Dying And Death: Inter-Disciplinary Perspectives

Death is a topic people are reluctant to ponder. Neither is dying a process that is usually being openly discussed. However, on a variety of occasions, dying and death are on a person’s minds, under some sensitive circumstances, he or she are eager to discuss with a close person, a friend, a professional.
The present volume, the second in the Series on Dying and Death, is meant to enrich personal experience of dying or death by providing its reader with knowledge and understanding of some aspects of dying or death.
Section 1 describes practices of mourning, in different times and places: USA during the Civil War (Ashley Byock), the Island of Viz, between Croatia and Italy (Kathleen Young), present day Israel (Asa Kasher), medieval Serbia (Mira Crouch) and post-Holocaust USA (Paula David).
Section 2 consists of reflections on mourning. It includes philosophical discussions of Friendship (Gary Peters), Grace (Dana Freibach-Heifetz), and the Other (Havi Carel), all in the context of mourning, as well as Mourning itself as a skill (Marguerite Peggy Flynn).
Section 3 brings papers on culture and suicide, in early modern Holland (Laura Cruz), in historical Japan (Lawrence Fouraker), as well as in the Jazz age (Kathleen Jones).
Section 4 discusses different predicaments of medics facing death and dying: terminal diagnosis (Angela Armstrong-Coster), palliative patients (Anna Taube), and the hospice setting (Elizabeth Gill).

Asa Kasher is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and until recently Laura Schwarz-Kipp Professor of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice at Tel Aviv University. He has published extensively in philosophy of language, military ethics and other areas of philosophy, such as meaning of life and death. He won the highest national Prize of Israel in Philosophy.