Dealing with the Dead: Life as a Third-Generation Independent Funeral Director

This ‘On the Front Line’ article explores the necessary and yet undesirable work undertaken by a third-generation, independent funeral director. Peter’s narrative account of the realities of funeral directing and his journey into the family business offers a poignant insight into the dirty work of death work. Reflecting on his own exposure, experiences and practices Peter offers us an opportunity to see behind the scenes, to hear how he has learnt to cope with death work undertaken by his family. Consequently, we reflect on how performances of emotional neutrality afford funeral directors the capacity to offer comfort to the bereaved in the face of such extreme dirty work. Yet, as Peter shares, this neutrality masks the dirt and hides the pain of ‘dealing with the dead’.

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“Our Dead are the Ultimate Teachers of Life”. The Corpse as an Inter-mediator of Transcendence

Fieldwork in Religion ◽

10.1558/firn.v8i2.223 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 223-240

Author(s):

Antje Kahl

Keyword(s):

Death And Dying ◽

Modern Society ◽

Religious Institutions ◽

Spiritual Experiences ◽

Dead Body ◽

Funeral Directors ◽

The Public ◽

Funeral Director ◽

The Dead ◽

The Relationship

Today in Germany, religion and the churches forfeit their sovereignty of interpretation and ritual concerning death and dying. The funeral director is the first point of contact when death occurs. Therefore he or she is able to influence the relationship between the living and the dead. In the course of this development, the dead body, often referred to as dirty and dangerous, is being sanitized by funeral directors. Funeral directors credit the dead body with a certain quality; they claim that facing the dead may lead to religious or spiritual experiences, and therefore they encourage the public viewing of the dead – a practice which was, and still is not very common in Germany. The new connotation of the dead body is an example for the dislimitation of religion in modern society. The religious framing of death-related practises no longer exclusively belongs to traditional religious institutions and actors, but can take place in commercial business companies as well.

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Contemporary Haunting: Circulation of Knowledge and Memories Between the Dead, the Living, the Family and the State in the East Asian Context

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e650892011-001 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Anru Lee ◽

Chang-Hui Chi

Keyword(s):

East Asian ◽

The State ◽

The Family ◽

The Dead ◽

Asian Context ◽

Circulation Of Knowledge

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The Relationship between Seeker and Spiritual Guide as portrayed in contemporary Western Sufi Autobiographies

Comparative Islamic Studies ◽

10.1558/cis.v5i2.297 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 297-332

Author(s):

Kate Zebiri

Keyword(s):

Life Writing ◽

New Age ◽

The Self ◽

Individual Autonomy ◽

Religious Authority ◽

The Face ◽

The Relationship ◽

Insight Into ◽

Continuity And Discontinuity

This article aims to explore the Shaykh-mur?d (disciple) or teacher-pupil relationship as portrayed in Western Sufi life writing in recent decades, observing elements of continuity and discontinuity with classical Sufism. Additionally, it traces the influence on the texts of certain developments in religiosity in contemporary Western societies, especially New Age understandings of religious authority. Studying these works will provide an insight into the diversity of expressions of contemporary Sufism, while shedding light on a phenomenon which seems to fly in the face of contemporary social and religious trends which deemphasize external authority and promote the authority of the self or individual autonomy.

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A Review of Phytochemical and Pharmacological Studies of Inula Species

Current Bioactive Compounds ◽

10.2174/1573407215666190207093538 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (5) ◽

pp. 557-567

Author(s):

Aparoop Das ◽

Anshul Shakya ◽

Surajit Kumar Ghosh ◽

Udaya P. Singh ◽

Hans R. Bhat

Keyword(s):

Bacterial Infections ◽

Chemical Constituents ◽

Valuable Insight ◽

Important Ingredient ◽

Pharmacological Activities ◽

Medicinal Uses ◽

The Family ◽

Pharmacological Studies ◽

Perennial Herbs ◽

Insight Into

Background: Plants of the genus Inula are perennial herbs of the family Asteraceae. This genus includes more than 100 species, widely distributed throughout Europe, Africa and Asia including India. Many of them are indicated in traditional medicine, e.g., in Ayurveda. This review explores chemical constituents, medicinal uses and pharmacological actions of Inula species. Methods: Major databases and research and review articles retrieved through Scopus, Web of Science, and Medline were consulted to obtain information on the pharmacological activities of the genus Inula published from 1994 to 2017. Results: Inula species are used either alone or as an important ingredient of various formulations to cure dysfunctions of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, urinary system, central nervous system and digestive system, and for the treatment of asthma, diabetes, cancers, skin disorders, hepatic disease, fungal and bacterial infections. A range of phytochemicals including alkaloids, essential and volatile oils, flavonoids, terpenes, and lactones has been isolated from herbs of the genus Inula, which might possibly explain traditional uses of these plants. Conclusion: The present review is focused on chemical constituents, medicinal uses and pharmacological actions of Inula species and provides valuable insight into its medicinal potential.

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The History of the Judahite Bench Tomb

10.1093/oso/9780190844738.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Matthew Suriano

Keyword(s):

Iron Age ◽

Hebrew Bible ◽

Cultural Practices ◽

Seventh Century ◽

Mortuary Practices ◽

Iron Age Ii ◽

Gradual Development ◽

History Of ◽

The Dead ◽

Insight Into

The history of the Judahite bench tomb provides important insight into the meaning of mortuary practices, and by extension, death in the Hebrew Bible. The bench tomb appeared in Judah during Iron Age II. Although it included certain burial features that appear earlier in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, such as burial benches, and the use of caves for extramural burials, the Judahite bench tomb uniquely incorporated these features into a specific plan that emulated domestic structures and facilitated multigenerational burials. During the seventh century, and continuing into the sixth, the bench tombs become popular in Jerusalem. The history of this type of burial shows a gradual development of cultural practices that were meant to control death and contain the dead. It is possible to observe within these cultural practices the tomb as a means of constructing identity for both the dead and the living.

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Witches and Succubi: Male Sexual Fantasies

10.1093/oso/9780195307887.003.0009 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Serinity Young

Keyword(s):

Sexual Intercourse ◽

Sexual Fantasies ◽

Medieval Church ◽

The Face ◽

Ancient Times ◽

The Dead ◽

Over Time ◽

The Demonic

Witches, women believed to have supernatural powers, have been with us since ancient times. Often they were beautiful, highly sexual women whom men bedded at their own risk. They had magical powers (including that of flight), communed with the dead, and did not conform to patriarchal ideas of womanhood. Their sexuality led them to be classified as succubi, or female spirits who visited men at night and had sexual intercourse with them while they slept. In medieval Christian Europe, witches were refigured as ugly over time, and they became the face of evil. They were believed to fly to their unholy Sabbaths, where they participated in orgies with Satan and sacrificed babies. In truth, most people who were accused of being witches were women caught up in the changing mores and beliefs of the medieval Church, which began to view women as more susceptible to the demonic than men, a Church that needed evidence of their unholy activities, even if extracted by torture.

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Mansfield Park

10.1093/owc/9780199535538.001.0001 ◽

2008 ◽

Author(s):

Jane Austen ◽

Jane Stabler

Keyword(s):

The Novel ◽

Mansfield Park ◽

Sexual Jealousy ◽

The Family ◽

The World ◽

The Face

‘Me!’ cried Fanny … ‘Indeed you must excuse me. I could not act any thing if you were to give me the world. No, indeed, I cannot act.’ At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. There she accepts her lowly status, and gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund. When the dazzling and sophisticated Henry and Mary Crawford arrive, Fanny watches as her cousins become embroiled in rivalry and sexual jealousy. As the company starts to rehearse a play by way of entertainment, Fanny struggles to retain her independence in the face of the Crawfords’ dangerous attractions; and when Henry turns his attentions to her, the drama really begins… This new edition does full justice to Austen’s complex and subtle story, placing it in its Regency context and elucidating the theatrical background that pervades the novel.

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Metonyms of destruction: Death, ruination, and the bombing of Rotterdam in the Second World War

Journal of Material Culture ◽

10.1177/13591835211016488 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135918352110164

Author(s):

Antonius CGM Robben

Keyword(s):

Built Environment ◽

Joint Destruction ◽

Second World War ◽

City Centre ◽

Post Mortem ◽

Port City ◽

World War ◽

The Dead ◽

Second World ◽

Insight Into

The German and Allied bombing of Rotterdam in the Second World War caused thousands of dead and hundreds of missing, and severely damaged the Dutch port city. The joint destruction of people and their built environment made the ruins and rubble stand metonymically for the dead when they could not be mentioned in the censored press. The contiguity of ruins, rubble, corpses and human remains was not only semantic but also material because of the intermingling and even amalgamation of organic and inorganic remains into anthropomineral debris. The hybrid matter was dumped in rivers and canals to create broad avenues and a modern city centre. This article argues that Rotterdam’s semantic and material metonyms of destruction were generated by the contiguity, entanglement, and post-mortem and post-ruination agencies of the dead and the destroyed city centre. This analysis provides insight into the interaction and co-constitution of human and material remains in war.

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Stochasticity and heterogeneity in host–vector models

Journal of The Royal Society Interface ◽

10.1098/rsif.2007.1064 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 4 (16) ◽

pp. 851-863 ◽

Cited By ~ 57

Author(s):

Alun L Lloyd ◽

Ji Zhang ◽

A.Morgan Root

Keyword(s):

Branching Process ◽

Moment Equations ◽

Demographic Stochasticity ◽

The Face ◽

Process Methodology ◽

The Impact ◽

Malaria Model ◽

Heterogeneous Transmission ◽

Insight Into ◽

Stochastic Extinction

Demographic stochasticity and heterogeneity in transmission of infection can affect the dynamics of host–vector disease systems in important ways. We discuss the use of analytic techniques to assess the impact of demographic stochasticity in both well-mixed and heterogeneous settings. Disease invasion probabilities can be calculated using branching process methodology. We review the use of this theory for host–vector infections and examine its use in the face of heterogeneous transmission. Situations in which there is a marked asymmetry in transmission between host and vector are seen to be of particular interest. For endemic infections, stochasticity leads to variation in prevalence about the endemic level. If these fluctuations are large enough, disease extinction can occur via endemic fade-out. We develop moment equations that quantify the impact of stochasticity, providing insight into the likelihood of stochastic extinction. We frame our discussion in terms of the simple Ross malaria model, but discuss extensions to more realistic host–vector models.

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