now undermines our efforts in the "real" culture war of the 21st century--the war on terror. With insightful wit, Diana West takes readers on an odyssey through culture and politics, from the rise of rock 'n' roll to the rise of multiculturalism, from the loss of identity to the discovery of "diversity," from the emasculation of the heroic ideal to the "PC"-ing of "Mary Poppins," all the while building a compelling case against the childishness that is subverting the struggle against jihadist Islam in a mixed-up, post-9/11 world. With a new foreword for the paperback edition, "The Death of the Grown-up,"is a bracing read from one of the most original voices on the American cultural scene.
The Death of Web 2.0: Ethics, Connectivity and Recognition in the Twenty-First Century
by Greg SinghWith all our contemporary connectivity, are we really connected? What does the nature of connectivity tell us about interpersonal and community relationships? What ethical concerns are raised through an always-on culture? Communication in today’s world is characterised by a condition of persistent, semi-permanent connectivity, which seems to bring us closer together, but which can also be profoundly alienating. The Death of Web 2.0 takes a retrospective look at a moment in recent media history that has had, and will continue to have, a lasting impact upon the predominant attitude towards cultures of connectivity. Greg Singh draws from a range of approaches, intellectual traditions and scholarly disciplines to engage key questions underpinning the contemporary communications media ecosystem. Bringing together influences from communitarian ethics, recognition theory and relational and depth psychology, Singh synthesises key approaches to produce a critical inquiry that projects the tensions at the heart of connectivity as a principle of Web 2.0. He argues that Web 2.0 is a cultural moment that is truly over, and that what is popularly described as 'Web 2.0' is an altogether different set of principles and practices. The Death of Web 2.0 recognises the consequences of our 'always-on' culture, where judgments are made quickly and where impacts can be far-reaching, affecting our relationships, wellbeing, mental health and the health of our communities, and it concludes by asking what an ethics of connectivity would look like. This unique interdisciplinary work will be essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, media and cultural studies and psychosocial studies as well as anyone interested in the social implications of new media.
The Death Penalty: An American History
by Stuart BannerNow, for the first time, we have a comprehensive history of the death penalty in the United States. Stuart Banner tells the story of how, over four centuries, dramatic changes have taken place in the ways capital punishment has been administered and experienced. Banner moves beyond the debates to give us an unprecedented understanding of the many meanings of capital punishment in America.
The Death Penalty: America's Experience with Capital Punishment
by Raymond Paternoster Robert Brame Sarah BaconThe authors present a balanced perspective that focuses on both the arguments for and against capital punishment--one of the most controversial issues in the criminal justice system today.
Death Poems: Classic, Contemporary, Witty, Serious, Tear-Jerking, Wise, Profound, Angry, Funny, Spiritual, Atheistic, Uncertain, Personal, Political, Mythic, Earthy, and Only Occasionally Morbid
by Russ Kick<p>Pretty much every poet in every age has written about death and dying. Along with love, it might be the most popular subject in poetry. Yet, until now, no anthology has gathered the best and most famous of these verses in one place. <p>This collection ranges dramatically. With more than 320 poems, it goes across all of history, from the ancients straight through to today. Across countries and languages, across schools of poetry. You’ll find a plethora of approaches—witty, humorous, deadly serious, tear-jerking, wise, profound, angry, spiritual, atheistic, uncertain, highly personal, political, mythic, earthy, and only occasionally morbid. <p>Every angle you can think of is covered—the deaths of children, lost loves, funeral rites, close calls, eating meat, serial killers, the death penalty, roadkill, the Underworld, reincarnation, elegies for famous people, death as an equalizer, death as a junk man, death as a child, the death of God, the death of death . . . .</p>
Death, Society, and Human Experience
by Robert Kastenbaum Christopher M. MoremanThe 13th edition of Death, Society, and Human Experience provides a panoramic overview of the ways that we are touched by death and dying, both as individuals and as members of society. A landmark text in the field, the authors draw on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, including perspectives offered through history, philosophy, religion, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage and understanding of topics associated with the end of life and death and dying. By approaching the subject from multiple angles, the authors explain the various ways that individual, cultural, and societal attitudes influence both how and when we die and how we live and deal with the knowledge of death and loss.Originally written by Robert Kastenbaum, a renowned scholar who developed one of the world’s first death education courses, Christopher M. Moreman, who has worked in the field of death studies for two decades, has updated this edition. In addition to infusing his close areas of focus, both in afterlife beliefs and experiences and how these might affect how people live their lives, he’s weaved in new coverage of current affairs, including: The impact of COVID-19 on experiences of death, bereavement, mourning, and more Expanded legalization of physician-assisted dying in the United States and several countries Changes in bereavement rituals and traditions stemming from technology use and social media With additional content and classroom extensions available online, Death, Society, and Human Experience remains a thoughtful, exploratory, and impressively comprehensive overview for undergraduate and graduate courses in death, dying, and bereavement.
Death, Society and Human Experience (1-download)
by Robert J. KastenbaumProviding an understanding of the relationship with death, both as an individual and as a member of society. This book is intended to contribute to your understanding of your relationship with death, both as an individual and as a member of society. Kastenbaum shows how individual and societal attitudes influence both how and when we die and how we live and deal with the knowledge of death and loss. Robert Kastenbaum is a renowned scholar who developed one of the world's first death education courses and introduced the first text for this market. This landmark text draws on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, such as history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage of understanding death and the dying process. Learning GoalsUpon completing this book, readers should be able to:-Understand the relationship with death, both as an individual and as a member of society-See how social forces and events affect the length of our lives, how we grieve, and how we die-Learn how dying people are perceived and treated in our society and what can be done to provide the best possible care -Master an understanding of continuing developments and challenges to hospice (palliative care).-Understand what is becoming of faith and doubt about an afterlife
Death, Society, And Ideology In A Hohokam Community
by Randall H McguireBased on a study of more than 200 burials at the US site of La Ciudad (725 AD to 1100 AD), this is an exploration of the meaning of burials as statements on the nature of power relations and social structure. Focusing on the inequalities between the distribution of grave goods and other aspects of material culture, the author argues against trying
Death Without Weeping: The Violence Of Everyday Life In Brazil
by Nancy Scheper-HughesDeath Without Weeping is a work of passion, a nontraditional ethnography charged with political commitment and moral vigor. It is a tour de force that will be discussed and debated for many years to come.