. This article offers a comprehensive comparison of the funeral rites that Aischylos has Klytaimestra perform for Agamemnon in the Oresteia with historically customary, and so normative, rites as reconstructed for the classical period from extant historical sources. I examine the extent to which Aischylos manipulates traditional funeral rites in order to demonstrate the health of an oikos; I argue that Klytaimestra performs corrupt funeral rites as an indication of the unhealthy and illegitimate (...) household she now heads, whereas Orestes and Elektra perform customary rites as proof of their allegiance to the healthy and thus legitimate oikos of their father. (shrink)

이 글은 『의례』에 보이는 상례 관련 내용을 선진 제자서의 내용과 비교한 것이다. 고대 상례에 관련된 가장 직접적이고 체계적인 문헌은 『의례』이다. 이것은 내용상에서 『좌씨전』, 『묵자』, 『순자』 등의 선진 제자서에 반영된 것도 있고 반면에 상호 어긋나는 내용도 있다. 이러한 상황이 발생한 이유는 고대의 『의례』를 비롯한 예경(禮經)이 성립되는 과정에서 일부 내용이 이미 제자서에 반영되기도 하고, 반대로 제자서의 내용이 후대 유가에 의해 예경에 편입되었기 때문이라고 생각된다. 우선 『의례』 상복 편의 기본 내용은 선진 제자서에 대체로 반영되어 있고 공통적인 내용이 많다. 대표적으로 부모와 군주를 위한 삼년상은 (...) 유가에서 공통적으로 선양한 것이다. 비록 묵가에서 유가의 후장구상(厚葬久喪)에 대해 반대하지만, 『의례』의 상복제도는 적어도 춘추시기에 이르기까지 사람들의 보편적 인식이었다고 할 수 있다. 또한 『의례』와 제자서에 반영된 내용에서 공통적으로 복상(服喪) 대상이 성인인가의 여부에 따라 상복에 차이를 두고 있음을 확인할 수 있다. 한편 선진 제자서에 반영된 상례 관련 내용은 『의례』의 규정과 다른 주장도 많다. 특히 제자서에 반영된 부모를 위한 상복은 『의례』의 규정과는 달리 사회적 지위의 다름에 따라 차이가 있음을 보여준다. 또한 부모와 군주를 위한 상복제도와는 달리 아내와 첩을 위한 제도는 『의례』의 규정과 다른 내용이 많이 보인다. 현행본 『의례』 「상복」 편에 나열된 규정은 복상 주체와 대상의 신분에 따라 상복과 상기를 달리하기 때문에 당시에는 물론 역사적으로도 엄밀하게 시행되기 어려웠을 것으로 생각된다. 특히 “친친”의 부자관계에 기초해서 자식을 위한 상례는 비교적 분명하고, 군주와 부모를 위한 상례는 명확히 규정되고 강조된 반면에 신하와 아내를 위한 상례는 규정이 없거나 모호한 경우가 많다. 따라서 “삼강”(三綱)이라는 용어가 한대(漢代) 정치윤리 이념을 반영한 동중서(董仲舒)의 『춘추번로』(春秋繁露)에 처음 보이는 것이지만, 내용상으로는 이미 『의례』에 반영된 것이라 보아도 무방할 것이다. (shrink)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Impersonating the Dead:Mimes at Roman FuneralsGeoffrey S. SumiRoman aristocratic and imperial funerals often had a theatrical quality to them. We are told of the presence of musicians and dancing satyrs as part of the procession (pompa) and the excessive, even feigned grief, on the part of mourners, some of whom were professionals.1 Most striking of all was the performance of an actor (a "funerary mime") who donned a mask (...) that portrayed the likeness of the deceased and wore clothing that represented the highest offices and honors that the deceased had achieved. While dressed in this manner, the actor impersonated the deceased, imitating, and sometimes mocking, his well-known physical characteristics and movements and his words.2 To our modern sensibilities such a custom might seem odd, but a recent commentator on Roman aristocratic funerals has pointed out how the tone of a single funeral celebration ranged from "the patriotic and somber, to sad, to joyous and festive."3 The performance of this funerary mime, in which the dead momentarily came back to life in vivid form, apparently could reflect the full range of emotions on display at a Roman funeral. Despite recent studies on the Roman funeral, we still lack an analysis of the funerary mime that draws together all of the ancient evidence. Such an [End Page 559] analysis can shed light, as I hope to show, not only on the nature of the actor's performance, but also on what this performance might mean for our understanding of Roman funerals, both under the Republic and the Empire. Further light can be shed on the custom of the funerary mime by using Bakhtin's model of carnival as a way of demonstrating how in Rome certain carnivalesque elements could be interwoven into otherwise serious and even somber public events.4The first source that describes the practice of the funerary mime most explicitly is a passage of Diodorus, quoted by Photius, which is taken from his discussion of the funeral of L. Aemilius Paullus, the famous conqueror of Perseus who died in 160 B.C.:(Diod. 31.25.2)5Those Romans who by reason of noble birth and the fame of their ancestors are pre-eminent are, when they die, portrayed in figures that are not only lifelike as to features but show their whole bodily appearance. For they employ actors who through a man's whole life have carefully observed his carriage and the several peculiarities of his appearance. In like fashion each of the dead man's ancestors takes his place in the funeral procession, with such robes and insignia as enable the spectators to distinguish from the portrayal how far each had advanced in the cursus honorum and had had a part in the dignities of the state.(Loeb trans.)In this passage, Diodorus describes not only the use of masks to portray the facial features of the deceased, but also the employment of [End Page 560] actors () to play the role of the deceased at the funeral. The word can simply mean "imitator" in general terms, one who pretends to be someone or something else, but it can be used specifically of actors.6 Diodorus goes on to explain that this, during the lifetime of the deceased, observed the gait or carriage () of the deceased and "the several peculiarities of his appearance" (). The result of this "lifetime" of observation was that the actor could perform these traits faithfully at his subject's funeral. The translation of as "the several peculiarities of his appearance" renders into English the ambiguities of the Greek without making clear precisely what is meant. By this phrase, Diodorus must mean gestures or other physical movements, since it should refer to something, such as gait or carriage with which it is paired, that actors could observe, imitate, and then perform for a large audience. By the same token, it is unlikely that this phrase refers either to distinguishing physical characteristics, such as facial features or expressions, since these would have been depicted by the mask itself, or, for that matter, to physical blemishes of the body, such as scars, which would have been concealed by the dress... (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)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.3 (2000) 423-452 [Access article in PDF] The Mourning After: Statius Thebaid 12 Victoria E. Pagán Wie er auf dem letzten Hügel, der ihm ganz sein Tal noch einmal zeigt, sich wendet, anhält, weilt--, so leben wir und nehmen immer Abschied. As he, on the last hill, which shows him his valley one last time, turns back, stops, lingers--, so we live and ever take (...) our leave. --Rilke, Eighth ElegyRecent, fruitful readings of the end of the Thebaid have come a long way toward identifying the political import of the arrival of Theseus and the laments of the Theban women, although consensus remains in the distance. 1 Some scholars have tried to resolve the difficulties posed by the oft-disparaged "superfluous" book 12 by examining Statius' resolution of the Theban epic against the backdrop of the endings of the Iliad or the Aeneid, for instance, thus bringing us closer to understanding the dilemma encountered when a poet does (or does not) reach the end of an epic. 2 Both the political and the literary-historical approaches to the problem, however, still fail to convince opponents that the poem does or does not end conclusively. Valid arguments accrue on both sides, and the mosaic of interpretations itself recreates the stunning effect produced in book 12.For present purposes I accept Braund's argument that the Thebaid ends, and that it ends several times over, and that the repeated gestures toward closure do not undermine but reinforce its ultimate termination. The last ten lines of book 12 (especially 816-17) display an [End Page 423] unease with the poem's status vis-à-vis the Aeneid and an apprehension at simply letting go, despite the need. But the sphragis, when considered in the context of what I call an "aftermath narrative," or the description which follows a battle, reveals more. The aftermath of a battle affects a community, and this highly emotional reaction is captured in narrative. Because aftermath narratives are present in different works of Latin literature, comparison allows a pattern to emerge. Once we identify the elements of this rhetorical commonplace, 3 we can observe the way Statius uses it and adapts it to his needs in book 12. With a better understanding of the phenomenon of aftermath, it is possible to appreciate the apprehension, as well as the finality, that accompanies the end of the epic.More specifically, the term "aftermath narrative" refers to the picture of a battlefield strewn with decaying corpses, weapons, horses, helmets, and debris. The field is inspected in broad daylight, usually on the morning after the battle, by the living, either the victorious generals or, less specifically, the survivors whose concern it is to bury the dead. 4 Thus the reader sees the aftermath through the eyes of those who return to the battlefield. This inspection is an intermediate step between the destruction of war and the funeral rites. Paradoxically, war gives the soldier an opportunity to earn laus and gloria and so to reaffirm the fame of his ancestors and enhance the fame of his progeny. 5 But in his death he also becomes a burden of responsibility to his kin. 6 His corpse is a polluted thing which must be purified by the act of burial. Thus aftermath is part of the transition from the violent disruption of war to the settlement of the dispute and a return to a state of equilibrium. A scene of aftermath necessarily looks backward and recreates the battle in the mind's eye, but it also looks forward to the more permanent results for the winners and the losers of the battle, and ultimately, of the [End Page 424] war. Thus when represented in literature, an aftermath narrative affords an author the opportunity to explore the intertwining nexus of past, present, and future. The survey of aftermath is the means by which those who have experienced the trauma of war come to terms with devastating loss and brutal destruction in their very midst.An author also experiences a sort of aftermath. For... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scamander and the Rivers of Hades in HomerC. J. MackieAt odyssey 10.488–95, in response to Odysseus' request that he and his men leave her island, Circe states that they must venture to Hades to consult with the Theban seer Teiresias. She gives Odysseus some basic instructions on how to get there and what to do there (10.504–40): he should cross Ocean and beach his ship where there is a (...) remote coastline and a grove of Persephone. He should then go himself to the house of Hades, where he should dig a pit and pour a libation. The location of Hades in the passage is further identified as a meeting point of four separate rivers: Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, Cocytus, and Styx:(10.513–15)There into Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of Styx, and there is a rock, and the junction of the two resounding rivers.The presence of a river, or a prominent body of water, characterizes the topography of the Underworld in many traditions, and Homer's Hades is no exception. Even though the Underworld in Homer is not really very clearly defined (indeed in Odyssey 10 and 11 it is scarcely "under" at all), one can at least say that rivers and gates are typical features of its landscape. Thus in the Iliad when Patroclus' apparition complains about Achilles' tardiness in conducting a funeral for him, it is specifically gates, 74) and a river (, 73) that he mentions as characteristics of Hades.1 Equally noteworthy is that no name for the river is given by Patroclus, which makes this Odyssey reference to four specific rivers (plus Oceanus) rather striking;2 for such a well–defined topography appears to conflict with the otherwise vague descriptions of Hades in Homer. In the Iliad the only named river in the Underworld is the Styx (2.755,3 8.369, 14.271, 15.37), with no reference to the other three. Likewise in the Odyssey Styx is referred to elsewhere (as the river that gods swear by, Od. = 5.184–86 Il. 15.36–38), but there is no other mention of Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, or Cocytus. Most important, there is no reference to any of these rivers when Odysseus actually conducts his quest to Hades (Odyssey 11), nor in the Second Nekuia of the Odyssey (24.1–204).4 Thus here in Odyssey 10 there seems to be a sudden proliferation of clearly defined rivers: "the rivers have multiplied: Okeanos comes in and so do Pyriphlegethon and Kokytos as well as Styx, and also Acheron."5In response to the apparent suddenness of four Underworld rivers, and the fact that Hesiod seems to know only Styx (Theog. 383, 389–403, 775–806), questions inevitably emerge about the authenticity of the passage. Merry and Riddell in their 1886 edition of the Odyssey felt that such a precise geography was out of keeping with early notions of Hades and that the passage may therefore be a later intrusion. Likewise, more recently, Vermeule raises the question whether it is "possible that these lines have been retrojected into the Odyssey text, in the late sixth or early fifth century."6 The question is not very easily resolved, because even later post–Homeric literature continues to allude [End Page 486] only in a very basic fashion to the Underworld rivers, rather than providing any expansive vision of them.7 Thus it is difficult to be precise about when, and by what process, the individual Underworld rivers enter into Greek perceptions of the afterlife. The names of the rivers (especially Cocytus, from, the verb used in Homer for the high– pitched wail of female mourners) seem to be connected with the pain and suffering associated with death, the funeral rites, and the process of cremation.8 In this sense there is an association with the transition from life to death, and it is appropriate in this context that Odysseus is told that he will meet these rivers on the way to Hades. At some point, however, Acheron, Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon (in addition to Styx, which is indisputably very early) became fundamental landmarks of Hades itself, and... (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)

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)

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。.

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)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliadby Lorenzo F. GarciaJonas GrethleinL orenzoF. G arcia. Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies 57. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2013. Distributed by Harvard University Press. viii + 321 pp. Paper, $22.50.The philosophy of Heidegger continues to cast a spell on some Classicists. It is less Heidegger’s own interpretations of Greek authors that serve as stimulus than the (...) main work of his early career, Sein und Zeit(Halle 1927), that seems to invite applications to ancient texts. Reading such studies as Shanske’s Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of History(Cambridge 2007), I keep wondering to what extent the attractiveness of Heidegger to some Classicists ultimately derives from the impact that ancient texts may have had on the formation of his philosophy. Attending a humanistisches Gymnasium, Heidegger received a thorough training in Greek and must have read a fair amount of ancient texts in the original. Besides tying in with the existentialism of his day, the gloomy nature of Heidegger’s philosophy is highly reminiscent of what is traditionally referred to as Greek pessimism. It is easy, for instance, to sense in the concept of “ Sein zum Tode” an echo of the sentiment of the Herodotean Solon that “we must look to the conclusion of every matter and see how it will end” (Hdt. 1.32.9). The common tenor notwithstanding, applying Heidegger’s philosophy of Being to the interpretation of ancient literature is a daunting task.In Homeric Durability: Telling Time in the Iliad, Garcia draws on Heidegger to show that “the subject of the Iliad... is time itself and the durability of its objects to withstand time’s withering flow” (5). Garcia claims that the tenet of Heidegger’s philosophy of time plays out in the Iliadat various levels. For Heidegger, Daseinis defined by death, which is always impending and thereby constitutes its totality. Daseinis essentially Sein zum Tode(“being-toward-death”). This, Garcia argues, is reflected in the temporal economy of the Iliadwhich hinges on the notion of “not yet” already encapsulating a “no longer.” Various physical objects, humans, and, to some extent, also gods are presented as enduring, but fated to fade. Garcia’s central argument is that they thereby reflect the temporal dynamics of epic poetry itself. To him, kleos aphthitondoes not imply the idea of eternity, but a duration that entails its own ending. Before discussing the soundness of this argument in conjunction with its deployment of Heidegger, let me give a brief synopsis of the individual chapters.In chapter 1, Garcia elaborates on “the rhetoric of time and memory”; while “time has disintegrating effects..., memory in a pure or ideal form, on the other hand, preserves its object against time” (45). This dialectic comes to the fore in Iliad2 where the rotting of the ships and the flagging morale of the [End Page 481]Greeks indicate the “loss of cohesion through waiting” (55). At the same time, Garcia claims, Odysseus’ intervention illustrates the power of memory. Odysseus reminds the Achaeans of Calchas’ prophecy which he remembers as if “it was either yesterday or the day before” and “thereby seeks to undo the disintegration of the Achaeans’ emotional resolve” (63). The tension between the decaying force of time and the attempt at recuperation through memory yields the framework for the investigation of various entities and their temporal dynamics in the main part of the book.The second chapter is devoted to the fate of the bodies of Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector. In the eyes of Garcia, “the preservation of these exquisite corpses serves as an analogue within the poem for the very project of the epic commemoration of Achilles—as if the epic were a ‘freezing’ of temporal flow against the ravages of time” (66). However, neither the application of ambrosia and nectar nor funeral rites achieve permanent preservation: bodies can be removed from time only temporarily. They are subject to “the logic of the ‘still perfectly’ and ‘not yet’” (94) and thereby mirror the fame of Achilles which, despite its longevity, carries its termination in itself.In chapter... (shrink)

In Brazil, the health emergency unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic must be understood in the context of the government administration of the former president, Jair Bolsonaro. The new coronavirus was turned into a war machine, something already seen in other moments of the history of indigenous peoples, when epidemics were strategically used to promote indigenous genocide and usurp their territories. The Sanöma, a subgroup of the Yanomami language family, assert that Covid-19 did not leave individualized traces of ‘sequelae’ but made (...) itself felt in the deaths that could not undergo the traditional funeral rites due to the sanitary measures, generating a cosmological and existential tension for the collective as a whole. It was also felt in the invasion of their lands by thousands of miners who brought violence and malaria to the communities, debilitating their food sovereignty, and in the dismantling of public health services in the indigenous land. Time was suspended, and the infection continued with the accompanying violation of rights, with a divergent understanding of who is recovered or who is healthy. This article is the result of a Covid-19 research project conducted in partnership with the Sanöma leaders. Based on reports from the Sanöma themselves, reports about the Yanomami and the government of former President Bolsonaro, interviews with indigenous leaders in newspapers and reports produced by indigenous organizations and their supporters, a set of information about Covid-19 among indigenous peoples and violations of human rights among the Sanöma people were systematized and analyzed and now make up this article. (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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:GenetGerald PrinceGenet, by Edmund White (with a chronology by Albert Dichy); xliii & 820 pp. London: Picador, 1994, $29.95 paper.Abandoned to a foundling home in 1910 at the age of seven months, he started to steal before puberty, spent over two years as a teenager in the penal colony of Mettray, signed up with the French army for several tours of duty, and deserted. He traveled through Europe (...) and was arrested in Albania, Yugoslavia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland. He was also repeatedly arrested and sent to jail in France—for embezzlement, for petty theft, for vagrancy—and his record of convictions made him liable for a life sentence until he was pardoned by the President of the Republic. He looked like a dandified tramp or a retired boxer. He frequented thugs and artists or philosophers, criminals and police chiefs, prostitutes as well as cabinet ministers. A book lover, he owned no books. A homosexual, he was rarely attracted to other homosexuals. A great champion of singularity, he came to feel that all human beings were equally valuable. Though he showed himself capable of impassioned friendship, he extolled and often practiced betrayal. He once boasted of being “strong from never having passed through a woman except at the moment of [his] birth” (p. 594). Yet he was a feminist. For a long time he could barely compose a standard letter in French but, when he died from throat cancer in 1985, he had written several masterpieces. He was Jean Genet.If, in his monumental Saint Genet, Sartre pays more attention to the configuration of the writer’s life than to the moments making up that life, Edmund White, in his admirable biography, patiently aligns the moments and waits for patterns to emerge. Genet is, first of all, a meticulous chronicle and can be savored for the details it provides about the protagonist’s daily life or its context, from gay bars in Pigalle to the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago which Genet covered for Esquire. We learn many things. For example, that the FBI spelled his name as “John Genet” and Sartre’s as “Jean Paul Sat”; or that Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock) started his career by playing in movie versions of two Genet plays: The Balcony and Deathwatch.Through the accumulation of facts and anecdotes, great themes—homosexuality, death, abjection, gesture, power—slowly crystallize and White writes splendid pages on the quality of Genet’s texts (beyond their shock value: Genet said that “poetry is the art of using shit and making you eat it”). Written from 1942 to 1947, his five novels (Our Lady of the Flowers, The Miracle of the Rose, Funeral Rites, A Thief’s Journal, Querelle) treat homosexuality with unsurpassed candor, glorify evil, transvalue all values, and blend sociology and myth, slang and highly formal language, in a sumptuously lyrical prose. With The Balcony, The Blacks, and The Screens—composed between 1955 and 1957—Genet invents a stylized and ritualistic theater to explore the dynamics of power. Finally, in the striking mixture of memoir, pamphlet, and epic called The Prisoner of Love [End Page 146] (1985) Genet exalts two disinherited groups—the Black Panthers, the Palestinians—and suggests that love is the site where uniqueness and universality merge.More generally, certain constants in Genet’s life become evident: the loyalty to the abandoned child he was and the hatred for the bourgeois society that dispossessed him; the need to reject before being rejected; the fascination with power and the affirmation of otherness; the ability to mythify himself as an angel of rebellion. Genet was a sociopath of genius.Above all, by its scrupulous scholarship, its successful determination to remain impartial, and its capacity for authoritative prosaism, White’s biography encourages readers to take a (new) look at Genet’s flamboyantly unorthodox writing. It is a remarkable achievement.Gerald PrinceUniversity of PennsylvaniaCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (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)

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?

The Confucian notion of civility has for thousands of years guided all aspects of socio-ethical life in East Asia. Confucians express their central concern for civility in their notion of li, which is commonly translated ?ritual? and refers to the conventions and courtesies through which we submit to the socio-ethical order, as we do, for example, in performing sacrifices, weddings, and funerals, and various daily acts of deference. Since the rise of China and other East Asian countries as economic powers, (...) it has been suggested that we have in East Asia a ?Confucian? ritual-based culture that is opposed to the law-based culture of the West, a culture of rites opposed to a culture of rights, and that this ritual-based culture can be carried into modernity as another way to secure social harmony. I argue that the values central to Confucian ritual ? deference, repayment, and harmony ? are incompatible with the freedom enacted in modern civility. It is unlikely, therefore, that Confucian ritual can be carried into modernity and, as some suggest, remedy the fragmentation, and indeed lack of civility, characteristic of modern societies. (shrink)

This article reflects on the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ uprising in Iran (2022/23) in light of the politicisation of mourning. It argues that this uprising represented a singular afterlife of Antigone’s impediment of burial. In other words, the initial event of the murder of a Kurdish woman that sparked this uprising should not be reduced to the tension between one woman and the clerical class over the compulsory dress code, the clash between two value systems or worldviews, nor to the saga (...) of a heroic individual fighting abstract institutions as the liberal narrative would have it. Rather, at stake is the Marxian problem of the exposure of contradictions and cracks in the social reality itself, the unveiling of deep-rooted antagonisms of a power structure grounded on the simultaneous acknowledgment and disavowal of a great portion of the population. The article shows how the very bodies of the dead protesters became the sites of relentless struggle and subversion. The excessive violence of the state in this uprising manifested itself in the denial of proper burial rites and blockage of funerals, a deprivation and violation that came back to haunt the state and challenge its symbolic power. Just like the unburied corpse of Polyneices, the mistreated dead bodies of the demonstrators bring to light what remains unconcealable and uncontainable in the desperate, brute force of the power-structure to prolong its own lifespan and buy legitimacy for its reign. (shrink)

Abstract Mohism has long been misrepresented. Mo?tzu is usually called a utilitarian because he preached a universal love that must benefit. Yet Mencius, who pined the Confucian way of virtue (humaneness and righteousness) against Mo?tzu's way of benefit, basically borrowed Mo?tzu's thesis: that the root cause of chaos is this lack of love?except Mencius renamed it the desire for personal benefit. Yet Mo?tzu only championed ?benefit? to head off its opposite, ?harm?, specifically the harm done by Confucians who with good (...) intent (love) perpetuated rites that did people more harm than good. Mo?tzu wanted his universal love to be the public good that would actually do the public good (i.e. benefit the collective). And he derived this from Confucius? teaching of ?Love (all) men? and his Golden Rule: Render not what others would not desire. No man desires harm. As a critic of Confucian rites (especially the prolonged funeral), Mo?tzu worked to replace the blind custom of rites with his rational measure of ?rightness?: what is right must do good (i.e. benefit the intended recipient). It is not true that Mohists were ?joyless? ascetics; they would gladly celebrate a good harvest with wine and folk song?not expensive court music?with the people. Since Mohist discourse is ?public? (that is, accountable), it is also only proper that what is ?right? should be outer (means?end efficacy) and not inner as Mencius would insist. (shrink)

Cynthia's apparition is upbraiding Propertius ior having forgotten her so soon. In spite of their former love, he had not been present at her death, and, because of his neglect, her funeral had been a mean affair, lacking not merely any signs of affection, but any semblance of ordinary decent feeling. In a succession of couplets tracing the regular stages of a Roman funeral from the deathbed to the final rites of the cremation, this lack of respect (...) and affection is particularized: no loving voice had been heard in her dying moments ; her body had been laid out to await the funeral with little thought for what was seemly at such a time ; on the day of the funeral Propertius had not put on mourning or shown signs of grief ; the funeral procession had moved with indecorous haste to the city gate ; Propertius had not been present at the cremation, and no perfumes had been poured on the flames ; no customary final offerings had been made to the ashes. (shrink)

This article gives brief results of a Norwegian empirical project where the main purpose has been to study the burial rite versus bereavement and the role of religiousness in relation to the disposing of the dead. The theoretical perspective is that loss of a significant close, as well as religiousness are primary life experiences which flow together in the bereaved person's grieving conduct during the burial rite. 70 bereaved persons who had lost a close relative during a certain time period (...) have filled in questionnaires with information about the death, the funeral, religiousness and bereavement. The sample is treated statistically by means of indexes for grieving conduct during the burial week, religiousness, and grief. The sample is coherent and unambiguous, and shows that those who let the burial rite be a time to mourn experienced more benefit from the funeral service and had less anxiety, depression and intrusive experiences during the first year of bereavement. But sadness was independent of the grieving conduct during the burial rite, a result which makes sadness an aspect of mourning which qualitatively differs from the other aspects described. External conditions as urbanity and institutionalizing, as well as internal matters as the dramatical character of the loss, and personal religiousness affected the bereaved person's grieving conduct during the burial rite. (shrink)

The History of Death explores the compelling subject of death, burial, and the afterlife in varied cultures, societies, and ages. Examines the various approaches to funerals, from sky burials in Tibet and mummification in Egypt, to being left to rot in the family home in Indonesia. Balances grim facts with intriguing details, such as remarkable burial requests, extravagant funerals, human sacrifice, and ritual killings. Illustrated throughout with photographs and artworks of representations of death and funerary rituals throughout history up to (...) the present day"--Back cover. (shrink)