Peter C. Jupp - Böcker

This topical collection of eleven commissioned essays by well-established contributors from sociology, religious studies and theology, is one of the first treatments of the relationship between postmodernity and religion from a sociological perspective. The essays cover a diversity of interests, but treat postmodernity in terms of its implications for the self, the New Age and theology, particularly Catholicism and Judaism. Two of the essays are original appraisals of two important French writers on religion: Jean-Luc Marion and Daniele Hervieu-Leger.

Since the construction of death mores has social implications, a major element of the book is an examination of the way in which groups and individuals employ specific representations of mortality in order to generate meaning and purpose for life and death.

The book argues that attitudes to death and to disposal are culturally formed and examines the factors in the formation and decline of such attitudes by analysing specific issues over four centuries of death.

This collection of thirteen specially commissioned essays expands a new intellectual terrain for sociology virtue ethics. Using a variety of religious perspectives, of Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Quakerism, with considerations of Islam and the New Age, this collection deals with properties of virtue in relation to the person, celibacy, hope, and apocalypse, mourning, moral ambiguity. It also treats the concept of virtue in response to MacIntyre, Bauman, Weber, Durkheim and Giddens. It seeks to move sociology past the disabling effects of postmodernity.

This collection of 11 commissioned essays by contributors from sociology, religious studies and theology, is a treatment of the relationship between postmodernity and religion from a sociological perspective. The essays cover a diversity of interests, but treat postmodernity in terms of its implications for the self, the New Age and theology, particularly Catholicism and Judaism. Two of the essays are appraisals of two French writers on religion: Jean Luc Marion and Daniele Hervieu Leger.

The emergence of spirituality in contemporary culture in holistic forms suggests that organised religions have failed. This thesis is explored and disputed in this book in ways that mark important critical divisions. This is the first collection of essays to assess the significance of spirituality in the sociology of religion. The authors explore the relationship of spirituality to the visual, individualism, gender, identity politics, education and cultural capital. The relationship between secularisation and spirituality is examined and consideration is given to the significance of Simmel in relation to a sociology of spirituality. Problems of defining spirituality are debated with reference to its expression in the UK, the USA, France and Holland. This timely, original and well structured volume provides undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers with a scholarly appraisal of a phenomenon that can only increase in sociological significance.

Since the construction of death mores has social implications, a major element of the book is an examination of the way in which groups and individuals employ specific representations of mortality in order to generate meaning and purpose for life and death.

This topical collection of eleven commissioned essays by well-established contributors from sociology, religious studies and theology, is one of the first treatments of the relationship between postmodernity and religion from a sociological perspective.

The book argues that attitudes to death and to disposal are culturally formed and examines the factors in the formation and decline of such attitudes by analysing specific issues over four centuries of death.

The emergence of spirituality in contemporary culture in holistic forms suggests that organised religions have failed. This thesis is explored and disputed in this book in ways that mark important critical divisions. This is the first collection of essays to assess the significance of spirituality in the sociology of religion. The authors explore the relationship of spirituality to the visual, individualism, gender, identity politics, education and cultural capital. The relationship between secularisation and spirituality is examined and consideration is given to the significance of Simmel in relation to a sociology of spirituality. Problems of defining spirituality are debated with reference to its expression in the UK, the USA, France and Holland. This timely, original and well structured volume provides undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers with a scholarly appraisal of a phenomenon that can only increase in sociological significance.

For the past twenty years, Scottish death culture has emerged as a focus of scholars drawn from a wide variety of disciplines. Death comes to us all but too often we treat it as a private or personal matter. The former taboo about death is slowly lifting and contemporary research is playing an increasing part. Accordingly, the fifteen essays gathered in this book probe the multi-facetted role of death in Scottish history and culture. They explore personal fears of death, anxieties about Predestination, prayers for the dead and the appeal of Spiritualism. They analyse the public face of death in law, economics and medicine: changes in capital punishment, funeral poverty, the teaching of anatomy and prevention of stillbirths. Within the worlds of religion and ritual, they consider the making of saints, burial practice following the Scottish Reformation and the tradition of keening within the Gáidhealtachd. With an Introduction by Professor Jane Dawson, these essays by specialists in the field not only highlight the richness of the primary sources for studying death in Scotland but reveal how death studies identify key features of Scottish life and society across ten centuries.

The second edition of From Dust to Ashes brings up-to-date this classic text investigating the replacement of burial by cremation in England and Wales. Cremation was promoted seriously in 1874 but the first cremation did not take place until eleven years later. The response by the public was cautious. Despite the provision of crematoria, by 1939, less than 4 percent of deaths were followed by cremation. The Second World War and the immediate post-war welfare state period brought drastic change to the extent that by 1967 the number of cremations first exceeded burials. Today, the proportion is just over 80 per cent. The final chapter addresses the enormous changes in the last twenty-five years in the disposal of our deadThis book discusses the activities of the Cremation Society, the establishment of early crematoria, and the promotion of cremation against the background of social and economic change before outlining the reasons why bereaved families chose to accept it and, finally, the social, economic and religious pressures that facilitated its adoption.The book will therefore be of use to scholars of death studies, anthropology, sociology, health and medicine and church history, as well as members of the funeral professions.