Few issues apply universally to people as poignantly as death and dying. All religions address concerns with death from the handling of human remains, to defining death, to suggesting what happens after life. The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying provides readers with an overview of the study of death and dying. Questions of death, mortality, and more recently of end-of-life care, have long been important ones and scholars from a range of fields have approached the topic in a number of ways. Comprising over fifty-two chapters from a team of international contributors, the companion covers:
- funerary and mourning practices;
- concepts of the afterlife;
- psychical issues associated with death and dying;
- clinical and ethical issues;
- philosophical issues;
- death and dying as represented in popular culture.
This comprehensive collection of essays will bring together perspectives from fields as diverse as history, philosophy, literature, psychology, archaeology and religious studies, while including various religious traditions, including established religions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as well as new or less widely known traditions such as the Spiritualist Movement, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and Raëlianism. The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, philosophy and literature.
List of Contributors
Introduction – Christopher M. Moreman
Section 1: Religious Approaches to Death and the Afterlife
1. Catholic Views of the Afterlife – Diana Walsh Pasulka
2. Protestant Views of the Afterlife – Mark S. Sweetnam
3. Mormon Views of the Afterlife – Daniel Belnap
4. Christian Funerary Traditions – Thomas G. Long
5. Jewish Views of the Afterlife – Dan Cohn-Sherbok
6. Jewish Funeral and Mourning Practices – Vanessa L. Ochs
7. Muslim Views of the Afterlife – David Cook
8. Funerary Culture in Islam – Amila Buturovic
9. Zoroastrian Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Almut Hintze
10. Sikh Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Arvind-Pal S. Mandair
11. Hindu Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – T. S. Rukmani
12. Jaina Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Peter Flügel
13. Theravāda Buddhist Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Rachelle M. Scott
14. Tibetan Buddhist Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Matthew T. Kapstein
15. Shinto and Death: From Cultural Roots to Contemporary Thought – Stuart D. B. Picken
16. Early Chinese Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Mu-chou Poo
17. Contemporary Daoist Afterlife Beliefs and Funerary Practices – Adeline Herrou
18. North American Indigenous Afterlife Beliefs – Joseph A. P. Wilson
19. African Afterlife Beliefs – Zayin Cabot
20. Overcoming Death in New Religious Movements – Susan J. Palmer
21. Afterlife Beliefs in the Spiritualist Movement – Walter Meyer zu Erpen
22. Death and the Afterlife in the Raëlian Religion – Erik A. W. Östling & James R. Lewis
Section 2: General Beliefs and Practices
23. Heavens and Hells – Eileen Gardiner
24. Reincarnation – James A. Santucci
25. Mysticism – Thomas Quartier
26. The American Cemetery – Albert N. Hamscher
27. Cremation – Douglas J. Davies
28. Mummification – Heather Gill-Frerking
29. Digital Memorial – Candi K. Cann
Section 3: Liminal States and Liminal Beings
30. Near-Death Experiences – Gregory Shushan
31. Past-life Memories – Jim B. Tucker
32. Ghosts – Owen Davies
33. Angels – John Charles Arnold & Tony Walter
34. The Undead: Vampires and Zombies – John Edgar Browning
35. Animals – Barbara R. Ambros & Laura Hobgood
36. Organ Donation and Spirit Possession – Lesley A. Sharp
Section 4: On Dying
37. Defining Medical Death – James L. Bernat
38. The Death Awareness Movement – Lucy Bregman
39. Conceptual Approaches to Understanding the Dying Process – Kenneth J. Doka
40. The Cross-Cultural Study of Grief – Dennis Klass
41. A "Good Death" in Hospice Palliative Care – Harold Coward & Elizabeth Causton
42. Assisted Dying – Paul Badham
Section 5: Additional Ethical Considerations
43. Suicide: Psychopathology, Existential Choice, or Religious/Cultural Influences – Mark M. Leach & Frederick T. L. Leong
44. Martyrdom – Paul Middleton
45. The Psychology of Mass Murder and Serial Killing – Katherine Ramsland
46. Abortion – Daniel C. Maguire
47. Intellectual Disability and the End of Life
Biography
Christopher M. Moreman is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy and Religious Studies at California State University, East Bay, USA.
A remarkably impressive collection of various points of view on death and afterlife. The joining of conventional religious worldviews with the latest research coming out of psychical science - including the near-death experience, children’s reincarnational memories, and ghosts the world over - is especially noteworthy. A professor teaching a course on death couldn’t do better than selecting this as his or her one and only text for the course. Stafford Betty, California State University, USA.
