Download or read book An Early Afterlife written by Linda Pastan and published by W W Norton & Company Incorporated. This book was released on 1996 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "She is always exhilarating for a reader and very educational for a writer. She just happens to be one of the creators among current poets, alive and surprising, and deft." --William Stratford

Download or read book The Afterlife of Pope Joan written by Craig Rustici and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the religious tumult of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English scholars, preachers, and dramatists examined, debated, and refashioned tales concerning Pope Joan, a ninth-century woman who, as legend has it, cross-dressed her way to the papacy only to have her imposture exposed when she gave birth during a solemn procession. The legend concerning a popess had first taken written form in the thirteenth century and for several hundred years was more or less accepted. The Reformation, however, polarized discussions of the legend, pitting Catholics, who denied the story’s veracity, against Protestants, who suspected a cover-up and instantly cited Joan as evidence of papal depravity. In this heated environment, writers reimagined Joan variously as a sorceress, a hermaphrodite, and even a noteworthy author. The Afterlife of Pope Joan examines sixteenth- and seventeenth-century debates concerning the popess’s existence, uncovering the disputants’ historiographic methods, rules of evidence, rhetorical devices, and assumptions concerning what is probable and possible for women and transvestites. Author Craig Rustici then investigates the cultural significance of a series of notions advanced in those debates: the claim that Queen Elizabeth I was a popess in her own right, the charge that Joan penned a book of sorcery, and the curious hypothesis that the popess was not a disguised woman at all but rather a man who experienced a sort of spontaneous sex change. The Afterlife of Pope Joan draws upon the discourses of religion, politics, natural philosophy, and imaginative literature, demonstrating how the popess functioned as a powerful rhetorical instrument and revealing anxieties and ambivalences about gender roles that persist even today. Craig M. Rustici is Associate Professor of English at Hofstra University.

Download or read book Excavating the Afterlife written by Guolong Lai and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This pioneering study examines art objects and texts excavated from tombs in what was once the state of Chu, in south China, dating from the Warring States period (ca. 480-221 BCE) to the beginning of the imperial era (3rd century BCE to 1st century CE) to explore critical changes in religious beliefs and practices concerning the dead and the afterlife."

Download or read book The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage written by Stephen E. Potthoff and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage explores how the visionary experiences of early Christian martyrs shaped and informed early Christian ancestor cult and the construction of the cemetery as paradise. Taking the early Christian cemeteries in Carthage as a case study, the volume broadens our understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the early Christian cult of the saints, and highlights the often divergent views about the dead and post-mortem realms expressed by the church fathers, and in graveside ritual and the material culture of the cemetery. This fascinating study is a key resource for students of late antique and early Christian culture.

Download or read book The Ancient Roman Afterlife written by Charles W. King and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study of the manes, their worship, and their place in Roman conceptions of their society. In ancient Rome, it was believed some humans were transformed into special, empowered beings after death. These deified dead, known as the manes, watched over and protected their surviving family members, possibly even extending those relatives’ lives. But unlike the Greek hero-cult, the worship of dead emperors, or the Christian saints, the manes were incredibly inclusive—enrolling even those without social clout, such as women and the poor, among Rome’s deities. The Roman afterlife promised posthumous power in the world of the living. While the manes have often been glossed over in studies of Roman religion, this book brings their compelling story to the forefront, exploring their myriad forms and how their worship played out in the context of Roman religion’s daily practice. Exploring the place of the manes in Roman society, Charles King delves into Roman beliefs about their powers to sustain life and bring death to individuals or armies, examines the rituals the Romans performed to honor them, and reclaims the vital role the manes played in the ancient Roman afterlife. “King ranges widely across literary genres, law, epigraphy, and archaeology. He provides a thorough, rigorous, and well-documented study of an aspect of Roman religion and culture that, despite its importance, has so far not received due attention.” —James B. Rives, author of Religion in the Roman Empire “Groundbreaking . . . An invaluable resource for scholars of religion, funerary practice and afterlife in ancient Rome and more generally . . . King aims to use his model of variability in Roman belief to show the cult of the dead as inclusive of all Romans, living and deceased. Through extensive literary evidence and select cross-cultural comparisons, he largely succeeds. This stands to become a foundational text.” —Antiquity “King presents many attractive impressions of Roman society in his study . . . King’s major thesis—that Romans regarded their dead as gods, thought about them, communicated with them, attended to them, and intended to join them—is conclusively presented.” —Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Download or read book The Ransom of the Soul written by Peter Brown and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-14 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year A Tablet Book of the Year Marking a departure in our understanding of Christian views of the afterlife from 250 to 650 CE, The Ransom of the Soul explores a revolutionary shift in thinking about the fate of the soul that occurred around the time of Rome’s fall. Peter Brown describes how this shift transformed the Church’s institutional relationship to money and set the stage for its domination of medieval society in the West. “[An] extraordinary new book...Prodigiously original—an astonishing performance for a historian who has already been so prolific and influential...Peter Brown’s subtle and incisive tracking of the role of money in Christian attitudes toward the afterlife not only breaks down traditional geographical and chronological boundaries across more than four centuries. It provides wholly new perspectives on Christianity itself, its evolution, and, above all, its discontinuities. It demonstrates why the Middle Ages, when they finally arrived, were so very different from late antiquity.” —G. W. Bowersock, New York Review of Books “Peter Brown’s explorations of the mindsets of late antiquity have been educating us for nearly half a century...Brown shows brilliantly in this book how the future life of Christians beyond the grave was influenced in particular by money. —A. N. Wilson, The Spectator

Download or read book Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations written by Gregory Shushan and published by Continuum. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory Shushan challenges post-modern scholarly attitudes concerning cross-cultural comparisons in the study of religions. In an original and innovative piece of comparative research, he analyses afterlife conceptions in five ancient civilisations (Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt, Sumerian and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, Vedic India, pre-Buddhist China, and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica). These are considered in light of historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife 'journeys'. Conceptions of the Afterlife in Early Civilizations is a significant study, for it presents a comprehensive new comparative framework for the cross-cultural study of myth and religion, while at the same time providing a fascinating exploration of the interface between belief and experience.

Download or read book The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage written by Stephen E. Potthoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage explores how the visionary experiences of early Christian martyrs shaped and informed early Christian ancestor cult and the construction of the cemetery as paradise. Taking the early Christian cemeteries in Carthage as a case study, the volume broadens our understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the early Christian cult of the saints, and highlights the often divergent views about the dead and post-mortem realms expressed by the church fathers, and in graveside ritual and the material culture of the cemetery. This fascinating study is a key resource for students of late antique and early Christian culture.

Download or read book Orthodox Afterlife written by John Habib and published by St. Mary & St. Moses Abbey. This book was released on 2016-08-22 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Habib came back to the faith of his youth in young adulthood after reading an afterlife story handwritten by an Egyptian Christian monk. This book is the culmination of over fifteen years of research on a quest to arrive at what the Orthodox Christian understanding of the afterlife really is. John is an avid student of Christian history and theology, having written several articles and delivered countless lectures on those subjects.

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife written by Jan N. Bremmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Belief in the afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. Originally Greece and Israel - the cultures that gave us Christianity - had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? In this fascinating, learned, but highly readable book, Jan N. Bremmer - one of the foremost authorities on ancient religion - takes a fresh look at the major developments in the Western imagination of the afterlife, from the ancient Greeks to the modern near-death experience.

Download or read book Heaven Hell and the Afterlife written by J. Harold Ellens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page 1146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all feature ideas about heaven, hell, and afterlife, and these concepts have evolved over time within these religions. This work supplies a detailed and coherent understanding of the broad scope of spiritual thinking in the last 3,000 years within the Abrahamic traditions. Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife: Eternity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam provides an all-encompassing examination of historic and contemporary perspectives on afterlife in Western religions. In these three volumes, Judaic, Christian, and Muslim scholars join forces, providing an unprecedented review of their individual faith's traditions. Every significant issue and major theme is discussed; no controversial topic is avoided. From ancient doctrines to modern-day outlooks of conservatives, progressives, and liberals in all three religions, all are analyzed and presented here. The framework of the volumes underscores how the ethics and concepts of eternity in the Western "action" religions contrast with Eastern religions that tend to be characterized as "passive" or "withdrawal" religions in their ethics and their notions of afterlife as absorption within universal spirit, Nirvana, or nonexistence. This work is well-suited for undergraduate and graduate students, general readers interested in religion, and professional scholars, particularly those in fields corollary to religious study.

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Afterlife written by John S. Garrison and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare and the Afterlife is the first book to focus on discussions of what happens after death within the author's body of work.

Download or read book Early Greek Ethics written by David Conan Wolfsdorf and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-05-22 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early Greek Ethics is the first volume devoted to philosophical ethics in its "formative" period. It explores contributions from the Presocratics, figures of the early Pythagorean tradition, sophists, and anonymous texts, as well as topics influential to ethical philosophical thought such as Greek medicine, music, friendship, and justice.

Download or read book Afterlife written by Barry Eaton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the thousands of people who loved To Heaven and Back, Heaven is for Real, and Proof of Heaven, a warm and detailed account of life between lives—and our lives to come What happens when someone dies? What does it feel like? What exactly is the light at the end of the tunnel? Is reincarnation real? And if so, do spirits have any influence over their lives to come? Based on his own amazing experiences communicating with those who have passed over, Barry Eaton answers these questions about the spirit world, and many, many more. Taking the reader on a journey through the realm of the spirit, the author details the whole process of crossing into the next life, from the journey “home,” to adapting to new living conditions in the afterlife, and even delving into what kinds of activities will be available there, and how we can be prepared for our own personal journey. This book will give hope, alleviate fear, and provide comfort for anyone who has questions or concerns about life after death.

Download or read book Jewish Views of the Afterlife written by Simcha Paull Raphael and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1994, Jewish Views of the Afterlife is a classic study of ideas of afterlife and postmortem survival in Jewish tradition and mysticism. As both a scholar and pastoral counselor, Raphael guides the reader through 4,000 years of Jewish thought on the afterlife by investigating pertinent sacred texts produced in each era. Through a compilation of ideas found in the Bible, Apocrypha, rabbinic literature, medieval philosophy, medieval Midrash, Kabbalah, Hasidism and Yiddish literature, the reader learns how Judaism conceived of the fate of the individual after death throughout Jewish history. In addition, this book explores the implications of Jewish afterlife beliefs for a renewed understanding of traditional rituals of funeral, burial, shiva, kaddish and more. This newly released twenty-fifth anniversary edition presents new material on little-known Jewish mystical teachings on reincarnation, a chapter on “Spirits, Ghosts and Dybbuks in Yiddish Literature”, and a foreword by the renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Arthur Green. Both historical and contemporary, this book provides a rich resource for scholars and laypeople and for teachers and students and makes an important Jewish contribution to the growing contemporary psychology of death and dying.

Download or read book Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism written by Jacqueline I. Stone and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2008-08-20 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a thousand years, Buddhism has dominated Japanese death rituals and concepts of the afterlife. The nine essays in this volume, ranging chronologically from the tenth century to the present, bring to light both continuity and change in death practices over time. They also explore the interrelated issues of how Buddhist death rites have addressed individual concerns about the afterlife while also filling social and institutional needs and how Buddhist death-related practices have assimilated and refigured elements from other traditions, bringing together disparate, even conflicting, ideas about the dead, their postmortem fate, and what constitutes normative Buddhist practice. The idea that death, ritually managed, can mediate an escape from deluded rebirth is treated in the first two essays. Sarah Horton traces the development in Heian Japan (794–1185) of images depicting the Buddha Amida descending to welcome devotees at the moment of death, while Jacqueline Stone analyzes the crucial role of monks who attended the dying as religious guides. Even while stressing themes of impermanence and non-attachment, Buddhist death rites worked to encourage the maintenance of emotional bonds with the deceased and, in so doing, helped structure the social world of the living. This theme is explored in the next four essays. Brian Ruppert examines the roles of relic worship in strengthening family lineage and political power; Mark Blum investigates the controversial issue of religious suicide to rejoin one’s teacher in the Pure Land; and Hank Glassman analyzes how late medieval rites for women who died in pregnancy and childbirth both reflected and helped shape changing gender norms. The rise of standardized funerals in Japan’s early modern period forms the subject of the chapter by Duncan Williams, who shows how the Soto Zen sect took the lead in establishing itself in rural communities by incorporating local religious culture into its death rites. The final three chapters deal with contemporary funerary and mortuary practices and the controversies surrounding them. Mariko Walter uncovers a "deep structure" informing Japanese Buddhist funerals across sectarian lines—a structure whose meaning, she argues, persists despite competition from a thriving secular funeral industry. Stephen Covell examines debates over the practice of conferring posthumous Buddhist names on the deceased and the threat posed to traditional Buddhist temples by changing ideas about funerals and the afterlife. Finally, George Tanabe shows how contemporary Buddhist sectarian intellectuals attempt to resolve conflicts between normative doctrine and on-the-ground funerary practice, and concludes that human affection for the deceased will always win out over the demands of orthodoxy. Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism constitutes a major step toward understanding how Buddhism in Japan has forged and retained its hold on death-related thought and practice, providing one of the most detailed and comprehensive accounts of the topic to date. Contributors: Mark L. Blum, Stephen G. Covell, Hank Glassman, Sarah Johanna Horton, Brian O. Ruppert, Jacqueline I. Stone, George J. Tanabe, Jr., Mariko Namba Walter, Duncan Ryuken Williams.

Download or read book German Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife written by Vivian Liska and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: InGerman-Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife,Vivian Liska innovatively focuses on the changing form, fate and function of messianism, law, exile, election, remembrance, and the transmission of tradition itself in three different temporal and intellectual frameworks: German-Jewish modernism, postmodernism, and the current period. Highlighting these elements of theJewish tradition in the works of Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Celan, Liska reflects on dialogues and conversations between themandonthereception of their work.She shows how this Jewish dimension of their writings is transformed, but remains significant in the theories of Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida and how it is appropriated, dismissed or denied by some of the most acclaimed thinkers at the turn of the twenty-first century such as Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj i ek, and Alain Badiou.