Death: Current Perspectives

Part 1 Dimensions of death: the personification of death, Robert Kastenbaum; a befitting and appropriate death, Avery D. Weisman; the pornography of death, Geoffrey Gorer; death in popular culture, Michael C. Kearl; the terror of death, Ernest Becker. Part 2 Historical and cross-cultural perspectives: western attitudes towards death, Phillipe Aries; the Black Death as a major event in world history, Yves Renouard; AIDS as human suffering, Paul Farmer and Arthur Kleinman; strategies for bringing the AIDS epidemic under control, Malcolm Gladwell; death be not strange, Peter Metcalf; days of the dead in Oaxaca, Mexico - an historical inquiry, Judith Strupp Green. Part 3 Dying in various settings: clinical care in the AIDS epidemic, Gerald H. Friedland; the ritual drama of mutual pretence, Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. Strauss; death, uses of a corpse and social worth, David Sudnow; dying at Murray Manor, Jaber F. Gubrium; hospice care for the 1990s - a concept coming of age, Marian Gentile and Maryanne Fello. Part 4 Funerals: the American way of death, Jessica Mitford; public behaviour in the funeral home, Vanderlyn R. Pine. Part 5 Grief and bereavement: symptomatology and management of accute grief, Erich Lindemann; a grief observed, C.S. Lewis; unresolved grief, Terest Rando; disenfranchised grief, Kenneth J. Doka. Part 6 Children and death: the child's theories concerning death, maria Nagy; worlds of dying children and their well siblings, Myra Bluebond-Langer; children traumatized by witnessing acts of personal violence - homicide, rape or suicide behaviour, Robert S, Pynoos; the death of a child, Beverley Raphael. Part 7 Euthanasia and medical ethics: voluntary active euthanasia, Dan Brock; when self-determination runs amok, Daniel Callahan; the Nazi "Euthanasia" programme, Robert J. Lifton; harvesting the dead, Willard Gaylin. Part 8 Suicide: egoistic suicide, Emile Durkheim; epidemiology of suicide in the United States, John L, McIntosh; examining suicide from a life span perspective, Judith M. Stillion and Eugen E. McDowell; suicide as a psychache, Edwin S. Shneidman. Part 9 Violent death, disasters and megadeath: kids who kill, Gordon Witkin; this is your death, Jacob Weisberg; death penalty sentiment in the United States, hans Zeisel and Alec M. Gallup; loss of community at Buffalo Creek, Kai T, Erikson; night, Elie Wiesel; megamurders, J.J. Rummel. Part 10 Beyond death: near-death experiences - new evidence for survival?, Robert Kastenbaum; do we survive death?, Bertrand Russell; the post-self, Edwin S. Shneidman.