Death, Ritual and Belief: The Rhetoric of Funerary Rites - Hardcover

Davies, Douglas James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0304338214 ISBN 13: 9780304338214

Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 1997

Synopsis

Describing a variety of funeral ritual, from major world religions and from local traditions, this book shows how cultures cope not only with corpses but also create an added value for living through the growth of afterlife beliefs. The key theme of the book is the rhetoric of death - the way cultures use the most potent weapon of words to bring new power to life. Human identity and its transformation through mortuary rites is explored through the mummies of Chile and Egypt; African sacrificial deaths; Indian cremations; immigrant cemeteries in the USA; ancestor rites in Eastern religions and Mormonism; and the freezing of the dead in cryonics. Research findings are presented on cremation and afterlife beliefs, especially reincarnation, sensing the presence of the dead, and the death of pets in Britain, to show how mortuary rituals are constantly changing in response to death as a major feature of the human environment.

About this title

Review

"Professor Douglas Davies' perceptive and thought-provoking book... provides a rich framework in which to consider the perennial questions of the human response to death. From this book, the fruit of wide-ranging research and reading, it is clear that Professor Davies has established himself as one of the leading writers in an increasingly important field."
Geoffrey Rowell, The Tablet

"This updated and much enlarged book contains fascinating information and discussion about the many, varied issues nestling under the heading of 'death studies'. It would make an excellent textbook." Modern Believing, July 2003

Synopsis

Describing a variety of funeral ritual, from major world religions and from local traditions, this book shows how cultures cope not only with corpses but also create an added value for living through the growth of afterlife beliefs. The key theme of the book is the rhetoric of death - the way cultures use the most potent weapon of words to bring new power to life.

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0304338214
• ISBN 13: 9780304338214
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 216