Autorentext

Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa.

Klappentext

This volume brings together fifteen scholarly essays that explore death and the afterlife-Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and beyond-as hermeneutical tools of philosophical reflection.

Just as philosophy has traditionally been considered a means of dealing with death, so too can death offer interpretive insights into philosophical discourse and broader socio-cultural phenomena. The contributions in this volume consist of both theoretical and practical essays. The theoretical essays explore how various philosophers have been influenced by the hermeneutic potential of death and the afterlife, while the practical consider how this reflective framework can illuminate contemporary phenomena, from expressions in fiction to religious traditions. These phenomena are not merely subjects to be interpreted, but frameworks through which religious, philosophical, cultural, and socio-political questions can be considered in a new light.

These contributions address such topics as human extinction, aesthetic representations of the afterlife, personal reflections on near death experiences, commercial exploitation of the afterlife, secular death acceptance and the science of life extension, and reincarnation. Contributors also draw on the work of various thinkers, including Gianni Vattimo, Karl Marx, Wilhelm Dilthey, Jan Patocka, Michel Foucault, and Édouard Glissant. The combination of theoretical and practical approaches, as well as its interdisciplinary scope and novel methodological approach, center this volume as essential reading for those interested in philosophical, literary, and social understandings of death and the afterlife.

Inhalt

Introduction, Kristof K. P. Vanhoutte

1. On Human Extinction: An Ontocentric Perspective, Alberto Giovanni Biuso (University of Catania, Italy) & Sarah Dierna (University of Catania, Italy)
2. Journeys to the Afterlife as Philosophical Thought Experiments: "Have Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here!", Philippe Bürgin (State University of Fine Arts Stuttgart, Germany)
3. Personal and Hermeneutical Reflections of the Afterlife: Who's first? Chicken or Egg?, Marc Calmeyn (Psychiatrist, KU Leuven Campus Kulak Kortrijk, Belgium), Lieke Deveer, M.D., and Carina Dobbelaere (IANDS Flanders-Limen)
4. Bequeathment, Beneficiaries, and the Afterlife: Property Zombies, Michael Cholbi (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
5. "Half-lives" in Late Modernity: Redemption for the Rest of Us, Daniel Conway (Texas A&M University, USA)
6. The Role of the Barzahi Situation in Contemporary Cultural Analysis, Mohammed Mahdi Fallah (Allameh Tabataba'i University, Iran)
7. The Afterlife of Weak Thought: Real-World Politics of Annotation, Michael Grimshaw (University for Canterbury, New Zealand)
8. [on secular views of the afterlife.Title TBD], Patrick Linden (Geneva College of Longevity Science, Switzerland)
9. The Concept of the "Second Death" in Hell: Reflections on Contemporary Fears of Failure, Isolation, and Annihilation, Yannick Marszalek (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
10. Dilthey as a Philosopher of Life and Death: Historical Consciousness as "Being with the Dead":, Christopher Meyers (Fordham University, NY, USA)
11. Jan Patocka and the Phenomenology of Life After Death: How the Dead Persist in the Living, Gustav Strandberg (Södertörn University, Sweden)
12. Death and Experience in Foucault's Oeuvre: Self-transformation and Collective Change, Guilel Treiber (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
13. Correctly Misreading the Afterlife, Kristof K. P. Vanhoutte (University of the Free State, South Africa)
14. The Hauntology of Slavery: Unspeakable Things Unspoken, Nicolas de Warren (Pennsylvania State University, USA)
15. Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Reincarnation: Our Lives with the Dead, J. Jeremy Wisnewksi (Hartwick College, NY, USA)