Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Laqueur, Thomas Walter (1945-....)
Titre(s) : The work of the dead [Texte imprimé] : a cultural history of mortal remains / Thomas W. Laqueur
Publication : Princeton (N. J.) : Princeton University Press, 2015
Description matérielle : xix, 711 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references (pages 559-678) and index
"The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over
the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became
of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur
examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has
been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific
age, the dead body still matters--for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably
ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account
of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth
century. The book draws on a vast range of sources--from mortuary archaeology, medical
tracts, letters, songs, poems, and novels to painting and landscapes in order to recover
the work that the dead do for the living: making human communities that connect the
past and the future. Laqueur shows how the churchyard became the dominant resting
place of the dead during the Middle Ages and why the cemetery largely supplanted it
during the modern period. He traces how and why since the nineteenth century we have
come to gather the names of the dead on great lists and memorials and why being buried
without a name has become so disturbing. And finally, he tells how modern cremation,
begun as a fantasy of stripping death of its history, ultimately failed--and how even
the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust have been preserved in culture. A fascinating
chronicle of how we shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them, this is a landmark
work of cultural history."
Sujet(s) : Rites et cérémonies funéraires -- Études transculturelles
Mort -- Société -- Études transculturelles
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780691157788. - ISBN 0691157782
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb44514438v
Notice n° :
FRBNF44514438
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
