The Last Dance: Encountering Death and Dying, 10/e
Lynne Ann DeSpelder,
Cabrillo College Albert Lee Strickland
ISBN: 0078035465 Copyright year: 2015
Feature Summary
• In Chapter 1, we look at expressions of attitudes toward death in mass media, language, music, literature, and the visual arts.
• In Chapter 2, we investigate how we learn about death throughout the life course.
• In Chapter 3 we explore historical and cultural factors that shape attitudes and practices relative to dying and death.
• Chapter 4 shows how public policy affects our dealings with dying and death by means of a society’s “death systems.”
• Care of dying persons is the primary focus of Chapter 5.
• Chapter 6 deals with a variety of issues and decisions that pertain to the end of life.
• Chapter 7, with its focus on how people live with a life-threatening illness, gives attention to the psychological and social meanings associated with such illnesses.
• The ceremonies and rituals enacted by individuals and social groups after a death form the content of Chapter 8.
• Chapter 9 is devoted to helping readers gain a comprehensive understanding of bereavement, grief, and mourning.
• Employing a life-span perspective, Chapters 10 and 11 deal with death-related issues associated with different stages of life, from early childhood through old age.
• Chapter 10 includes discussion of children with life-threatening illness and discussion of children as survivors of a close death. It provides guidelines for helping children cope with change and loss.
• Chapter 11 examines losses occurring in adulthood, such as miscarriage, stillbirth, and neonatal death, and the death of a child, a parent, a spouse, or a close friend, as well as losses associated with aging.
• Chapter 12 offers insights into suicide and its risk factors, including the social and psychological context of suicide and suicidal behavior.
• Chapter 13 broadens the scope of death-related risks and threats. These include accidents and injuries, disasters, violence, war, genocide, terrorism, emerging diseases, and other examples of horrendous and traumatic death.
• Questions about human mortality and its meaning are at the forefront in the final two chapters of the book.
• Over 100 photos, boxes, cartoons and figures designed to integrate affective and cognitive aspects of death studies. Recommended readings at the end of each chapter and citations given in the chapter notes provide guidance to additional sources and references.
2015