As a model for processing information about people's perceptions to understand the complex world and society in which they live, the cultural schema serves as a key concept in Cultural Linguistics when directing to the perception and processing of information about people, and social groups, and events. Cultural schema theory is valuable in deciphering culturally structured concepts, covering the entire range of human experience expressed in many fields such as education, belief, religion, etc. Through the practice of sacred rituals, each (...) religious believer can form his system of ideas about entities in his or her belief world. Those experiences and experiences are conceptualized through the language picture. In the process of cultural development and integration, the cultural awareness of the Catholic community also reflects certain changes in Catholicism in the West in harmony with the customs and beliefs of Eastern countries. like Vietnam, expressed through the practice of funeral rites and traditional marriage of the Vietnamese. In this article, by using quantitative and qualitative methods, we have conducted a character analysis of the above cultural schemas based on the corpus of 120 discourses drawn during the implementation perform funeral and marriage rites for Vietnamese Catholics. Research results show that cultural schemas (event diagrams, role schemas, image schemas, propositional schemas, and emotional schemas) reflect the cultural knowledge (beliefs, standards, principles, and expectations) of each Vietnamese Catholic about DEATH and MARRIAGE as a journey or a new transformation in one's life... That is the basis for them to transmit achieve and explain the basic values of these two concepts, helping us to understand more deeply the mind of the Vietnamese Catholic community in Vietnam when performing two important rituals in human life in reality. (shrink)

The centrality of death rituals has in anthropologically informed studies of Buddhism been little documented. The current volume brings together a range of perspectives on Buddhist death rituals including ethnographic, textual, historical and theoretically informed accounts, and presents the diversity of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and China. It arises out of the University of Bristol's Centre for Buddhist Studies research project Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China, funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and (...) Humanities Research Council. This project involved extensive new research in Thailand, Laos and China. Other items from that project included several public exhibitions, extensive stills photographs, and several video films. The project-team produced two 30 minutes films on the ghost festival in Laos and China, one on urban funerals in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and several shorter clips dealing with funeral cultures in Laos, Thailand and China. Most of this material (and an extensive bibliography on the topic) is available free of charge from the project website located at the webpage of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies (Centre for Buddhist Studies) at the University of Bristol. (shrink)

Burial rites are very common among many Africa communities. In the African context, burials are not the end of life but rather the beginning of another life in the land of the ancestors. In spite of the importance of the African funeral rites, the missional role of the church in mourning and the burial of the dead in the African communities, the COVID-19 pandemic led protocols and restrictions placed a huge challenge on the African religious and cultural (...) practices.Contribution: In the light of the above-named challenges, the article discusses the religious-cultural effect of the pandemic with special focus on the African liturgical and missiological challenges in the context of the COVID-19 restrictions on funerals and burial rites. (shrink)

Chez les Ankave-Anga, des agriculteurs forestiers de Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée, les initiations masculines et les cérémonies de secondes funérailles restent des temps forts de la vie collective. L'étude ethnographique de tels rites contemporains d'une société «non-moderne» conduit à nuancer certaines propositions théoriques des abondants travaux récents - cognitivistes ou non - qui tentent de dégager la spécificité des actions rituelles, souvent en marginalisant la signification de ces actions. En particulier, l'opposition entre rite et technique mérite réexamen car elle est fondée (...) sur une vision obsolète des rapports entre techniques, culture et organisation sociale. Chez les Ankave, l'impossibilité de tracer une limite entre mythe, rite et technique souligne au contraire la part des objets et les gestes qui les fabriquent ou les mettent en oeuvre dans la convergence et la redondance de pratiques et de représentations qui donnent leur spécificité aux rituels.In Ankave-Anga, farmers forest of Papua New Guinea, male initiations and ceremonies, funerals remain second moments of collective life. The ethnographic study of such rites contemporary society "non-modern" qualified leads to some theoretical propositions of abundant recent work - cognitive or not - that try to identify the specific ritual actions, often marginalizing the significance of these actions. In particular, the opposition between ritual and technical merit review because it is based on an obsolete vision of the relationship between technology, culture and social organization. In Ankave, unable to draw a line between myth, ritual and draws attention to the technical part of the objects and actions that make or implement the convergence and redundancy practices and representations that give specificity rituals. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Este artigo discute as mudanças e permanências que caracterizam o universo simbólico da morte, especialmente no tocante aos rituais fúnebres. O intuito principal é perceber como esses rituais foram se modificando significativamente na sociedade brasileira das últimas décadas do século XX, principalmente nos centros urbanos. Para tanto, investigamos memórias de idosos com sessenta e cinco anos ou mais, socializados no catolicismo e residentes em Curitiba/PR, colhidas por meio da história oral. (...) Sobreviventes, os velhos pesquisados testemunharam muitas mortes e participaram de inúmeros rituais ao longo de sua existência e, por isso mesmo, podem lembra-los e transmiti-los com propriedade. Por meio de suas vozes, abre-se a possibilidade de entender uma época na qual a morte representava verdadeiro acontecimento social que promovia interação e reforçava os laços de solidariedade. Época que contrasta com a atual, caracterizada pela crescente dessocialização da morte e pela aceleração e simplificação das práticas rituais. Palavras-chave: Morte. Rituais fúnebres. Memórias de velhos.This article aims to discuss the changes and continuities that characterize the symbolic universe of death, particularly with regard to funeral rites. This research also aims to comprehend how these rituals have been modified significantly in Brazilian society over the last decades of the twentieth century, especially in urban centers. In this sense, this paper investigates the memories of people older than 65 years of age, who were socialized in Catholicism and resides in Curitiba – Paraná –Brazil. These memories were collected through oral history. The surveyed people witnessed many deaths and participated in various rituals throughout its existence and, for this reason they can recall these rituals and transmit them properly. Through these elderly people, it is possible to understand a period in which death represented true event that promoted social interaction and strengthened the bonds of solidarity. The period analyzed in this research is opposed to the current time, which is characterized by the increase of the de-socialization of death as well as an acceleration and simplification of ritual practices. Keywords : D eath. Funeral rituals. Od people memories. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die Forschungs- und Regulierungsebene bei datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin liegen auseinander. Ein heterogenes Feld aus regulierenden Institutionen mit regional ungleichen Regelungen, sowohl hinsichtlich der Dichte als auch der Restriktivität von Regelungen, steht einer globalen Entwicklung der Technologien entgegen. Trotz oder gerade wegen mangelnder global-gültiger Regulierungen können auch unverbindliche oder nur bedingt verbindliche normative Vorgaben der Orientierung dienen. Doch wie soll eine solche normative Regulierung angesichts datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin ausgestaltet werden und woran soll sie sich orientieren? Die (...) Frage, wie konkret und detailliert man eine solche Forschung regulieren sollte, lässt sich nur im Einzelfall für bestimmte Situationen und Institutionen beantworten. Ob dabei neue Normen oder Gewichtungen von Normen vorgenommen werden sollen, oder ob die Normen und deren Gewichtung weiterhin bestehen bleiben sollen, lässt sich nur mit Verweis auf starke normative Argumente beantworten. An zwingenden Argumenten für neue Normen angesichts der datenintensiven medizinischen Forschung mangelt es bisher. Dennoch ist eine Umsetzungsarbeit von Normen, egal ob neue oder alte, und deren Anwendung auf eine neue Methode oder Technologie allemal zu erbringen. Es bedarf daher – wie schon bisher – beider: sowohl etablierter und transparent kommunizierter Normen als auch des unabhängigen Urteils zur Anwendung dieser Normen. Angesichts der besonderen Eignung für diese Aufgabe sollten auch weiterhin Ethik-Kommissionen als prozedurale Instanz bei der Bewilligung von datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin gefordert und befähigt werden, die als unabhängige Institution ein Urteil im Einzelfall anhand vorgegebener Normen fällen. Nichtsdestotrotz können sich die veränderten Praktiken datenintensiver Forschungsprojekte auch in neuen Anforderungen an Ethik-Kommissionen niederschlagen, denen mit Reformen der Arbeitsweise begegnet werden sollte. (shrink)

The initial successes in recent years in harnessing machine learning technologies to improve medical practice and benefit patients have attracted attention in a wide range of healthcare fields. Particularly, it should be achieved by providing automated decision recommendations to the treating clinician. Some hopes placed in such ML-based systems for healthcare, however, seem to be unwarranted, at least partially because of their inherent lack of transparency, although their results seem convincing in accuracy and reliability. Skepticism arises when the physician as (...) the agent responsible for the implementation of diagnosis, therapy, and care is unable to access the generation of findings and recommendations. There is widespread agreement that, generally, a complete traceability is preferable to opaque recommendations; however, there are differences about addressing ML-based systems whose functioning seems to remain opaque to some degree—even if so-called explicable or interpretable systems gain increasing amounts of interest. This essay approaches the epistemic foundations of ML-generated information specifically and medical knowledge generally to advocate differentiations of decision-making situations in clinical contexts regarding their necessary depth of insight into the process of information generation. Empirically accurate or reliable outcomes are sufficient for some decision situations in healthcare, whereas other clinical decisions require extensive insight into ML-generated outcomes because of their inherently normative implications. (shrink)

Developments in Machine Learning (ML) have attracted attention in a wide range of healthcare fields to improve medical practice and the benefit of patients. Particularly, this should be achieved by providing more or less automated decision recommendations to the treating physician. However, some hopes placed in ML for healthcare seem to be disappointed, at least in part, by a lack of transparency or traceability. Skepticism exists primarily in the fact that the physician, as the person responsible for diagnosis, therapy, and (...) care, has no or insufficient insight into how such recommendations are reached. The following paper aims to make understandable the specificity of the deliberative model of a physician-patient relationship that has been achieved over decades. By outlining the (social-)epistemic and inherently normative relationship between physicians and patients, I want to show how this relationship might be altered by non-traceable ML recommendations. With respect to some healthcare decisions, such changes in deliberative practice may create normatively far-reaching challenges. Therefore, in the future, a differentiation of decision-making situations in healthcare with respect to the necessary depth of insight into the process of outcome generation seems essential. (shrink)

Inequities shape the everyday experiences and life chances of individuals at the margins of societies and are often associated with lower health and particular challenges in accessing quality treatment and support. This fact is even more dramatic for those individuals who live at the nexus of different marginalized groups and thus may face multiple discrimination, stigma, and oppression. To address these multiple social and structural disadvantages, intersectional approaches have recently gained a foothold, especially in the public health field. This study (...) makes an empirically informed argument for the merits of increasing the use of intersectional frameworks in the mental health field. In the mental health field, the potential for greater attention to multiple unjustified disadvantages appears to be of particular importance, as many mental health service users already face stigma and discrimination because of their mental health issues and thus may benefit particularly frequently and far-reachingly from effective problem awareness about multiple disadvantages. Intersectional approaches may help address the complexity, interdependence, and mutual constitution of social inequalities better than previous approaches that examined only one category of sociostructural stratification. By helping to identify the needs of those at the greatest risk of poor health, intersectional frameworks and tools can contribute not only to better address the needs of multiple disadvantaged individuals with mental health issues but also to the promotion of equity in the field of mental health, contributing to the reduction of health disparities. (shrink)

Machine learning-driven clinical decision support systems (ML-CDSSs) seem impressively promising for future routine and emergency care. However, reflection on their clinical implementation reveals a wide array of ethical challenges. The preferences, concerns and expectations of professional stakeholders remain largely unexplored. Empirical research, however, may help to clarify the conceptual debate and its aspects in terms of their relevance for clinical practice. This study explores, from an ethical point of view, future healthcare professionals’ attitudes to potential changes of responsibility and decision-making (...) authority when using ML-CDSS. Twenty-seven semistructured interviews were conducted with German medical students and nursing trainees. The data were analysed based on qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz. Interviewees’ reflections are presented under three themes the interviewees describe as closely related: (self-)attribution of responsibility, decision-making authority and need of (professional) experience. The results illustrate the conceptual interconnectedness of professional responsibility and its structural and epistemic preconditions to be able to fulfil clinicians’ responsibility in a meaningful manner. The study also sheds light on the four relata of responsibility understood as a relational concept. The article closes with concrete suggestions for the ethically sound clinical implementation of ML-CDSS. (shrink)

Definition of the problemHealth Apps are becoming increasingly important for a preventive and responsible orientation of the health system. Currently, most of these digital health applications (DiGA) are based on so-called self-tracking technologies which record physiological and psychological data via sensors, usually combined with personalized everyday information. In the last few years, these digital developments have launched an intense and clearly polarized debate about the opportunities and dangers of self-tracking in healthcare.ArgumentsAfter a brief overview of medical self-tracking, this essay wants (...) to systematize and check the polarized discourse on the basis of its decisive individual and social potentials. It turns out that self-measurement techniques have long been an integral part of medical practice in diagnostics and therapy.ConclusionThe area of tension between individual empowerment and potential loss of control by the users will be emphasized as being especially important for the implementation of health Apps in primary health care. Finally, possible implications for the current design of the new German Digital Care Law (Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz) are shown and some existing “blind spots” are highlighted. (shrink)

Zunehmend gewinnen Health Apps an Bedeutung für eine präventive und eigenverantwortliche Ausrichtung des Gesundheitssystems. Die meisten dieser digitalen Gesundheitsanwendungen basieren derzeit auf sog. Selftracking-Technologien, mit deren Hilfe physiologische und psychische Daten sensorgestützt aufgezeichnet und diese zumeist um personalisierte Alltagsinformationen ergänzt werden. Die digitalen Entwicklungen dieser Art lösten in den letzten Jahren eine intensive und deutlich polarisierte Debatte über die Chancen und Gefahren von gesundheitlichem Selftracking aus. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, nach einem kurzen Überblick über das Feld des medizinischen Selftracking (...) den polarisierten Diskurs zunächst anhand seiner entscheidenden individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Potenziale zu systematisieren und zu prüfen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Selbstvermessungstechniken keineswegs ein neues Phänomen, sondern vielmehr seit langem fester Bestandteil medizinischen Wirkens in Diagnostik und Therapie sind. Als für die Implementierung von Health Apps in die medizinische Regelversorgung besonders bedeutend wird das Spannungsfeld zwischen individuellem Empowerment und potentiellem Kontrollverlust der Nutzenden herausgestellt. Abschließend werden mögliche Implikationen für die aktuelle Ausgestaltung des neuen Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetzes aufgezeigt und auf einige bestehende „blinde Flecken“ hingewiesen. (shrink)

Giorgia Pozzi’s feature article1 on the risks of testimonial injustice when using automated prediction drug monitoring programmes (PDMPs) turns the spotlight on a pressing and well-known clinical problem: physicians’ challenges to predict patient behaviour, so that treatment decisions can be made based on this information, despite any fallibility. Currently, as one possible way to improve prognostic assessments of patient behaviour, Machine Learning-driven clinical decision support systems (ML-CDSS) are being developed and deployed. To make her point, Pozzi discusses ML-CDSSs that are (...) supposed to deliver physicians an accurate estimation of the likelihood of narcotic, sedative and stimulant opioid misuse by a given patient (like, e.g., ‘NarxCare’). Regarding cases of deviating assessment between human evaluators and automated systems, the medico-ethical discussion has so far mainly focused on disagreement between clinicians and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms,2 for example in ‘second opinions’ that have been reconstructed as disagreements between physician testimony and ML-CDSS testimony.3 Examples such as those of PDMPs, by contrast, draw attention to situations in which patient testimony potentially contradicts ML-CDSS testimony. Pozzi examines decision-making situations in which ML-CDSS testimony factually overrides the testimony of the person affected. Thus, in the presented case of patient Kathryn, the testimony of her own physical and mental condition was insufficient to overturn the unfavourable outcome for …. (shrink)

François Dagognet et Tobie Nathan ont décidé de travailler ensemble sur le problème de la mort car il leur semblait que les textes actuellement disponibles étaient insuffisants : le deuil était renvoyé à une question psychologique, à la souffrance psychique. Or, François Dagognet et Tobie Nathan ont un point de départ qui leur est commun : l'importance accordée aux objets. Pour Tobie Nathan, si l'on veut comprendre les problèmes posés à des personnes par un deuil, il faut regarder comment on (...) a traité le corps et les biens qui appartenaient au défunt : voilà le notaire dans la situation du psychothérapeute! Pour François Dagognet, il faut d'abord analyser les pratiques funéraires puisque la mort est avant tout un phénomène social et humain total, plus encore qu'un instant décisif de la vitalité qui se termine. François Dagognet et Tobie Nathan ont écrit de manière alternative, se répondant et argumentant tout au long des chapitres de ce livre. (shrink)

昨今、死にまつわる問題、とりわけ葬儀についての関心が高く、経済誌などでも特集記事が組まれるほどである。そのようななか、本書では、現代における死生観を問い直し、多様化する葬送儀礼のあり方をめぐって学際的 に検討する。.

While the linguistic influence of India’s indigenous languages on the Indo- Aryan language is well understood, the cultural impact of the autochthonous Munda, Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman speaking peoples is much harder to evaluate, due to the lack of indigenous coeval records, and later historicization of the Buddha’s life and teachings. Nevertheless, there are cultural remnants of the indigenous belief systems discoverable in the Buddhist scriptures. In this article we examine 1) The longstanding hostility between the IA immigrants and the eastern (...) ethnic groups, especially the Buddha’s Sakya clan. 2) The Sakyas’ socio-political organization, religious and cultural values which differ significantly from those of the immigrants. 3) The concept of the Mah?puru?a which was likely an historicization of an indigenous Indian belief. 4) Indigenous belief structures like serpent- and tree-worship and the culture of sacred groves, and 5) Indigenous funeral rites in the story of the Buddha’s parinibb?na. (shrink)

From our first social bonding as infants to the funeral rites that mark our passing, music plays an important role in our lives, bringing us closer to one another. In _The Music between Us_, philosopher Kathleen Marie Higgins investigates this role, examining the features of human perception that enable music’s uncanny ability to provoke, despite its myriad forms across continents and throughout centuries, the sense of a shared human experience. Drawing on disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, musicology, linguistics, (...) and anthropology, Higgins’s richly researched study showcases the ways music is used in rituals, education, work, healing, and as a source of security and—perhaps most importantly—joy. By participating so integrally in such meaningful facets of society, Higgins argues, music situates itself as one of the most fundamental bridges between people, a truly cross-cultural form of communication that can create solidarity across political divides. Moving beyond the well-worn takes on music’s universality, _The Music between Us_ provides a new understanding of what it means to be musical and, in turn, human. (shrink)

Our article aims to analyze the different stages of the Fang culture, particularly the one of Equatorial Guinea in order to know the current situation of the aforementioned culture. It should be said that the Fang is a social group, an ethnic group that belongs to the Bantu trunk. These Fangs developed their culture from an original perspective; that is to say in a raw state before they made contact with Westerners. Culture is a concept that has gone through many (...) studies, hence it has a variety of definitions. According to the dictionary of the Spanish language of the Royal Academy, culture is the set of ways of life and customs, knowledge and degree of artistic, scientific, industrial development, in a time, of a social group. It is estimated that the term culture carries with it what is identity, and precisely a culture’s identity. Thus, no culture can develop outside a society. With respect to our reference, which is the Fang culture of Equatorial Guinea, it can be said that a cultural profile has been developed and it is measured through cultural elements and manifestations such as dances, beliefs, art, religion, language, myths, funeral rites, etc. they all constitute a rich knowledge from a raw state. Thanks to this research we are going to look chronologically at the stages of the said culture from its original stage reaching colonization to the end with decolonization. The impact that Western culture has had on Fang culture is analyzed from another angle. In accordance with the general objective that consists of studying the Fang culture. Well, it can be seen that the contact with Western culture has greatly adulterated the Fang culture, and today, with the processes of globalization, it is fading even more. As it is a research that addresses a sociocultural issue such as the current situation of the fang culture, we have found it necessary to adopt a qualitative methodology. Well, the reasons that have led us to take this methodology are due to the fact that said methodology consists of the study of social relations. (shrink)

Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Cambodia, Erik W. Davis radically recasts attitudes toward the nature of Southeast Asian Buddhism's interactions with local religious practice and, by extension, reorients our understanding of Buddhism itself. Through a vivid study of contemporary Cambodian Buddhist funeral rites, he reveals the powerfully integrative role monks play as they care for the dead and negotiate the interplay of non-Buddhist spirits and formal Buddhist customs. Buddhist monks perform funeral rituals rooted in the embodied (...) practices of Khmer rice farmers and the social hierarchies of Khmer culture. The monks' realization of death underwrites key components of the Cambodian social imagination: the distinction between wild death and celibate life, the forest and the field, and moral and immoral forms of power. By connecting the performative aspects of Buddhist death rituals to Cambodian history and everyday life, Davis undermines the theory that elite Buddhist monks universally oppose rural belief systems. Instead, he shows Cambodian Buddhism to be a robust tradition with ethical and popular components extending throughout Khmer society. (shrink)

Of all the explanations of this line the most sensible seems to be that first proposed by Beroaldus: ‘Conqueritur Cynthia sibi defunctae tegulam fractam mutilatamque sub capite fuisse suppositam, quum debuerit amator puluinos molles delicatosque subiicere.’ That Cynthia is talking about the performance of funeral rites is confirmed by Shackleton Bailey's discussion of 1.25 , 28 f.). In default of ancient parallels, I offer a modern one. In the last wishes of the Princess Teresa Uzeda in the novel (...) I viceré by Federico De Roberto, first published in 1894, is included the provision. (shrink)

The image of dead person returning to life was the most ancient source of irrational fear appeared in culture. This conclusion is argued with empirical data from archeology and ethnography. Fear has been expressed in funeral rites, the tying of extremities, burning and dismemberment of dead bodies, and ritual cannibalism etc. At the same time, it was attended by effective care for helpless cripples, which seems to descend to the Lower Paleolithic as well. Dread of posthumous revenge played (...) a decisive regulative role at the earliest stage of anthropogenesis, as the disparity between artificial weapons and natural aggression-retention mechanisms became self-destructive. In the new conditions, individuals with normal animal mind were doomed to catastrophe. Those hominid groups proved viable, in which mystical fear, a product of unnaturally developed imagination, bounded lethal conflicts among kinsmen. The phobias corresponded to the psycho-nervous system's “strategic pathology”; that was a condition for early hominids’ self-preservation. As a result, a causal connection between instrumental potential, cultural regulation quality and social sustainability was formed, which has been a mechanism of social selection for all of human history and prehistory. (shrink)

When Andromache emerges from the inner chamber in Book 22, ascends the walls of Troy and looks out over the plain, she beholds a spectacle of ruthless brutality. She who has not been aware of the final combat, nor of the slaying of her husband, is suddenly confronted by the receding trail of utter defeat. Swift horses drag her husband's corpse into the distance, the cherished head disfigured as it is dragged, raking the dust of what was once their homeland. (...) The violence of the scene is forcefully conveyed by one word in particular. The swift horses drag Hektor κηδστως —without κδος without care, ‘sans soucier de, brutalement’. In itself the word κηδστως provides a definition of violence, one captured in Shakespeare's phrase ‘careless force’. Violence is, in its harsh brutality, specifically heedlessness, an absence of any form of care. When Achilles hurls the slain suppliant Lykaon into the river he utters the taunt, ‘the fish, κηδες, will lick clean your wound's blood’ . The discarded corpse is denied funeral rites: in place of the care that the relations of the dead traditionally bestow in tending, washing, enshrouding, lamenting, and burying the dead, here the heedless creatures of nature, fleeting visitors, will attend to the corpse, ‘clean’ it, but utterly without care, completely oblivious to the oblivion they create by destroying. In Book 24 Achilles will describe the gods themselves as κηδες. (shrink)

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, healthcare professionals around the world were driven by universal values of solidarity and duty to provide care. However, local societal norms and existing healthcare systems influenced interactions among physicians, and with patients and their families. An exploratory qualitative study design using in‐depth interviews was undertaken with physicians working at two public sector hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. Using the constant comparison method of data analysis, several key themes were identified highlighting norms of kinship and interdependencies characteristic of (...) collectivistic societies that influenced professional interactions. The role of seniors in the hierarchical society of Pakistan played a major role in provision of care. Physicians reported numerous challenges in dealing with patients and their families amidst public denial fueled due to ill‐formed government policies. This included interruption of funeral rites which undermined public trust. The study provides insights into the local moral world of two healthcare institutions in Pakistan. (shrink)

Hegel thought Sophocles' Antigone was the finest tragedy, and he put drama atop his hierarchy of the arts, precisely at the point where his system transitions from aesthetics to the philosophy of religion. Hegel concluded his Aesthetics by writing, "Of all the masterpieces of the classical and modern world, the Antigone seems to me to be the most magnificent and satisfying work of art."1The Antigone owes its place in Hegel's hierarchy to its focus on Antigone's uncanny self-certainty. Positioned at the (...) juncture between Hegel's aesthetics and his philosophy of religion, it has at its centre a funeral rite, the most ancient and universal of all religious rituals. Antigone's perception of what she is called upon to .. (shrink)

Many people still believe in life after death, but modern institutions operate as though this were the only world - eternity is now eclipsed from view in society and even in the church. This book carefully observes the eclipse - what caused it, how full is it, what are its consequences, will it last? How significant is recent interest in near-death experiences and reincarnation?

No nation can exist without its own religious cults and traditions. The practical absence of records of the presence of pagan priests in our ancestors, the bearers of knowledge, beliefs and rituals, testifies only to the careful deliberate destruction of important aspects of national history. Some pages in the history of the Eastern Slavs are simply crossed out from the chronicles and replaced by pious stories in line with Byzantine hagiography. An example in this regard is the description of the (...) baptism of Kiev under Prince Vladimir, which obviously had nothing to do with the real events. The pagan rites and traditions in the annals were changed beyond recognition and took the form of fairy tales and legends. Very interesting in this regard are the descriptions of the funeral rites related to the death of Prince Igor, which were transformed by the chronicler Nestor into the legend "On the revenge of Princess Olga Derevlyany". Even the term "priest" in ancient Slavic sources was replaced by the word "magician" or "old man". Because of all these facts, a fairly authoritative hypothesis has emerged in national historical science, according to which the Eastern Slavs did not have any "pagan priests" at all. (shrink)

Periods of transition are often symbolically associated with death, making the latter the paradigm of liminality. Yet, many volumes on death in the social sciences and humanities do not specifically address liminality. This book investigates these "ultimate ambiguities," assuming they can pose a threat to social relationships because of the disintegrating forces of death, but they are also crucial periods of creativity, change, and emergent aspects of social and religious life. Contributors explore death and liminality from an interdisciplinary perspective and (...) present a global range of historical and contemporary case studies outlining emotional, cognitive, artistic, social, and political implications. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Un éclairage moderne et complet, médical et culturel, sur la place que l'on fait à la mort aujourd'hui. Les auteurs se sont employés à étudier un paradoxe qui caractérise l'évolution de notre comportement en société vis-à-vis de la mort: c'est à l'hôpital dans un environnement technique et médicalisé que l'on meurt aujourd'hui le plus souvent. Parallèlement, le progrès scientifique fait reculer l'échéance du trépas mais cet éloignement des différents aspects traditionnels qu'à longtemps revêtue la mort entraîne aussi des changements involontaires (...) sur le sens que nous donnons à la vie. L'un médecin légiste préoccupé de questions sociales, l'autre philosophe préoccupé de questions éthiques mais tous deux impliqués dans la prévention du suicide au sein de l'Union nationale de prévention du suicide, les auteurs ont réuni leurs compétences pour traiter le sujet sous le double éclairage de la science et de la philosophie. (shrink)