Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mortality and Its Timings: When is Death?

By Shane McCorristine

Book Overview

This volume provides a series of illuminating perspectives on the timings of death, through in-depth studies of Shakespearean tragedy, criminal execution, embalming practices, fears of premature burial, rumours of Adolf Hitler's survival, and the legal concept of brain death. In doing so, it explores a number of questions, including: how do we know if someone is dead or not? What do people experience at the moment when they die? Is death simply a biological event that comes about in temporal stages of decomposition, or is it a social event defined through cultures, practices, and commemorations? In other words, when exactly is death? Taken together, these contributions explore how death emerges in a series of stages that are uncertain, paradoxical, and socially contested.

This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1013289102
• ISBN13: 9781013289101
• Release Date: October 2020
• Publisher: Saint Philip Street Press
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 11.0"