Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mortality and its Timings When is Death? /

• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Other Authors: McCorristine, Shane (Editor)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: London : Palgrave Macmillan UK : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
• Edition: 1st ed. 2017.
• Series: Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife,
• Subjects: Civilization > History.; Social history.; Science > History.; Crime > Sociological aspects.; Science > Philosophy.; Cultural History.; Social History.; History of Science.; Crime and Society.; Philosophy of Science.
• Online Access: Link to Metadata

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume provides a series of illuminating perspectives on the timings of death, through in-depth studies of Shakespearean tragedy, criminal execution, embalming practices, fears of premature burial, rumours of Adolf Hitler's survival, and the legal concept of brain death. In doing so, it explores a number of questions, including: how do we know if someone is dead or not? What do people experience at the moment when they die? Is death simply a biological event that comes about in temporal stages of decomposition, or is it a social event defined through cultures, practices, and commemorations? In other words, when exactly is death? Taken together, these contributions explore how death emerges in a series of stages that are uncertain, paradoxical, and socially contested. .