A Global History Of Death

How does a Chinese funeral in the twenty-first century compare with one conducted two hundred years earlier? How much does fengshui still direct the choice of burial ground or the location of a slot in the columbarium ? and determine their prices? Where did the Saint Death come from and why the Catholic Church wants to expel her? What roles do dead bodies and bones as material objects play in history and in modern societies? Was there a difference between American and Singapore funeral industries? What should we do in this scientific age with the concept of reincarnation and the Resurrection? These questions among other death practices and imaginations will be examined in this module. We will go through the recent research on death rituals and practices in the fields of history and anthropology. By analysing the original sources in English and English translation, along with a critical reading of secondary literature, we will debate how modern and how traditional are the changes in global death practices, and trace their history. We will also discuss topics such as the role of the state in shaping death practices, the persistence of the underworld in popular imagination, and the dead exercised power from the graveyards and beyond.