Ultimate Ambiguities : : Investigating Death and Liminality / / ed. by Peter Berger, Justin Kroesen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• MitwirkendeR: Berger, Peter,; Bremmer, Jan N.,; Hardenberg, Roland,; Kroesen, Justin E.A.,; Kuiper, Yme B.,; Luth, Jan R.,; Maaker, Erik de,; Mirnig, Nina,; Nanninga, Pieter,; Robben, Antonius C.G.M.,; Vitebsky, Piers,
• HerausgeberIn: Berger, Peter,; Kroesen, Justin,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (290 p.)

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part I Rituals -- Chapter One. Ambiguous Mortal Remains, Substitute Bodies, and other Materializations of the Dead among the Garo of Northeast India -- Chapter Two. Structures and Processes of Liminality: The Shape of Mourning among the Sora of Tribal India -- Chapter Three. Liminal Bodies, Liminal Food Hindu and Tribal Death Rituals Compared -- Chapter Four. The Liminality of “Living Martyrdom” Suicide Bombers’ Preparations for Paradise -- Part II Concepts -- Chapter Five. Disappearance and Liminality: Argentina’s Mourning of State Terror -- Chapter Six. Three Dimensions of Liminality in the Context of Kyrgyz Death Rituals -- Chapter Seven. Death, Ritual, and Effervescence -- Part III Imageries -- Chapter Eight. Hungry Ghost or Divine Soul? Postmortem Initiation in Medieval Shaiva Tantric Death Rites -- Chapter Nine. Between Death and Judgment: Sleep as the Image of Death in Early Modern Protestantism -- Chapter Ten. Body and Soul between Death and Funeral in Archaic Greece -- Chapter Eleven. Death, Memory, and Liminality: Rethinking Lampedusa’s Later Life as Author and Aristocrat -- Index