Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mortality and its Timings

Open Access
Interrogates the philosophical question of what death means and when it occurs
Explores such questions in chapters with a wide temporal and geographical span
Argues for the value of an interdisciplinary approach when asking such questions

Interrogates the philosophical question of what death means and when it occurs Explores such questions in chapters with a wide temporal and geographical span Argues for the value of an interdisciplinary approach when asking such questions Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Shane McCorristine is a cultural historian with interests in the themes of mortality and modernity. Between 2013 and 2015 he was a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow on the 'Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse' project at the University of Leicester, UK.

Klappentext

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.

This volume provides a series of illuminating perspectives on the timings of death, through in-depth studies of Shakespearean tragedy, criminal execution, embalming practices, fears of premature burial, rumours of Adolf Hitler's survival, and the legal concept of brain death. In doing so, it explores a number of questions, including: how do we know if someone is dead or not? What do people experience at the moment when they die? Is death simply a biological event that comes about in temporal stages of decomposition, or is it a social event defined through cultures, practices, and commemorations? In other words, when exactly is death? Taken together, these contributions explore how death emerges in a series of stages that are uncertain, paradoxical, and socially contested.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Introduction; Shane McCorristine.- Chapter 2. Being Dead in Shakespearean Tragedy; Mary Ann Lund.- Chapter 3 . 'A Candidate for Immortality': Martyrdom, Memory, and the Marquis of Montrose; Rachel Bennett.- Chapter 4. Overcoming Death: Conserving the Body in Nineteenth-Century Belgium; Veronique Deblon and Kaat Wils.- Chapter 5. Premature Burial and the Undertakers; Brian Parsons.- Chapter 6. The Death of Nazism? Investigating Hitler's Remains and Survival Rumours in Post-War Germany; Caroline Sharples.- Chapter 7. Death's Impossible Date; Douglas J. Davies.- Chapter 8. The Legal Definition of Death and the Right to Life; Elizabeth Wicks.- Chapter 9. The Last Moment; Jonathan Rée.- Chapter 10. Afterword; Thomas W. Laqueur.- Index.