BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ceres.rub.de//events//
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-TIMEZONE:UTC
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Sites and Rites of Death: Spacing the Corpse in and across Religio
 us Contexts
DTSTART:20111012T070000Z
DTEND:20111013T153000Z
DTSTAMP:20260429T213311Z
UID:Sites_en-183@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Flyer\nThere is a variety of conceptions\, regulations and rit
 ual practices centered on the ways of disposing the dead across religious 
 communities. Hegel once remarked that history is the record of “what man
  does with death” and he may be right. Arguably\, religion is a testimon
 y of how humans have dealt with death and without death there might have b
 een no religion. Though this may be open to debate\, undeniably there are 
 enduring discourses concerning the proper and improper ways of disposing t
 he body (the vessel)–i.e.\, entombing\, mummifying\, embalming\, cremati
 ng\, burying (soil/water)\, dismembering\, consuming (cannibalism)\, feedi
 ng it to the beasts (sky-burials\, ‘towers of silence’)\, and so forth
 –which is believed in many cases to have an effect on the afterlife of i
 ts ‘contents’ (i.e.\, soul\, spirit\, mind-stream). While there are sy
 mbolic links between the physical after-life of the corpse and the locatio
 n of its disposal (i.e.\, cemeteries\, mausoleums\, catacombs\, rivers\, e
 tc)\, these ‘places of death’ (burial sites) may serve to unite and at
 tract people of the same faith and exclude people of other faiths. There a
 re many stories of persons who were unable\, for a variety of reasons (inc
 luding suicide)\, to cross to the other side and roam as ghosts and malevo
 lent spirits haunting places and people. Ethnographically\, cemeteries are
  generally seen as dangerous places avoided by those living. Fahlander & O
 estigaard (2008:12) follow with the remark that in such cases there is a c
 ommon belief that “the dead are not dead\, but they are alive\, although
  not as a fully fledged human being\, but nevertheless real and present.
 ” The dead body conjures up a host of attending discourses and legends c
 oncerning the physical and metaphysical spaces it ‘occupies’ before it
  gets disposed and after. It is closely linked with the creation of border
 s and with their transcendence (i.e.\, ‘life and death\;’ ‘dead and 
 the living\;’ ‘purity and impurity\;’ ‘partisans of religion x vs.
  y’).\nGenerally speaking the dead body calls upon two ritual processes\
 ; first\, is the initial preparation of the corpse (i.e.\, washing or anoi
 nting the body with oils or other substances) and second\, the actual mann
 er of its disposal. Burial evidence may be instructive for understanding t
 he formation and expansion of religious structures and traditions. Funeral
  rites are after all about a set of rituals by which those living are forc
 ed to deal with death and its materiality. As such they are not consistent
 \, coherent and unchanging. They are not performed in the same way among e
 quals (i.e.\, varying according to the rank of the deceased) and social an
 d legislative variations are often observed within the same religious cont
 exts. It would appear that death rites are vital to the definition and red
 efinition of religious ideas. New burial patterns emerged\, for instance\,
  when Islam spread from the cities of Arabia to Mesopotamia\, the eastern 
 Mediterranean\, and North Africa\, while religious scholars were often at 
 odds to distinguish Islamic rites from Christian\, Jewish\, and Zoroastria
 n practices. The participation of members of different religious communiti
 es in funerary practices and commemorations was at times\, but not always 
 encouraged\, while instances of desecration may be the byproduct of cross-
 religious dynamics. Hybridized death rituals and shared burial sites speak
  of periods of conversion and transference of ideas from one religion to a
 nother\, while mixed artistic traditions in slabs and funerary monuments m
 ight reveal compelling traces of religious acculturation and adaptation. T
 here are instances where codes of funerary law or funerary rituals have tr
 ansformed and were transformed by commonly held practices in accordance wi
 th changing political\, economic and urban settings. In this workshop we w
 ill be looking at case studies addressing this topic that illuminate insta
 nces of contact among compatible and/or competing religious traditions.
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/en/events/Sites_en/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR