Ultimate Ambiguities Investigating Death and Liminality [Hardcover]

Periods of transition are often symbolically associated with death, making the latter the paradigm of liminality. Yet, many volumes on death in the social sciences and humanities do not specifically address liminality. This book investigates these ultimate ambiguities, assuming they can pose a threat to social relationships because of the disintegrating forces of death, but they are also crucial periods of creativity, change, and emergent aspects of social and religious life. Contributors explore death and liminality from an interdisciplinary perspective and present a global range of historical and contemporary case studies outlining emotional, cognitive, artistic, social, and political implications.

List of Illustrations
Preface

Introduction
Peter Berger

PART I: RITUALS

Chapter 1.The Ambiguity of Mortal Remains, Substitute Bodies, and other Materializations of the Dead among the Garo of Northeast India
Erik de Maaker

Chapter 2.Structures and Processes of Liminality: The Shape of Mourning among the Sora of Tribal India
Piers Vitebsky

Chapter 3.Liminal Bodies, Liminal Food: Hindu and Tribal Death Rituals Compared
Peter Berger

Chapter 4.The Liminality of Living Martyrdom: Suicide Bombers Preparations for Paradise
Pieter G. T. Nanninga

PART II: CONCEPTS

Chapter 5.Disappearance and Liminality: Argentinas Mourning of State Terror
Antonius C.G.M. Robben

Chapter 6.Three Dimensions of Liminality in the Context of Kyrgyz Death Rituals
Roland Hardenberg

Chapter 7.Death, Ritual, and Effervescence
Peter Berger

PART III: IMAGERIES