1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910797912403321

Titolo

Ultimate ambiguities : investigating death and liminality / / edited by Peter Berger and Justin Kroesen

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York ; ; Oxford, England : , : Berghahn Books, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

1-78238-610-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (290 p.)

Disciplina

306.9

Soggetti

Death - Social aspects

Death - Religious aspects

Funeral rites and ceremonies

Liminality

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di contenuto

Title Page; Table of Contents; List of Illustrations; Preface; Introduction; Part I. Rituals; The Ambiguity of Mortal Remains; Shape of Mourning among the Sora; Liminal Bodies, Liminal Food; Liminality of ""Living Martyrdom""; Part II. Concepts; Disappearance and Liminality; Three Dimensions of Liminality; Death, Ritual, and Effervescence; Part III. Imageries; Hungry Ghost or Divine Soul?; Between Death and Judgment; Body and Soul in Archaic Greece; Death, Memory, and Liminality; Index

Sommario/riassunto

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.