Taming Time, Timing Death ─ Social Technologies and Ritual

Departing from a persisting current in Western thought, which conceives of time in the abstract, and often reflects upon death as occupying a space at life's margins, this book begins from position that it is in fact through the material and perishable world that we experience time. As such, it is with death and our encounters with it, that form the basis of human conceptions of time. Presenting rich, interdisciplinary empirical studies of death rituals and practices across the globe, from the US and Europe, Asia, The Middle East, Australasia and Africa, Taming Time, Timing Death explores the manner in which social technologies and rituals have been and are implemented to avoid, delay or embrace death, or communicate with the dead, thus informing and manifesting humans' understanding of time. It will therefore be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, philosophy, sociology and social theory, human geography and religion.

Dorthe Refslund Christensen is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark. Rane Willerslev is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is author of Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism and Personhood among the Siberian Yukaghirs and On the Run in Siberia.