Rediscovery of Death Since 1960

Abstract

Man has always been concerned with and has devised strategic attitudes toward death. Since 1960 there has been a burgeoning of interest, as evidenced by the increase in writings about death, and a distinct shift in conceptualization. The literature is surveyed indicating the loci of increased interest, exploring the concerns of different groups—physicians, family members, clergymen, historians—and discussing the effects of modern life such as the impact of advanced medical technology.

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“…For instance, concepts such as the 'taboo' or 'denial of death' were promoted (Feifel 1959) to criticise the advances of biomedical sciences and emergency care technologies, which were considered responsible for pushing the experience of dying to the background. In this period, designated retrospectively as the 'rediscovery of death' (Vovelle 1980), psychologists and psychiatrists strongly shaped a psychological definition of death (Martinovic 2017). Drawing on humanist teachings on the art of dying, theories of grief and trauma, but 1 See Eugene Taylor's foreword in Psychology of the Unconscious (Jung 1991).…”

“…This was a way for the author to establish the two manuals as the main pillars and contrasting forces to the European tradition of ars moriendi. The latter goes back to Ancient Greek and Roman traditions of 'good death', which were eventually translated into medieval and Christian notions of a pious death and were also taken up by modern medicine (Vovelle 1980;Carol 2004). In the second edition of 1949, Evans-Wentz highlights the main outcome of the Tibetan Book to the Dead: to teach the art of dying as an art of living.…”

“Spectacular Death”—Proposing a New Fifth Phase to Philippe Ariès’s Admirable History of Death

“…Others have stated that what we are in fact seeing right now is an attempt at "retrieving" some of the lost ars moriendi of the medieval "tamed death" in contemporary society evident in many of the ideas and practices implemented by the palliative care movement [74]. Yet others have proposed that, since the mid-20th century, we have simultaneously been witnessing a "rediscovery" of death within many of our social practices as well as in our academic disciplines that previously largely neglected the topic, ( [45], p. 491; [75][76][77]), whereas others have labelled it a "reinvention" in which our discourses on death and dying due to scientific and technological advances particularly pertaining to discussions of death criteria and organ transplantation have changed considerably over the last few decades [78]. Despite these slight terminological differences, the proponents of these ideas generally agree that something substantial has happened to our understanding of and exposure to death, requiring that we move beyond a taboo and denial thesis.…”

Death in High Modernity: The Contemporary Presence and Absence of Death

“…This idea of the privatisation of meaning, and the difficulties it creates for modem individuals attempting to deal with death, is borne out by a consideration of what are generally acknowledged to be the considerable changes in how people in Europe and North America have approached the phenomenon of death (Aries, 1974(Aries, , 1981Vouvelle, 1980;Turner, 1991). Death has gradually been removed from public space, where it was contained in communal, religious beliefs and practices (Aries, 1981), into the seclusion of the hospital (Illich, 1976;Huntington and Metcalf, 1979;Elias, 1985), where it has become a technical matter for medical professionals (Glaser and Strauss, 1968;.…”