Parting ways [[electronic resource] ] : new rituals and celebrations of life's passing / / Denise Carson

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910786706403321
• Autore: Carson Denise
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berkeley, Calif ; ; Los Angeles, Calif., : University of California Press, 2011
• ISBN: 1-283-27807-3; 0-520-94941-2; 9786613278074
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (329 p.)
• Disciplina: 155.9/37
• Soggetti: Death - Psychological aspects; Mourning customs; Funeral rites and ceremonies
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references.
• Nota di contenuto: Her choice: two paths leading to the same destination -- Living funeral: celebrating the end of life -- Her life review: reliving the past in the present -- Legacy of memories: telling life stories and last wishes -- Her season of lasts: traditional, seasonal, communal rituals -- Oral ethical will: video recording last words -- Her living wake: reminiscing and farewell party -- Vigil: holding hands at the 11th hour -- Her 21st century memorial service, his 20th century funeral -- Home funeral: eco-friendly way out -- Holistic approach: design-it-yourself funeral and cremation witnessing -- The living unveiling: technology innovates memorializing -- Her truth: finding life after death.; pt. 1. End-of-life celebrations and pre-death rituals -- pt. 2. Post-death and memorializing rituals.
• Sommario/riassunto: Parting Ways explores the emergence of new end-of-life rituals in America that celebrate the dying and reinvent the roles of family and community at the deathbed. Denise Carson contrasts her father's passing in the 1980's, governed by the structures of institutionalized death, with her mother's death some two decades later. Carson's moving account of her mother's dying at home vividly portrays a ; ceremonial farewell known as a living wake, showing how it closed the gap between social and biological death while opening the door for family and friends to reminisce with her mother. Carson also investigates a variety of solutions--living funerals, oral ethical wills, and home funerals--that revise the impending death scenario. Integrating the profoundly personal with the objectively historical, Parting Ways calls for an "end of life revolution" to change the way of death in America.