Gabriel N. Finder
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
In the immediate aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, Poland was quite literally a vast Jewish cemetery. In fields, forests, by the side of roads, and in Jewish cemeteries throughout the ...
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In the immediate aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, Poland was quite literally a vast Jewish cemetery. In fields, forests, by the side of roads, and in Jewish cemeteries throughout the country, the corpses of dead Jews were buried helter-skelter in mass graves, partially buried in an apparent rush, or even left unburied. Even Jews who had no intentions of remaining in postwar Poland returned to their home towns resolved to fulfill a solemn duty to give the dead a proper burial, if possible in a Jewish cemetery. Using several yizkor books, this chapter will examine the efforts of Polish Jewish survivors to exhume the corpses of their dead and then rebury them with dignity in accordance with Jewish ritual and the role of memory in depiction of this act.Less
In the immediate aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, Poland was quite literally a vast Jewish cemetery. In fields, forests, by the side of roads, and in Jewish cemeteries throughout the country, the corpses of dead Jews were buried helter-skelter in mass graves, partially buried in an apparent rush, or even left unburied. Even Jews who had no intentions of remaining in postwar Poland returned to their home towns resolved to fulfill a solemn duty to give the dead a proper burial, if possible in a Jewish cemetery. Using several yizkor books, this chapter will examine the efforts of Polish Jewish survivors to exhume the corpses of their dead and then rebury them with dignity in accordance with Jewish ritual and the role of memory in depiction of this act.
Karel C. Berkhoff
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
The chapter will show how both the Soviet authorities and the leaders of independent Ukraine attempted to block real investigation and commemoration at the hamlet of Bykivnia, where the NKVD buried ...
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The chapter will show how both the Soviet authorities and the leaders of independent Ukraine attempted to block real investigation and commemoration at the hamlet of Bykivnia, where the NKVD buried murdered bodies from 1939-1941. The chapter will look into how their attempts failed due to pressure from within—grave robbers and activists—and, especially, without—Germany and Poland. Following this account, details about the little-known Nazi and Soviet exhumations at the site will be examined.Less
The chapter will show how both the Soviet authorities and the leaders of independent Ukraine attempted to block real investigation and commemoration at the hamlet of Bykivnia, where the NKVD buried murdered bodies from 1939-1941. The chapter will look into how their attempts failed due to pressure from within—grave robbers and activists—and, especially, without—Germany and Poland. Following this account, details about the little-known Nazi and Soviet exhumations at the site will be examined.
José López Mazz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
“Operation Carrot” was devised and executed by the Uruguayan military at the time of the country’s return to democracy, between 1983 and 1985. The objective of this secret operation was to exhume all ...
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“Operation Carrot” was devised and executed by the Uruguayan military at the time of the country’s return to democracy, between 1983 and 1985. The objective of this secret operation was to exhume all the bodies of disappeared prisoners who had been murdered during the dictatorship, in order either to destroy them or make them disappear permanently. This chapter discusses the tools and methodological processes that allow us to physically identify and then interpret these types of actions, which are often extremely hard to detect, given that they are part of an intentional and systematic attempt by the killers to conceal their past deeds. However, we also seek to develop a better understanding of violence within Uruguayan social and political life: for, while the country’s dictatorship only lasted around ten years (between 1973 and 1984), political violence had already begun in the 1960s in the context of social conflicts surrounding land ownership, wages, and civil rights. It is, we argue, precisely because political violence is deeply rooted in Latin America that we must, in order to analyze it, adopt an integrated historical and anthropological approach which also draws on the more specialised disciplines of archaeology and forensic science.Less
“Operation Carrot” was devised and executed by the Uruguayan military at the time of the country’s return to democracy, between 1983 and 1985. The objective of this secret operation was to exhume all the bodies of disappeared prisoners who had been murdered during the dictatorship, in order either to destroy them or make them disappear permanently. This chapter discusses the tools and methodological processes that allow us to physically identify and then interpret these types of actions, which are often extremely hard to detect, given that they are part of an intentional and systematic attempt by the killers to conceal their past deeds. However, we also seek to develop a better understanding of violence within Uruguayan social and political life: for, while the country’s dictatorship only lasted around ten years (between 1973 and 1984), political violence had already begun in the 1960s in the context of social conflicts surrounding land ownership, wages, and civil rights. It is, we argue, precisely because political violence is deeply rooted in Latin America that we must, in order to analyze it, adopt an integrated historical and anthropological approach which also draws on the more specialised disciplines of archaeology and forensic science.
Gillian Fowler and Tim Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
The chapter will examine how forensic scientists, including anthropologists, have been exploring the potential of new methods and processes in the resolution of mass grave contexts. The introduction ...
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The chapter will examine how forensic scientists, including anthropologists, have been exploring the potential of new methods and processes in the resolution of mass grave contexts. The introduction of DNA to contexts where these challenges exist has had some success in the Balkans and in Guatemala, two areas that have experienced brutal civil wars for a number of years. More recently, the analysis of elemental and osteometric measures on the body have demonstrated potential in attempts to re-associate remains. Ultimately however, technological developments complement extensive ante-mortem investigation and the two cannot be utilised independently if the required end result is to successfully identify victims.Less
The chapter will examine how forensic scientists, including anthropologists, have been exploring the potential of new methods and processes in the resolution of mass grave contexts. The introduction of DNA to contexts where these challenges exist has had some success in the Balkans and in Guatemala, two areas that have experienced brutal civil wars for a number of years. More recently, the analysis of elemental and osteometric measures on the body have demonstrated potential in attempts to re-associate remains. Ultimately however, technological developments complement extensive ante-mortem investigation and the two cannot be utilised independently if the required end result is to successfully identify victims.
Rémi Korman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
Contrary to other countries that suffered mass violence in the late twentieth century, such as Bosnia, the issue of individual identification or DNA identification has never been considered seriously ...
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Contrary to other countries that suffered mass violence in the late twentieth century, such as Bosnia, the issue of individual identification or DNA identification has never been considered seriously by the national and international agents of the memory in Rwanda. The lack of forensic investigation is a result of the financial situation of the Rwandan state after the genocide. In 1996, Rwanda was officially declared as the poorest country in the world. How in this context did Rwandan and international agents manage the memory of the genocide and especially the corpses? Considering the absence of a state-led individual identification program, how did exhumations occur and for what purposes? Who were the agents of exhumations in Rwanda? But also, what is the history behind the conservation of bones and corpses in genocide memorials? Based upon the study of the public archives of the National Commission for the Fight against the Genocide, this paper sheds some historical light on the debates around the management of genocide corpses in Rwanda since 1994.Less
Contrary to other countries that suffered mass violence in the late twentieth century, such as Bosnia, the issue of individual identification or DNA identification has never been considered seriously by the national and international agents of the memory in Rwanda. The lack of forensic investigation is a result of the financial situation of the Rwandan state after the genocide. In 1996, Rwanda was officially declared as the poorest country in the world. How in this context did Rwandan and international agents manage the memory of the genocide and especially the corpses? Considering the absence of a state-led individual identification program, how did exhumations occur and for what purposes? Who were the agents of exhumations in Rwanda? But also, what is the history behind the conservation of bones and corpses in genocide memorials? Based upon the study of the public archives of the National Commission for the Fight against the Genocide, this paper sheds some historical light on the debates around the management of genocide corpses in Rwanda since 1994.
Frances Tay
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097560
- eISBN:
- 9781526104441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097560.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
The violence visited upon British Malaya during the Japanese Occupation of December 1941 to August 1945 has prompted several historians to evoke comparisons with the atrocities that befell Nanjing. ...
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The violence visited upon British Malaya during the Japanese Occupation of December 1941 to August 1945 has prompted several historians to evoke comparisons with the atrocities that befell Nanjing. For the duration of three years and eight months, unknown numbers of civilians were subjected to massacres, summary executions, rape, forced labour, arbitrary detention and torture. This chapter explores several exhumations which have taken place in the territory to interrogate the significance of exhumations in shaping communal collective war memory, a subject which has thus far eluded scholarly study. It argues that these exhumations have not been exercises in recording or recovering historical facts; rather they have obfuscated the past by augmenting popular perceptions of Chinese victimhood and resistance, to the exclusion of all other ethnic groups’ war experiences. As a result, exhumations of mass graves in Malaysia have thus far served as poor examples of forensic investigation; rather these operations highlight how exhumations can emerge as battlegrounds in the contest between war memory and historiography.Less
The violence visited upon British Malaya during the Japanese Occupation of December 1941 to August 1945 has prompted several historians to evoke comparisons with the atrocities that befell Nanjing. For the duration of three years and eight months, unknown numbers of civilians were subjected to massacres, summary executions, rape, forced labour, arbitrary detention and torture. This chapter explores several exhumations which have taken place in the territory to interrogate the significance of exhumations in shaping communal collective war memory, a subject which has thus far eluded scholarly study. It argues that these exhumations have not been exercises in recording or recovering historical facts; rather they have obfuscated the past by augmenting popular perceptions of Chinese victimhood and resistance, to the exclusion of all other ethnic groups’ war experiences. As a result, exhumations of mass graves in Malaysia have thus far served as poor examples of forensic investigation; rather these operations highlight how exhumations can emerge as battlegrounds in the contest between war memory and historiography.
Paul U. Unschuld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520257658
- eISBN:
- 9780520944701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520257658.003.0031
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
The great empire of Alexander broke apart into four kingdoms after his death in 323 bc. This chapter examines only Alexandria, a center of Greek learning and knowledge. The change in the environment ...
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The great empire of Alexander broke apart into four kingdoms after his death in 323 bc. This chapter examines only Alexandria, a center of Greek learning and knowledge. The change in the environment immediately made itself obvious such as there was a man named Herophilus of Chalcedon, to whom later ancient authors attributed a very active interest in anatomical studies. He came close to reality and forged further ahead than anyone before him. He conducted postmortem examinations, looking at the brain, eyes, digestive organs, and vessels. He observed the female and male sexual organs with interest. Another contemporary, Erasistratus of Julis on Chios, had a special interest in the nerves and vessels. He searched for the transport paths for pneuma throughout the organism. He compared living bodies and corpses that brought him quite close to reality. Alexandria rapidly became a true center of world trade, where much money, wealth, and power assembled.Less
The great empire of Alexander broke apart into four kingdoms after his death in 323 bc. This chapter examines only Alexandria, a center of Greek learning and knowledge. The change in the environment immediately made itself obvious such as there was a man named Herophilus of Chalcedon, to whom later ancient authors attributed a very active interest in anatomical studies. He came close to reality and forged further ahead than anyone before him. He conducted postmortem examinations, looking at the brain, eyes, digestive organs, and vessels. He observed the female and male sexual organs with interest. Another contemporary, Erasistratus of Julis on Chios, had a special interest in the nerves and vessels. He searched for the transport paths for pneuma throughout the organism. He compared living bodies and corpses that brought him quite close to reality. Alexandria rapidly became a true center of world trade, where much money, wealth, and power assembled.
Susan Zimmerman
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621033
- eISBN:
- 9780748652198
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621033.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This book explores the relationship of the public theatre to the question of what constituted the ‘dead’ in early modern English culture within a theoretical framework that makes use of history, ...
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This book explores the relationship of the public theatre to the question of what constituted the ‘dead’ in early modern English culture within a theoretical framework that makes use of history, psychoanalysis and anthropology. The author argues that concepts of the corpse as a semi-animate, generative and indeterminate entity were deeply rooted in medieval religious culture. Such concepts ran counter to early modern discourses that sought to harden categorical distinctions between body/spirit, animate/inanimate – in particular, the attacks of Reformists on the materiality of ‘dead’ idols, and the rationale of the new anatomy for publicly dissecting ‘dead’ bodies. The author contends that within this context, theatrical representations of the corpse or corpse/revenant – as seen here in the tragedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – uniquely showcased the theatre's own ideological and performative agency.Less
This book explores the relationship of the public theatre to the question of what constituted the ‘dead’ in early modern English culture within a theoretical framework that makes use of history, psychoanalysis and anthropology. The author argues that concepts of the corpse as a semi-animate, generative and indeterminate entity were deeply rooted in medieval religious culture. Such concepts ran counter to early modern discourses that sought to harden categorical distinctions between body/spirit, animate/inanimate – in particular, the attacks of Reformists on the materiality of ‘dead’ idols, and the rationale of the new anatomy for publicly dissecting ‘dead’ bodies. The author contends that within this context, theatrical representations of the corpse or corpse/revenant – as seen here in the tragedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – uniquely showcased the theatre's own ideological and performative agency.
Candi K. Cann
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780813145419
- eISBN:
- 9780813145495
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813145419.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
From the dead body to the virtual body and from material memorials to virtual memorials, one thing is clear: the bodiless nature of memorialization of the dead across cultures. In postindustrial, ...
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From the dead body to the virtual body and from material memorials to virtual memorials, one thing is clear: the bodiless nature of memorialization of the dead across cultures. In postindustrial, Protestant, and capitalist societies such as the United States, this trend seems much more prominent and is moving at a faster rate than in the developing world. As globalization and industrialization increase, traditional cultural values and norms will be further eroded, and the trend toward bodiless memorialization will only intensify. Additionally, as the world's population and accompanying land scarcity issues continue to rise, the body as corpse will continue to disappear as countries look for new and innovative ways to dispose of the dead. Ultimately, the rise of memorialization is concurrent with the disappearance of the body. This book examines this disturbing trend, analyzing various types of memorialization and questioning the impetus behind these newly emerging forms of remembrance.Less
From the dead body to the virtual body and from material memorials to virtual memorials, one thing is clear: the bodiless nature of memorialization of the dead across cultures. In postindustrial, Protestant, and capitalist societies such as the United States, this trend seems much more prominent and is moving at a faster rate than in the developing world. As globalization and industrialization increase, traditional cultural values and norms will be further eroded, and the trend toward bodiless memorialization will only intensify. Additionally, as the world's population and accompanying land scarcity issues continue to rise, the body as corpse will continue to disappear as countries look for new and innovative ways to dispose of the dead. Ultimately, the rise of memorialization is concurrent with the disappearance of the body. This book examines this disturbing trend, analyzing various types of memorialization and questioning the impetus behind these newly emerging forms of remembrance.
Susan Zimmerman
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621033
- eISBN:
- 9780748652198
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621033.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter presents a further speculation on how Walter Benjamin's Trauerspiel elucidates the interdependent relationship between poststructuralist theory and historicist analysis. The ‘homeland’ ...
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This chapter presents a further speculation on how Walter Benjamin's Trauerspiel elucidates the interdependent relationship between poststructuralist theory and historicist analysis. The ‘homeland’ of the Trauerspiel is the indeterminate corpse. It seems particularly interesting that Benjamin conceives of the problem of materiality as developed in the Trauerspiel as conjunctive with that of Christianity. Benjamin's genius for forcing new angles of vision can be divined in the suggestive connections between the Dance of Death and puppetry. It has been concluded that although the homeland of Shakespeare's theatre must be reconstituted in terms of its own cultural determinants, there is equally compelling reason to view it from positions outside this historical framework – to multiply frames of reference, and by so doing to discover new angles of vision.Less
This chapter presents a further speculation on how Walter Benjamin's Trauerspiel elucidates the interdependent relationship between poststructuralist theory and historicist analysis. The ‘homeland’ of the Trauerspiel is the indeterminate corpse. It seems particularly interesting that Benjamin conceives of the problem of materiality as developed in the Trauerspiel as conjunctive with that of Christianity. Benjamin's genius for forcing new angles of vision can be divined in the suggestive connections between the Dance of Death and puppetry. It has been concluded that although the homeland of Shakespeare's theatre must be reconstituted in terms of its own cultural determinants, there is equally compelling reason to view it from positions outside this historical framework – to multiply frames of reference, and by so doing to discover new angles of vision.
Tanya Pollard
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199270835
- eISBN:
- 9780191710322
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199270835.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines the threat that female beauty posed for men. A surprising number of plays from this period dramatize the motif of death by poisoned kiss. The chapter focuses on three plays: ...
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This chapter examines the threat that female beauty posed for men. A surprising number of plays from this period dramatize the motif of death by poisoned kiss. The chapter focuses on three plays: Middleton’s The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, Massinger’s The Duke of Milan, and The Revenger’s Tragedy, in which men die from necrophilic embraces with female corpses painted with poisons. It is argued that these plays identify sexuality, particularly the desirable female body, with both remedy and poison. Furthermore, these plays identify an idolatrous attraction to painted corpses with the risks of being seduced by the artificial world of the theater.Less
This chapter examines the threat that female beauty posed for men. A surprising number of plays from this period dramatize the motif of death by poisoned kiss. The chapter focuses on three plays: Middleton’s The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, Massinger’s The Duke of Milan, and The Revenger’s Tragedy, in which men die from necrophilic embraces with female corpses painted with poisons. It is argued that these plays identify sexuality, particularly the desirable female body, with both remedy and poison. Furthermore, these plays identify an idolatrous attraction to painted corpses with the risks of being seduced by the artificial world of the theater.
Don Herzog
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300221541
- eISBN:
- 9780300227710
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300221541.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
If you defame the dead, even someone who recently died, tort law does not think that’s an injury: not to the grieving survivors and not to the dead person. This book argues that defamation is an ...
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If you defame the dead, even someone who recently died, tort law does not think that’s an injury: not to the grieving survivors and not to the dead person. This book argues that defamation is an injury to the recently dead. It explores history, including the shaping of the common law, and offers an account of posthumous harm and wrong. Along the way, it offers a sustained exploration of how we and the law think about corpse desecration.Less
If you defame the dead, even someone who recently died, tort law does not think that’s an injury: not to the grieving survivors and not to the dead person. This book argues that defamation is an injury to the recently dead. It explores history, including the shaping of the common law, and offers an account of posthumous harm and wrong. Along the way, it offers a sustained exploration of how we and the law think about corpse desecration.
Alexander Murray
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207313
- eISBN:
- 9780191677625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207313.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, Social History
This chapter examines what people did after discovering a suicide, focusing on the corpse or the body. Whatever was done with the body had to be done with speed. Instant burials of suicides sometimes ...
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This chapter examines what people did after discovering a suicide, focusing on the corpse or the body. Whatever was done with the body had to be done with speed. Instant burials of suicides sometimes got local officials into trouble, and hence into the records, higher up the hierarchy. Although their motive may sometimes have been subterfuge, it was more often just public health: they wanted the body buried. The discussion cites some ways in which the corpse is handled or disposed through extraction, transport, hanging and mutilation, the barrel and the river, and other forms of profane burial.Less
This chapter examines what people did after discovering a suicide, focusing on the corpse or the body. Whatever was done with the body had to be done with speed. Instant burials of suicides sometimes got local officials into trouble, and hence into the records, higher up the hierarchy. Although their motive may sometimes have been subterfuge, it was more often just public health: they wanted the body buried. The discussion cites some ways in which the corpse is handled or disposed through extraction, transport, hanging and mutilation, the barrel and the river, and other forms of profane burial.
Carol Lansing
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195149807
- eISBN:
- 9780199849079
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195149807.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter explores three topics in Cathar understandings of male and female bodies, set against the background of contemporary Catholic belief. The first topic is sexual difference and lust. It ...
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This chapter explores three topics in Cathar understandings of male and female bodies, set against the background of contemporary Catholic belief. The first topic is sexual difference and lust. It explores ideas about sexual difference as stated and as practiced by Cathars. The second topic is marriage. One teaching common to virtually all Cathar texts is the condemnation of marriage and the procreation of children. Finally, the chapter turns from sexuality and marriage to a third focus of debate over the body: corpses. Catholic clerics did not directly attack dualist heresy by emphasizing the divine origins of human sexuality and consummation as the perfection of the sacrament of marriage. Instead, they answered heresy by stressing the ways in which corpses revealed sanctity or sin.Less
This chapter explores three topics in Cathar understandings of male and female bodies, set against the background of contemporary Catholic belief. The first topic is sexual difference and lust. It explores ideas about sexual difference as stated and as practiced by Cathars. The second topic is marriage. One teaching common to virtually all Cathar texts is the condemnation of marriage and the procreation of children. Finally, the chapter turns from sexuality and marriage to a third focus of debate over the body: corpses. Catholic clerics did not directly attack dualist heresy by emphasizing the divine origins of human sexuality and consummation as the perfection of the sacrament of marriage. Instead, they answered heresy by stressing the ways in which corpses revealed sanctity or sin.
Feldman Fred
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195089288
- eISBN:
- 9780199852963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195089288.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter discusses a novel analysis of the process of death and dying. A popular line from Shakespeare's “Hamlet”, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’, can be thought of as ‘To die or not ...
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This chapter discusses a novel analysis of the process of death and dying. A popular line from Shakespeare's “Hamlet”, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’, can be thought of as ‘To die or not to die, that is the question’. Based on this line, it can be believed that Hamlet supposed that when someone or something dies, it ceases to be. However, an argument is given that the corpses of humans who died still exist.Less
This chapter discusses a novel analysis of the process of death and dying. A popular line from Shakespeare's “Hamlet”, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’, can be thought of as ‘To die or not to die, that is the question’. Based on this line, it can be believed that Hamlet supposed that when someone or something dies, it ceases to be. However, an argument is given that the corpses of humans who died still exist.
Feldman Fred
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195089288
- eISBN:
- 9780199852963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195089288.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter discusses a further explanation of the topic found in the previous chapter and includes a more thorough discussion of the concept of the “termination thesis”. One of the most puzzling ...
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This chapter discusses a further explanation of the topic found in the previous chapter and includes a more thorough discussion of the concept of the “termination thesis”. One of the most puzzling questions regarding death is whether it can be survived or not, or whether a person can continue to exist after he/she dies. Based on the discussions regarding the termination thesis, it is revealed that people can survive death and continue to exist long after their death. However, after death people will merely be corpses, and have no psychological experiences.Less
This chapter discusses a further explanation of the topic found in the previous chapter and includes a more thorough discussion of the concept of the “termination thesis”. One of the most puzzling questions regarding death is whether it can be survived or not, or whether a person can continue to exist after he/she dies. Based on the discussions regarding the termination thesis, it is revealed that people can survive death and continue to exist long after their death. However, after death people will merely be corpses, and have no psychological experiences.
Luciano Canfora and Julian Stringer (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748619368
- eISBN:
- 9780748670734
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748619368.003.0041
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Archaeology: Classical
The conspirators lost everything in the moment when they left the body of the dictator unattended and abandoned the idea of getting rid of it by throwing it into the Tiber. The Caesarians begin to ...
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The conspirators lost everything in the moment when they left the body of the dictator unattended and abandoned the idea of getting rid of it by throwing it into the Tiber. The Caesarians begin to regain ground when they were able to make political and emotional capital out of the corpse, whose cumbrous presence weighed increasingly heavily, and in the end decisively, on Roman politics. In the very first moments after the murder, Brutus and the others make every possible effort to get the situation under control. Their efforts were mostly doomed to failure. The fact that for a brief moment they seemed to have succeeded is demonstrated by Antony's panic: he dressed as a plebeian and fled. Brutus tried to talk to the senators, but they were bent on fleeing with all speed from the scene of the attack they witnessed. Neglecting to dispose of the body and proceeding to a renunciation of all Caesar's works, they could think of nothing better than to go to the Capitol, waving their daggers and calling on imaginary citizens to ‘make the most of their freedom’. In the space of a few hours the conspirators lost all the advantages of surprise and the confusion of their opponents, by trying to present to the people some abstract ‘freedom’.Less
The conspirators lost everything in the moment when they left the body of the dictator unattended and abandoned the idea of getting rid of it by throwing it into the Tiber. The Caesarians begin to regain ground when they were able to make political and emotional capital out of the corpse, whose cumbrous presence weighed increasingly heavily, and in the end decisively, on Roman politics. In the very first moments after the murder, Brutus and the others make every possible effort to get the situation under control. Their efforts were mostly doomed to failure. The fact that for a brief moment they seemed to have succeeded is demonstrated by Antony's panic: he dressed as a plebeian and fled. Brutus tried to talk to the senators, but they were bent on fleeing with all speed from the scene of the attack they witnessed. Neglecting to dispose of the body and proceeding to a renunciation of all Caesar's works, they could think of nothing better than to go to the Capitol, waving their daggers and calling on imaginary citizens to ‘make the most of their freedom’. In the space of a few hours the conspirators lost all the advantages of surprise and the confusion of their opponents, by trying to present to the people some abstract ‘freedom’.
Andrew Smith
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719088414
- eISBN:
- 9781526115256
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719088414.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The focus in this book is on how the dead and dying were represented in Gothic texts between 1740 and 1914-between Graveyard poetry and the mass death occasioned by the First World War. The corpse ...
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The focus in this book is on how the dead and dying were represented in Gothic texts between 1740 and 1914-between Graveyard poetry and the mass death occasioned by the First World War. The corpse might seem to have an obvious place in the Gothic imaginary but, as we shall see, the corpse so often refuses to function as a formal Gothic prop and in order to understand why this occurs we need to explore what the corpse figuratively represented in the Gothic during the long nineteenth century. Representations of death often provide a vehicle for other contemplations than just death. A central aim of this study is to explore how images of death and dying were closely linked to models of creativity, which argues for a new way of looking at aesthetics during the period. Writers explored include Edward Young, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, James Boaden, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Henry Rider Haggard, Bram Stoker and Arthur Machen.Less
The focus in this book is on how the dead and dying were represented in Gothic texts between 1740 and 1914-between Graveyard poetry and the mass death occasioned by the First World War. The corpse might seem to have an obvious place in the Gothic imaginary but, as we shall see, the corpse so often refuses to function as a formal Gothic prop and in order to understand why this occurs we need to explore what the corpse figuratively represented in the Gothic during the long nineteenth century. Representations of death often provide a vehicle for other contemplations than just death. A central aim of this study is to explore how images of death and dying were closely linked to models of creativity, which argues for a new way of looking at aesthetics during the period. Writers explored include Edward Young, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, James Boaden, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Henry Rider Haggard, Bram Stoker and Arthur Machen.
Edwin Muir
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496803382
- eISBN:
- 9781496806789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496803382.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter is an essay which reviews William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the story of the corpse of a woman in late middle age. As I Lay Dying is concerned not with death, but merely with the ...
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This chapter is an essay which reviews William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the story of the corpse of a woman in late middle age. As I Lay Dying is concerned not with death, but merely with the chemical changes which happen in a dead body. The history Faulkner relates is the history of this body before it is finally buried. It may be said that the novel's most interesting character, or at least the character in which Faulkner shows most interest, is the corpse in its dead, or rather gruesomely alive, state. The effect that this story produces is one of self-indulgence, disgust rather than horror. The essay argues that there is nothing much to be said for As I Lay Dying except for a few isolated accounts of violent action.Less
This chapter is an essay which reviews William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the story of the corpse of a woman in late middle age. As I Lay Dying is concerned not with death, but merely with the chemical changes which happen in a dead body. The history Faulkner relates is the history of this body before it is finally buried. It may be said that the novel's most interesting character, or at least the character in which Faulkner shows most interest, is the corpse in its dead, or rather gruesomely alive, state. The effect that this story produces is one of self-indulgence, disgust rather than horror. The essay argues that there is nothing much to be said for As I Lay Dying except for a few isolated accounts of violent action.
Walter E. A. van Beek
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199858149
- eISBN:
- 9780199949489
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199858149.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The ritual that gives the book its name is picked up where we left it in Chapter 1. The elaborate Kapsiki funeral proceedings are followed throughout the three days of the first burial. This implies ...
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The ritual that gives the book its name is picked up where we left it in Chapter 1. The elaborate Kapsiki funeral proceedings are followed throughout the three days of the first burial. This implies the dressing of the corpse, the organization of the smith-undertakers, and the interplay between the various social groups involved. Special attention is given to the rich symbolism of the corpse itself, especially its head, and the way it is carried on the shoulders of the smiths. Since a funeral is highly expressive of individual identity and achievements, the various modes of burial for different classes of people express their position in Kapsiki society. After the flamboyant dancing of the dead, the intricate rituals that finish the tomb offer a window into the close relations in and around the individual household. They form the second phase of the funeral, which installs the son of the deceased as a new major ritual player. Finally, the symbolic link of the tomb with the house is highlighted by its likeness to the main granary type of the Kapsiki, leading into a reflection on what is a Kapsiki death.Less
The ritual that gives the book its name is picked up where we left it in Chapter 1. The elaborate Kapsiki funeral proceedings are followed throughout the three days of the first burial. This implies the dressing of the corpse, the organization of the smith-undertakers, and the interplay between the various social groups involved. Special attention is given to the rich symbolism of the corpse itself, especially its head, and the way it is carried on the shoulders of the smiths. Since a funeral is highly expressive of individual identity and achievements, the various modes of burial for different classes of people express their position in Kapsiki society. After the flamboyant dancing of the dead, the intricate rituals that finish the tomb offer a window into the close relations in and around the individual household. They form the second phase of the funeral, which installs the son of the deceased as a new major ritual player. Finally, the symbolic link of the tomb with the house is highlighted by its likeness to the main granary type of the Kapsiki, leading into a reflection on what is a Kapsiki death.
