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Throughout history mankind has struggled to reconcile itself with the inescapability of its own mortality. This book explores the themes of immortality and survivalism in contemporary culture, shedding light on the varied and ingenious ways in which humans and human societies aspire to confront and deal with death, or even seek to outlive it, as it were. Bringing together theoretical and empirical work from internationally acclaimed scholars across a range of disciplines, Postmortal Society offers studies of the strategies adopted and means available in modern society for trying to ‘cheat’ death or prolong life, the status of the dead in the modern Western world, the effects of beliefs that address the terror of death in other areas of life, the ‘immortalisation’ of celebrities, the veneration of the dead in virtual worlds, symbolic immortality through work, the implications of understanding ‘immortality’ in chemical-neuronal terms, and the apparent paradox of our greater reverence for the dead in increasingly secular, capitalist societies. A fascinating collection of studies that explore humanity’s attempts to deal with its own mortality in the modern age, this book will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers and scholars of cultural studies with interests in death and dying.
In the year 2019. Humanity has witnessed its greatest scientific breakthrough yet: the cure for ageing. Three injections and you're immortal - not bulletproof or disease-proof but you'll never have to fear death by old age. For John Farrell, documenting the cataclysmic shifts to life after the cure becomes an obsession
Despite the range of studies into grief and mourning in relation to the digital, research to date largely focuses on the cultural practices and meanings that are played out in and through digital environments. Digital Afterlife brings together experts from diverse fields who share an interest in Digital Afterlife and the wide-ranging issues that relate to this. The book covers a variety of matters that have been neglected in other research texts, for example: The legal, ethical, and philosophical conundrums of Digital Afterlife The ways digital media are currently being used to expand the possibilities of commemorating the dead and managing the grief of those left behind Our lives are shaped by and shape the creation of our Digital Afterlife as the digital has become a taken for granted aspect of human experience. This book will be of interest to undergraduates from computing, theology, business studies, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and education from all types of institutions. Secondary audiences include researchers and postgraduate researchers with an interest in the digital. At a practical level, the cost of data storage and changing data storage systems mitigate the likelihood of our digital presence existing in perpetuity. Whether we create accidental or intentional digital memories, this has psychological consequences for ourselves and for society. Essentially, the foreverness of forever is in question. Maggi Savin-Baden is Professor of Higher Education Research at the University of Worcester. She has a strong publication record of over 50 research publications and 17 books. Victoria Mason-Robbie is a Chartered Psychologist and an experienced lecturer having worked in the Higher Education sector for over 15 years. Her current research focuses on evaluating web-based avatars, pedagogical agents, and virtual humans.
On television and in films, in magazines and books, on the Internet and in the realm of politics, celebrities of all sorts seem to dominate our attention. Celebrity Society: The Struggle for Attention brings new perspectives to our understanding of how the figure of ‘the celebrity’ is bound up with the structure and dynamics of society, economics, and politics. It outlines how the ‘celebrification of society’ is not just the twentieth-century product of Hollywood and television, but a long-term historical process, beginning with Christian saints, the printing press, theatre, and art. Drawing on the ideas of Norbert Elias, the book explains how contemporary celebrity society is the heir (or heiress) of ‘court society’, taking on but also transforming many of the functions of the aristocracy. As well as examining celebrity in all the familiar arenas – film, television, music, fashion, and sport – Celebrity Society also includes the analysis of celebrity in business and management, politics, humanitarianism, and philanthropy. A key feature of the book is its development of the idea that celebrity is driven by the ‘economy of attention’, since attention has become a form of capital – attention capital – in the Information and Internet age. In this second edition the author has updated and significantly revised this path-breaking book to include a more detailed discussion of attention capital, the question of gender and celebrity, populism, fans, fandom, and self-formation, micro-celebrity, and personal or self-branding, the ‘worker celebrity’, and the impact of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Celebrity is an exciting and rapidly expanding field of social science, making this engaging book a valuable resource for students and scholars in sociology, politics, history, celebrity studies, cultural studies, the sociology of media, and cultural theory.
A sharp, funny, and heartfelt memoir from the author of The Night the Lights Went Out, The Hike, and The Postmortal about fatherhood and the ups and downs of raising a family in modern America No one writes about family quite like Drew Magary. In Someone Could Get Hurt, he reflects on his own parenting experiences to explore the anxiety, rationalizations, compromises, and overpowering love that come with raising children. In brutally honest and funny stories, Magary reveals how American mothers and fathers cope with being in over their heads—from getting drunk while trick-or-treating and telling dirty jokes to make bath time go smoothly to committing petty vandalism to bond with a five-year-old. Someone Could Get Hurt offers a hilarious and heartfelt look at child rearing with a glimpse into the genuine love and compassion that accompany the missteps and flawed logic. It’s the story of head lice, almost-dirty words, flat head syndrome, and a man trying to commit the ultimate act of selflessness in a selfish world.
This book, through the lens of interdisciplinary legal analysis, draws a subtle balance between bioethics and financial regulation, with the latter playing an unexpectedly crucial role in the way life may potentially be governed. The legal topic of human preservation or cryoconservation was initially developed in the United States in the case of Donaldson v. van de Kamp. More recently, the subject arose in Europe as a result of a decision of the High Court, Family Division, London. This new theme of cryoconservation has unfolded through multifaceted forms, including its impact on regulation. In an area that may, at least prima facie, be regarded as belonging to the traditional realm of medical law, the findings presented here suggest that its potential has strong economic implications. The work argues that it is necessary also to look at this subject from a more interdisciplinary perspective, drawing a fil rouge between two otherwise seemingly opposing areas of law: medical law and financial regulation. The legal framework draws on the Anglo-American, and the United Kingdom in particular, along with civil law analysis from Italy. The work will be of interest to researchers and academics in the areas of medical law, legal philosophy, financial law, property law and insurance law.
“The Hike just works. It’s like early, good Chuck Palahniuk. . . . Magary underhands a twist in at the end that hits you like a sharp jab at the bell. . . . It’s just that good.” —NPR.org “A page-turner. . . . Inventive, funny. . . . Quietly profound and touching.”—BoingBoing From the author of The Night the Lights Went Out and The Postmortal, a fantasy saga unlike any you’ve read before, weaving elements of folk tales and video games into a riveting, unforgettable adventure of what a man will endure to return to his family When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen cannot be given up easily. With no choice but to move forward, Ben finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a world of man-eating giants, bizarre demons, and colossal insects. On a quest of epic, life-or-death proportions, Ben finds help comes in some of the most unexpected forms, including a profane crustacean and a variety of magical objects, tools, and potions. Desperate to return to his family, Ben is determined to track down the “Producer,” the creator of the world in which he is being held hostage and the only one who can free him from the path. At once bitingly funny and emotionally absorbing, Magary’s novel is a remarkably unique addition to the contemporary fantasy genre, one that draws as easily from the world of classic folk tales as it does from video games. In The Hike, Magary takes readers on a daring odyssey away from our day-to-day grind and transports them into an enthralling world propelled by heart, imagination, and survival.
Exploring both the intrapersonal (moral) and interpersonal (ethical) nature of death and dying in the context of their development (philosophical), Dying in a Transhumanist and Posthuman Society shows how death and dying have been and will continue to be governed in any given society. Drawing on transhumanism and discourses about posthumanity, life prolongation and digital life, the book analyses death, dying and grief via the governance of dying. It states that the bio-medical dimensions of our understanding of death and dying have predominated not only the discourses about death in society and the care of the dying, but their policy and practice as well. It seeks to provoke thinking beyond the benefits of technology and within the confinements of the world transhumanists describe. This book is written for all who have an interest in thanatology (i.e. death studies) but will be useful specifically to those investigating the experiences of dying and grieving in contemporary societies, wherein technology, biology and medicine continuously advance. Thus, the manuscript will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of areas including health and social care, social policy, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, and, of course, thanatology.
How do the dead live among us today? Approaching death from the perspective of media and communication studies, anthropology, and sociology, this book explains how the all-encompassing presence of mediated death profoundly transforms contemporary society. It explores rituals of mourning and the livestreaming of death in hybrid media, as well as contemporary media-driven practices of immortalization. Sumiala draws on examples ranging from the iconic deaths of Margaret Thatcher and David Bowie to those of ordinary people ritualized on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. In addition, this book examines digital mourning of global events including the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Coronavirus pandemic. Mediated Death is a must-read for scholars and students of communication studies, as well as general readers interested in exploring the meaning of mediated death in contemporary society.​
The first book in the Kay Scarpetta series, from No. 1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell. Scarpetta is coming to the screen soon, starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis. 'America's most chilling writer of crime fiction' The Times A serial killer is on the loose in Richmond, Virginia. Three women have died, brutalised and strangled in their own bedroom. There is no pattern: the killer appears to strike at random - but always early on Saturday mornings. So when Dr Kay Scarpetta, chief medical officer, is awakened at 2.33 am, she knows the news is bad: there is a fourth victim. And she fears now for those that will follow unless she can dig up new forensic evidence to aid the police. But not everyone is pleased to see a woman in this powerful job. Someone may even want to ruin her career and reputation . . . If you're a fan of Patricia Cornwell's ground-breaking Kay Scarpetta series, don't miss her brand-new thriller Livid - out now. Praise for the groundbreaking series: 'One of the best crime writers writing today' Guardian 'Devilishly clever' Sunday Times 'The top gun in this field' Daily Telegraph 'Forget the pretenders. Cornwell reigns' Mirror 'The Agatha Christie of the DNA age' Express