Thanatology - Death Studies

Popular Cultures of East Africa and Mexico in Conversation with Death” Journal of the African Literature Association 5.1 (Summer/ Fall 2010): 60-84.

by Aaron L. Rosenberg

Liminality in Marina Carr's Woman and Scarecrow and Emma Dante's Vita mia

by Brenda Donohue

Published in February 2012
Focus: Papers in English Literary and Cultural Studies VIII. IIssue on Interfaces between Irish and European Theatre. Ed. Mária Kurdi. Pécs: University of Pécs, Institute of English and American Studies, 2012.

This article examines the work of an Irish playwright, Marina Carr and an Italian playwright, Emma Dante. Both female... more This article examines the work of an Irish playwright, Marina Carr and an Italian playwright, Emma Dante. Both female playwrights show a recurring preoccupation with death, dying and living in their work. Contrasting the modern taste for signalling a clear divide between life and death, in Carr and Dante’s work the lines and divisions between this world and the next are not clearly drawn. A number of characters across the writers’ oeuvre occupy liminal spaces within the spectrum of life and death. Neither alive nor dead, these characters blur the edges of our modern understanding of death. Using Victor Turner’s theory of liminality, this paper seeks to investigate the position of two of these ‘betwixt and between’ characters, focussing on Woman in Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow and Chicco in Dante’s Vita mia.

A Passing Glance: Encounters with Deadness and Dying

by Sylwia Chrostowska

published in Beauty and the Abject (Peter Lang)

The Catholic Way of Death: Contemporary Reflections on Thanatology and Theology

by K Jason Wardley

Published in eSharp 7 (2006); http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/esharp/issues/7/

How can we adequately acknowledge the stranger in modern theology? Drawing on the work of post-Heideggerian theorist... more How can we adequately acknowledge the stranger in modern theology? Drawing on the work of post-Heideggerian theorist of language and death, Jacques Derrida, and his own creative re-reading of Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, the work of theologian and phenomenologist Jean-Luc Marion work lies on the boundary between theology and thanatology and has value in informing our language in talking about and recognising the other.

Thanatopolitics: On the Use of Death for Mobilizing Political Life

by Stuart Murray

(on the politics of the suicide bomber), Polygraph: An International Journal of Politics and Culture, vol. 18 (2006): 191-215

Chapple, R. M. 2009 'A vase food vessel burial at Shantallow, Londonderry' Ulster Journal of Archaeology 68, 40-46

by Robert M Chapple

Archaeologically monitored topsoil stripping and demolition of a factory at Shantallow, Londonderry, in 2004 uncovered... more Archaeologically monitored topsoil stripping and demolition of a factory at Shantallow, Londonderry, in 2004 uncovered a cremation burial associated with a decorated vase food vessel of Early Bronze Age date.

“Here Lies the Body: Eighteenth-Century Gravestones in the Alamance Presbyterian Churchyard and Their Possible Symbolic Meanings.”

by Andrea Jones

Published in The North Carolina Folklore Journal 43.1 (1996) and reprinted in The Guilford Genealogist 24.3 (1997).

Anthropologie als umfassende Humanwissenschaft. Einige Bemerkungen aus archäologischer Sicht.

by Kerstin P. Hofmann

published in
Mitteilungen Anthropologische Gesellschaft Wien 136/137, 2006/2007, 283–300.

The term "anthropology" is quite fashionable currently, with the frequency of its use often  inversely... more The term "anthropology" is quite fashionable currently, with the frequency of its use often  inversely related to its precision. In the German-language part of Prehistoric Archaeology, the lack of a (cultural-) anthropological perspective has been discussed for a while. This situation is reason enough to unravel the so-called "anthropological syndrome". What do people understand when they read the term "anthropology"? By taking a closer look at the history of anthropology and its variants, the author attempts to develop a new concept of "anthropology as an all-encompassing human science". Such a concept would be well suited to carry out studies which integrate several fields within the human sciences. The field of "thanatology" will serve as a case in point.

Welcome, sister death: On the remarkable departures of illumined beings

by Ronald L. Boyer

A reprint of one of my first published essays in 1981. Originally published in Laughing Man Magazine (1981). Please ignore typos in recreated version by unknown typist.

This article, originally published years ago in the Laughing Man, a journal of contemporary spirituality, examines... more This article, originally published years ago in the Laughing Man, a journal of contemporary spirituality, examines accounts of the extraordinary manners of death attributed to mystics, saints and sages of numerous spiritual traditions, including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. 

Mummymania: mummies, museums and popular culture.

by Jasmine Day

2006, Journal of Biological Research 80(1) (special issue: Proceedings V World Congress on Mummy Studies): 296–300.

The seeds of doom: mummy wheat and resurrection flowers in folklore, poetry and early curse fiction.

by Jasmine Day

2008, In P. Peña, C. Martin and A. Rodriguez (eds) Mummies and Science – World Mummies Research: Proceedings of the VI World Congress on Mummy Studies. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Academia Canaria de la Historia, pp.623–6.

One of the principal motifs from the formative period of Western mummymania – which has since disappeared – was the... more One of the principal motifs from the formative period of Western mummymania – which has since disappeared – was the “mummified” seed found in an Egyptian tomb which, when planted, miraculously grew after thousands of years. This motif originated from a widespread (but erroneous) early nineteenth century belief that mummy seeds actually existed. Press reports claimed that peas, dahlias and entire crops of wheat had been grown from seeds found in tombs. Writers were quick to invest this phenomenon with meaning; while poets drew analogies with Biblical accounts of life-giving wheat as God’s gift to humanity, authors of early curse fiction depicted seeds that grew into beautiful but poisonous flowers. Yet whether fictional mummies withheld benevolent seeds in their selfish clasp or used them to wreak revenge upon the violators of their tombs, these mummies were almost universally portrayed in seed scenarios as evil.

The rape of the mummy: women, horror fiction and the Westernisation of the curse.

by Jasmine Day

2008, In P. Peña, C. Martin and A. Rodriguez (eds) Mummies and Science – World Mummies Research: Proceedings of the VI World Congress on Mummy Studies. Santa Cruz de Tenerife: Academia Canaria de la Historia, pp.617–21.

In 1998, the late Dominic Montserrat rediscovered the 1869 story "Lost in a Pyramid: or, the Mummy’s Curse"... more In 1998, the late Dominic Montserrat rediscovered the 1869 story "Lost in a Pyramid: or, the Mummy’s Curse" by Louisa May Alcott, which he claimed to be the earliest fiction story with a “mummy’s curse” theme. I have since discovered a number of even earlier works in this genre that confirm Montserrat’s speculation that women made a vital contribution to early Western popular curse lore. Using examples from these forgotten works, I will show that American female authors drew an analogy between the unwrapping of mummies and rape, not only to condemn unwrapping as distasteful, but also perhaps to critique capitalism and patriarchy, which objectified and commodified the bodies of living women and mummies alike. In so doing they Westernised Arabic curse legends by investing them with proto-feminist meanings relevant to their own culture, establishing an analogy that survives, if implicitly, in even the most abstracted contemporary curse scenarios.

The maid and the mummy.

by Jasmine Day

In press, In R. Dann and K. Exell (eds) Approaching Ancient Egypt. New York: Cambria Press Inc.

The Mummy's Curse: Mummymania In the English-Speaking World

by Jasmine Day

2006, London, New York: Routledge.

Morgues et prise en charge de la mort au Sud-Bénin

by Joël Noret

published in Cahiers d'Etudes africaines, 176, 2004