POSTMORTAL SOCIETY by Michael Hviid Jacobsen (Editor) ( 9781317077213 )

Item Details

Title:

POSTMORTAL SOCIETY
TOWARDS A SOCIOLOGY OF IMMORTALITY

By:

Format:

Electronic book text

List price:	£34.99
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ISBN 10:

1317077210

ISBN 13:

9781317077213

Publisher:

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

Pub. date:

31 March, 2017

Series:

Studies in Death, Materiality and the Origin of Time

Pages:

242

Synopsis:

Throughout history mankind has struggled to reconcile itself with the inescapability of its own mortality. This book explores the themes of immortality and survivalism in contemporary culture, shedding light on the varied and ingenious ways in which humans and human societies aspire to confront and deal with death, or even seek to outlive it, as it were. Bringing together theoretical and empirical work from internationally acclaimed scholars across a range of disciplines, Postmortal Society offers studies of the strategies adopted and means available in modern society for trying to `cheat' death or prolong life, the status of the dead in the modern Western world, the effects of beliefs that address the terror of death in other areas of life, the `immortalisation' of celebrities, the veneration of the dead in virtual worlds, symbolic immortality through work, the implications of understanding `immortality' in chemical-neuronal terms, and the apparent paradox of our greater reverence for the dead in increasingly secular, capitalist societies. A fascinating collection of studies that explore humanity's attempts to deal with its own mortality in the modern age, this book will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers and scholars of cultural studies with interests in death and dying.

Illustrations:

2 Line drawings, black and white; 7 Tables, black and white; 2

Publication:

Imprint:

Routledge

Returns:

Non-returnable

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