<p>This dissertation analyzes the period of late modernism (roughly 1930-1965) by attending to an understudied subgenre: fictions that depict the experiences of the dead in the afterworld. The project originated from my observation that a number of late modernist authors resorted to this type of writing, leading to the question of what made them do so. Such a project addresses the periodization and definition of late modernism, a period that has received relatively little critical attention until recent years. It also contributes indirectly to the study of European culture before and after the Second World War, identifying clusters of concerns around common experiences of belief and time during the period. </p><p>To approach this question, I adopt a situational approach. In this type of reading, I attempt to reconstruct the situations (both literary and extra-literary) of specific authors using historical and biographical material, then interpret the literary work as a response to that situation. Such a methodology allows me to ask what similarities between situations led to these convergent responses of afterlife writing. My primary objects are afterlife novels and plays by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Wyndham Lewis, Flann O'Brien, and Samuel Beckett.</p><p>I find that the subgenre provided late modernists with the literary tools to figure and contest changes in experiences of belief and time in mid-20th century Europe. The situation of modernism is marked by <italic>the loss of belief in the world</italic>, a failure in the faith in action to transform the world, and <italic>the serialization of time</italic>, the treatment of time as static repetition and change as something that can only occur at the individual rather than the systemic level. While earlier modernists challenged these trends with the production of idiosyncratic private mythologies, late modernists encountered them as brute facts, leading to a shift in aesthetic sensibilities and strategies. Belief was split between private opinion and external submission to authority, and change reappeared under the figure of catastrophe.</p> / Dissertation

My dissertation consists of fifty poems that create a narrative arc of a woman's life and beyond. The poems consider and reconsider a woman's place and displacement within the family unit, society, and religion, and focus on major events in a woman's life: childhood, marriage, motherhood, divorce, grand-motherhood, and the deaths of children, siblings, and parents. Many of the poems focus on representations of women in art--in particular, religious art. Several poems consider constructions of God inside religion and outside conventional religion, and explore ideas of the soul before and after death. The majority of the poems are written in free verse, but I have included various other classic forms as well as nonce forms. My poetry attempts to make sense of my experiences. Much of my past work concerns my son's death, and while I have a number of poems that reference that event in this book as well, the majority of the poems spring from situations I have experienced that I was not able to fully process when they were happening. While these events are particular to me personally (my parent's divorce and my divorces; my son's diagnosis, deteriorating illness, and death; my daughter's marriage and motherhood), I believe that grappling with the significance of these events in my life honestly and crafting art from them is an important endeavor, one that can have meaning and significance for readers. My aesthetics have been influenced by Leon Stokesbury, Beth Gylys, and David Bottoms through working with me at GSU. Poets I have studied who have influenced my work include Amy Clampitt and Pattiann Rogers, because of their close observations of the natural world and unapologetically feminine perspective on that world. Pattiann Rogers combines natural science and metaphysics in her poetry to great effect and I pursue similar themes in my book. My interest and curiosity about the world around me is the wellspring for my creative processes and investigating ideas about the world revealed in science and reflected in art helps me put my life’s experiences in a context I can respond to in my poetry.

Orientador: Eduardo Basto de Albuquerque / Banca: Wilton Carlos Lima da Silva / Banca: Marco Antonio Neves Soares / Banca: Eliane Hojaji Gouveia / Banca: Sandra Jacqueline Stoll / Resumo: A crença na existência da vida após a morte é uma das mais fundamentais da humanidade. Ao longo da história, várias representações desse além foram difundidas pelas mais diversas religiões. A modernidade fez pensar que tal crença fosse típica apenas das sociedades mergulhadas no religioso e que a sociedade contemporânea tivesse reduzido o além a uma metáfora qualquer. Não foi isso que aconteceu. Apesar de o céu ter se tornado profano, lugar para a ciência, o céu religioso sobrevive. Para demonstrar isto, analisamos as representações espíritas do além, principalmente a partir da obra "Nosso Lar", de Francisco Cândido Xavier. A pesquisa se inicia com a constatação da transformação do céu sagrado em céu profano, na visão de Allan Kardec sobre o mundo dos mortos, e concluímos ela ser menos estruturada que a versão brasileira. Em seguida, reafirmamos o que outros estudiosos já haviam percebido: o Espiritismo brasileiro enfatizou muito mais o aspecto religioso da doutrina, reproduzindo em forma de conflito entre grupos, a contradição básica formulada pela proposta de Kardec de conciliar religião e ciência. Assim, defendemos que houve desde o início da sua história, a assimilação de elementos do universo católico, propiciando uma doutrina bem familiar à cultura brasileira, o que colaborou para a legitimação do Espiritismo no Brasil. Essa característica é bem visível nas narrações e descrições do além contidas nas obras de Chico Xavier, o que lhe garantiu a identificação com público a quem esses livros se destinam. / Abstract: The existence of life after death is one of the most fundamental beliefs of mankind. Throughout history, many representations of afterlife got spread by many different religions. Modern times made us believe that such belief was typical only of very religious societies and that contemporary society had reduced the concept of afterlife to a mere metaphor. That was not what happened. Although heaven has become profane and a subject for science, religious heaven survives. To demonstrate this, we analyze afterlife representations used by Spiritists, based mainly on the work "The Astral City", from Francisco Cândido Xavier. We verify the transformation of sacred heaven into profane heaven, using the vision of Allan Kardec about the world of the dead, and concluded that this vision is less structured than the Brazilian version. Following that, we reaffirm what other studies had already found: Brazilian Spiritism has emphasized the religious aspect of the doctrine a lot more, reproducing the basic contradiction formulated by Kardec's proposal of conciliating religion and science in the shape of conflicts between groups. Therefore, we defend that Spiritism in Brazil, since the beginning, assimilated elements of the catholic universe, resulting in a quite familiar doctrine to Brazilian culture which collaborated to its legitimization in the country. This characteristic is quite visible in the narratives and descriptions of afterlife in the works of Chico Xavier, which guaranteed an identification of the public towards his books. / Doutor

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates texts which are argued to construct secular imaginings of the afterlife. As such my argument is built around the way in which these texts engage with death, while simultaneously engaging with the religious concepts which have come to give shape to the afterlife in an increasingly secular West. The texts included are: Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven (1907), Mark Twain’s unfinished reimagining of Christian salvation; Kneller’s Happy Campers (1998) by Etgar Keret, its filmic adaptation Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), as well as the Norwegian film A Bothersome Man (2006), which all strip the afterlife of its traditional furnishings; Philip Pullman’s acclaimed His Dark Materials trilogy (1995, 1997, 2000) in which he wages a fictional war with the foundations of Western religious tradition; and finally William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and Feersum Endjinn (1994) by Iain M. Banks, two science fiction texts which speculate on the afterlife of the future. These texts are so chosen and arranged to create a logical progression of secular projects, each subsequent afterlife reflecting a more extensive and substantial distantiation from religious tradition. Twain’s text utilises a secularising satire of heaven, and draws attention to the irrational notions which pervade this concept. In the process, however, it embarks on the utopian endeavour of reconstructing and improving the Christian afterlife of salvation. In Chapter 3, the narratives under investigation discard the surface details of religious afterlives, and reimagine the hereafter against a contemporary backdrop. I argue that they conform, in several significant ways, to the mode of magical realism. Furthermore, despite their disinclination for evident religiosity, these texts nevertheless find problematic encounters when they break this mode and invoke higher authorities to intervene in the unfolding narratives. Chapter 4 focuses on Philip Pullman’s high fantasy trilogy, which enacts open war between the secular and religious and uses the afterlife as an integral part of the secularising agenda. With the literal battle lines drawn, this text depicts a clear distinction between what is included as secular, or renounced as religious. Finally, I turn to science fiction, where the notion of the virtual afterlife of the future has come to be depicted, with its foundations in human technologies instead of divine agencies. They rely on the ideology of posthumanism in a reimagining of the afterlife which constitutes a new apocalyptic tradition, a virtual kingdom of heaven populated by the virtual dead. Ultimately, I identify three broad, delineating aspects of secularity which become evident in these narratives and the meaningful distinctions they draw between religious and secular ideologies. I find further significance in the way in which these texts engage with the very foundations on which fictions of the afterlife have been constructed. Throughout these texts, I then find a secular approach to death as a developing alternative to that which has traditionally been propagated by religion. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek tekste wat alternatiewe uitbeeldings van die hiernamaals bevat, wat dan geargumenteer word dien as voorbeelde van sekulêre konsepsies van die nadoodse toestand. My argument berus op die manier waarop hierdie tekste met die dood omgaan, asook die verskeie maniere waarop hul tot die religieë van die Westerse wêreld spreek. Die tekste wat ondersoek word sluit in: Mark Twain se Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven (1907), sy onvoltooide satire van die Christelike hemel; Kneller’s Happy Campers deur Etgar Keret (1998), die verfilmde weergawe daarvan, Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006), asook die Noorweegse film A Bothersome Man (2006), waarin die hiernamaals uitgebeeld word as ‘n lewelose weergawe van kontemporêre samelewing; Philip Pullman se fantasie trilogie His Dark Materials (1995, 1998, 2000) waarin hy ‘n sekulêre oorlog teen die onderdrukkende magte van religie uitbeeld; en laastens die wetenskap-fiksie verhale Neuromancer (1984), deur William Gibson, en Feersum Endjinn (1994), deur Iain M. Banks, waarin die sekulêre, virtuele hiernamaals van die toekoms vervat word. Hierdie tekste is gekies en ook so gerangskik om ‘n duidelike sekulêre progressie te toon, met elke opeenvolgende teks wat in ‘n meer omvattende wyse die tradisioneel religieuse konvensies herdink of vervang met sekulêre alternatiewe. Twain se teks dryf die spot met die Christelike idee van die hemel en om aandag te trek na die irrasionele ideologieë wat daarin vervat is. In die proses poog Twain egter om te verbeter op die model en gevolglik ondervind die teks probleme wat met die utopiese literatuur gepaard gaan. In hoofstuk 3 word die hiernamaals gestroop van alle ooglopend religieuse verwysings en vervang met die ewigheid as ‘n kontemporêre landskap deurtrek met morbiede leweloosheid. Ek argumenteer dat hulle op verskeie belangrike manier ooreenstem met die genre van magiese realisme en dat, ten spyte van die pogings om religie te vermy, die tekste steeds probleme teëkom wanneer hoër outoriteite by die verhale betrokke raak. Hoofstuk 4 draai om Pullman se sekulêre oorlog wat daarop gemik is om die wêreld te sekulariseer. Die duidelikheid waarmee die tekste onderskeid tref tussen die magte van religie en die weerstand vanaf sekulariteit, maak dit insiggewend om te bepaal wat Pullman in ‘n sekulêre wêreldbeeld in-of uitsluit. Laastens ondersoek ek wetenskap-fiksie, waarin die hiernamaals omskep is in ‘n toestand wat bereik word deur menslike tegnologiese vooruitgang, in stede van religieuse toedoen. Hier word daar gesteun op die idees van posthumanisme, wat beteken dat hierdie uitbeeldings van die ewigheid ‘n oorspronklike verwerking van religieuse apokaliptiese verhale is, waar ‘n virtuele hemelse koninkryk geskep word vir die virtuele afgestorwenes. Uiteindelik identifiseer ek drie breë ideologiese trekke wat deurgaans in al die tekste opduik, en waarvolgens betekenisvolle onderskeid getref kan word om definisie te gee aan die begrip van sekulariteit. Verder vind ek dat die sekulêre hiernamaals in ‘n unieke wyse met die dood omgaan, en dat dit ‘n alternatiewe uitkyk gee op die fondasies waarop verhale van die hiernamaals oorspronklik geskep is. Derhalwe argumenteer ek dat ‘n sekulêre wêreldbeeld ‘n alternatiewe uitkyk op die dood ontwikkel, een wat die tradisies van religie terselfdertyd inkorporeer en verwerp.

Bakgrund: I Sverige är den vanligaste dödsorsaken kranskärlssjukdom, vilket kan innebära hjärtinfarkt. Riskfaktorer för hjärtinfarkt är låg fysisk aktivitet, höga blodfetter, rökning, låg inkomst och låg utbildning. En hjärtinfarkt uppstår vanligtvis på grund av att ett åderförfettningsplack har brustit och bildat en blodpropp.  Syfte: Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att undersöka kvinnor och mäns erfarenheter efter en hjärtinfarkt. Metod: Nio kvalitativa vetenskapliga studier analyserades enligt Fribergs modell för litteraturöversikt. Resultat: Resultatet sammanställdes i de tre kategorierna Begränsningar i vardagen, Stöd respektive brist på stöd från omgivningen, Förändrad syn på livet.  Konklusion: De personer som drabbats av en hjärtinfarkt lider ofta av hälsoproblem som fatigue i efterförloppet. Livsstilsförändringar kan vara svåra att genomföra och framförallt att bibehålla. Hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal bör vara väl insatta i vad livet efter en hjärtinfarkt innebär och ge gott stöd till de som drabbats. Livsstilsförändringar bör genomföras några få i taget istället för alla på samma gång för att det ska bli hållbart på lång sikt. / Background: The most common cause of death in Sweden is coronary heart disease, which can imply myocardial infarction. Risk factors for myocardial infarction are low physical activity, high blood lipids, smoking, low income and poor levels of education. A myocardial infarction occurs when a fatty, calcified plaque has ruptured and formed a trombosis. Aim: The aim of this literature study is to examine women and men’s experiences after a myocardial infarction. Method: Nine qualitative scientific studies were analyzed according to Friberg’s model for literature review. Results: The results were complied into three categories named Restrictions in daily life, Support or lack of support from the community, Altered life vision. Conclusion: The people who have suffered a myocardial infarction often sustain health problems such as fatigue in the aftermath. Lifestyle changes may be difficult to adopt and above all to maintain. Healthcare professionals should be well informed of what life after a myocardial infarction can implicate and give good support to those affected. Lifestyle changes should be carried out a few at a time rather than all at once to make them sustainable in the long term.

It is widely known that at least three of the major world religions—Christianity, Islam, and (more controversially) Judaism—embrace the theory of bodily resurrection, or an event in which a person or people are brought back to embodied life after death. But is this theory compatible with materialism, or the philosophical doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications? In other words, if my “self” is identical with and nothing more than my body, could my unique and particular “self” come to exist again on Earth after my death? This thesis examines theories of compatibility from ancient times to the present day.

The nature of life after death is only tentatively sketched out in the canonical writings of the Christian Church, yet it represents one of the most prominent literary subjects in medieval Europe. The so-called Visiones represent a genre that enjoyed a particularly broad dissemination between the fourth and thirteenth centuries. This study aims to assess the impact of this Latin tradition on Norse-Icelandic authors and processes of cultural appropriation evident in medieval vernacular adaptations of the genre. The first chapter outlines the historical and theological conditions surrounding the genre’s dissemination in Western Scandinavia and identifies the primary corpus of vernacular adaptations of the genre to be analysed in this study. Chapter II considers the literary contexts in which Visio-conventions have been integrated, highlighting the distinctive generic and creative diversity exhibited in the primary corpus. Chapters III and IV are concerned with the literary motif of the journey to the otherworld and its importance in Old Norse literary traditions across the period of Christianisation. The former examines signs of continuity on a conceptual level between traditional native and Christian narratives about the otherworld, suggesting that the journey motif represented a sustained source of literary creativity in pre- and post-conversion societies. The latter examines this notion of continuity with reference to two significant literary symbols, the otherworld shoe and the otherworld bridge, and their pregnant resonances in Norse Icelandic records of myth, law, and religious ritual; it will here be shown how certain symbols found in vernacular accounts of the afterlife produce a rich set of connotations meaningful within their particular cultural setting. The final Chapter analyses the social mentality encoded in portrayals of the idealised hereafter, and it will be argued that portrayals of eschatological justice and the topography of heaven reflect attitudes characteristic of the societies from which these visions emerge. The thesis as a whole thereby calls attention to the broad and deep nature of the Visio genre’s impact on Western Scandinavian literary culture, suggesting that this particular genre-oriented study may serve as a case study of the reception of Christian literary traditions in medieval Iceland and Norway more generally.

This thesis focuses on the motive of justification in the ancient Egyptian religion. It explores its meaning and history of occurrence. It does so in the context of death, afterlife and Judgment of the Dead. The aim was to provide an overview of the development of justified title achievement, especially in the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts and Book of the Dead. The conclusion is that the motive of justification in ancient Egyptian religion evolved along with the concept of Judgment of the Dead with whom he was associated.

<p>In this essay I have tried to describe the rich tradition of thoughts about the afterlife in Judaism. The first part contains litterary studies and the second part is based on interviews with religious representatives. The first part is a description of the progress of thought in history around the issue afterlife. The sources reveal a vast amount of intellectual work on the issue. I have tried to follow the path of thought, and how it developed, so that the reader can see how one thought leads to the other but also how each period’s way of thinking is influnced by its context. The picture is not homogenetic. Troughout Jewish history there has been a permisive attitude against the impulse of saying the opposite of the general wiew, and to include the counterparts view in the texts that was saved for the future. Despite this, there have been influences from important philosophers, changes in history (enlightenment and holocaust) and both common attitudes and prejudicism, that has taken the issue afterlife off the agenda in judaism. It is – up until this day – not unusual that a rabbi, confronted with the question what jews beleive about life after death, can answer: - ”We have no beleif in the afterlife. We are a this-worldly religion.” When I started my work on this essay I talked with a friend who had heard a christian priest talk about what they knew about the Jewish views on the afterlife, and their conclusion was that the jews didn’t have any view on the afterlife.” This essay proves that they are wrong, although I met restraint. Having read a lot about the vast tradition about afterlife ideas through history, it was astonishing and surprising to get the answer, ”we don’t have a view about the afterlife, from one of the representatives. The second part of the essay tries to answer the question wether there is a conciousness about the vast and rich tradition of though about the afterlife, or not. Despite the restraint, the interviewed representatives revealed a great deal of knowledge, even of the parts in the tradition that they deny. My hope and ambition with this essay is that reading it will guide the reader inside the Jewish way of thinking, more than answering the question what will happen after I die. If I manage to show the reader my fascination of the combination between playfulness and deep seriousity in Jewish thinking; I have succeded.</p> / <p>I denna uppsats så har jag försökt beskriva den rika och varierade tradition av tankar rörande livet efter detta inom judendomen. Dess första del är en litterär studie och dess andra baserar sig på tre intervjuer av religiösa representater. Den första delen innehåller en beskrivning av tankens utveckling genom historien, vad gäller ämnet livet efter detta. Källorna som tar upp ämnet, visar upp en stor mängd fascinerande intellektuellt och konstnärligt arbete. Jag har försökt följa tankens väg och hur den utvecklats, så att läsaren kan se hur en tanke lett till en annan och hur varje periods tänkande är influerat av sin kontext. Bilden är inte homogen. I judisk historia så har det alltid funnits en tillåtande attityd till impulsen att säga det motsatta till den allmänna åsikten, och att inkludera dessa i Texterna som sedan sparades för framtiden. Trots detta, så har influenser ifrån viktiga filosofer, förändringar i historien (upplysningen och holocaust) och både vanliga attityder och fördomar, satt ämnet livet efter detta utanför agendan. Det är inte ovanligt att en rabbin – till dags dato – som får frågan vad judar tror om livet efter döden,svarar: - ”Vi har ingen syn på livet efter döden. Vi är en livets religion.” När jag började jobba med denna uppsats, sa en vän till mig att en kristen präst sagt samma sak: - ”Judar har ingen syn på livet efter detta.” Denna uppsats visar att de har fel, men jag mötte ett märkligt motstånd. Efter att ha läst massor om den rika tradition av föreställningar om livet efter detta inom judendomen, så var det en smula chockerande och överraskande att få svaret ”vi har ingen syn på livet efter döden”, när jag beskrev min uppgift för ett av intervjuobjekten. Den andra delen av uppsatsen försöker besvara frågan huruvida det finns en medvetenhet om den rika och djupa tradition rörande föreställningar om livet efter detta, eller inte. Trots motståndet, visade de intervjuade upp en stor kunskap även om delar av traditionen som de förnekade. Mitt hopp och min ambition med denna uppsats är att den som läser den skall känna sig guidad in i judiskt sätt att tänka, mer än att få svar på vad som kommer att hända efter döden. Om jag lyckas visa läsaren min egen fascination av kombinationen mellan lekfullhet och djupt allvar i judiskt tänkande; då har jag lyckats.</p>

This thesis investigates the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as the Colosseum, in its relation to setting, symbolic meaning and its afterlife. Crucial to the discussion is the ancient art of memory, through which the Colosseum&rsquo / s ambivalent role as a means of Imperial power is elucidated. Equally important, the buildings&rsquo / iconographic connotations are studied in terms of the architectural orders employed on the fa&ccedil / ade. The Colosseum&rsquo / s extended use and its later emblematic significance comprise the concluding discussion of the thesis.