<p> Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Religious Studies, Anthropology and Sociology, this dissertation poses the question: How is religious meaning constructed in the face of death in contemporary North America, given that commercial establishments, non-denominational funeral chapels, have become the primary context for the performance of death rituals dealing with death, the dead and the bereaved? </p> <p> The dissertation is based on an extended period of ethnographic research at the Marlatt Funeral Home in Dundas, Ontario, a corporately owned non-denominational funeral home which serves a very diverse, but predominantly urban religious population. I concentrate on the funeral professionals as well as clergy and the bereaved in their contribution to the cultural construction and social organization of death in contemporary North America. </p> <p> While there is an extensive body of social science literature on death and funerary practices in non-Western contexts, there is very little systematic academic research on death and funeral practices in contemporary North America, in particular, in Canadian settings. My dissertation furthers the discussion started in studies by Emke (2001) and Small ( 1997) which focus on funeral practices in Newfoundland as well as studies by Bradbury (1999), Davies (2002), Howarth (1996) and Walter (1990, 1994, 1996, 1998) elsewhere in the Anglophone West by focusing on funeral practises in an urban Canadian setting This dissertation demonstrates that funeral directors perform a complicated role as mediators and ritual specialists balancing multiple domains of spirituality, emotion, personal taste, institutionalized religion, ethnicity and commerce. Furthermore, I argue that funeral directors mediate between the living and the dead, between life and death, and between this world and the afterlife, as it is conceived of by their clients. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Contemporary north-west Bangladesh is the scene of a religious contest between the self-described 'Hanafis‘, who include various expressions of Islamic faith and practice, and Salafi reformist groups known as Ahl-i-Hadith. Occasionally labelled 'Wahhabis‘ due to their affinity with the doctrine from Arabia, the Ahl-i-Hadith actively seek to purify local Islam of all practices which they consider to be bidaʿ. Local Hanafi Muslims, who form a majority, are resistant to these efforts at total religious reform. This thesis investigates the contemporary discourse taking place between these two communities in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, and between these groups and their authoritative Islamic texts. The case study used to focus on inter-group debates is the contested issue of whether or not to perform rituals meant to assist the dead during al-barzakh – the conscious waiting period in the grave believed to last from death until the day of resurrection. Especially during a soul‘s first forty days in al-barzakh, the Hanafi community observes rituals intended to reduce the torment of the grave and send soʾab, or merit, to the account of the deceased. Participant observation at numerous milad, chollisha and khotom ceremonies for the dead, as well as interviews with local ʿulamaʾ and other informants highlight the progress of Ahl-i-Hadith reform efforts, but also the way in which Hanafi leaders defend and interpret their 'unorthodox‘ practices using authoritative Sunni hadith and Qurʾanic passages. Additional Islamic texts which are locally influential are examined. Special voice is given to "what Muslims say" in an attempt to let the words and actions of those involved in the debates direct the research agenda as they interpret and defend their respective positions. This thesis provides other researchers with a field-based account of contemporary Islamic belief and practice in Bangladesh – an understudied Islamic context containing over 150 million people. Dozens of quotations from ʿulamaʾ are reproduced in the original Bengali and in English. Additionally, this study complicates Islamic fundamentalist and Western scholarly conceptions of 'popular Islam‘ and 'syncretism‘ by showing that Hanafi ʿulamaʾ in Rajshahi explain their (contested) beliefs and activities in Islamic terms, using universally recognised Sunni sources of authority, especially the hadith literature.

Despite prohibitions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad strictly forbidding the practice of dramatic acts of public mourning, Muslim women have persisted in wailing performances throughout history and across boarders. Pashtun social ethics require women to participate in visitation exchanges commemorating sorrowful and joyous events experienced by members of their social circle known as gham-xadi exchanges. These exchanges, which involve performative mourning rites, affirm a woman’s place in society through the maintenance of complex social networks. This research examines the role ritualized mourning performances play in the construction and maintenance of ethnic and religious identities among Pashtun women living in Pakistan. It explores the opposing pressures of Islamic prescription and Pashtun traditions regarding funerary rites and women’s mourning, arguing that social changes taking place in recent decades have caused these pressures to come into increasing conflict with one another. While urbanization and the shift from an agrarian to an industrial based economy in Pakistan has led to the amplified importance of wailing performances, globalization and growing exposure to the West has revitalized anxieties surrounding proper religious practices. The process of Islamization occurring through constitutional and educational reforms in Pakistan compounds this anxiety. These tensions have created an identity crisis among Pashtun women in Pakistan who are then forced to reconcile these disparate demands resulting in the layering of their identities. / text

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The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice and the New-Testament Conception of the Christ's Death Abstract The thesis describes the relationship between the phenomenon of the animal sacrifice and the death of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of my study, I explain the basic interpretative categories that can help answer the role and substance of the blood sacrifice practice in the context of ritual activities of the archaic civilizations. Particular attention is paid to the Old Testament cult, because the sacrificial terminology, originating from this milieu, served within the framework of the New Testament canon as one of the fundamental ways to express Jesus Christ's death mystery. The thesis follows up on modern anthropological theories of the animal sacrifice; in comparison with the specific Christian concept of the sacrifice, it shows how Christ's unritual death and forms of its appropriation by believers might be considered the fulfillment and surpassing of all existing forms of sacrifice. Keywords Animal sacrifice, Christ's death, soteriology, ritual practices, Christian explanotory schemes of sacrifice

Like death, the defining human reality underlying our relationships and views of life's meaning, the experiences and activities of undertakers, remains an uncommon subject for psychological research. Existential anxiety roots a society-wide denial of the fundamental nature of death. which necessitates the development of institutions to take responsibility for the dying and dead. As the image and service of the stigmatised funeral industry improves, society's experience of death should become more meaningful. The overview of the research into these topics noted the need for further studies. Within a holistic, ecosystemic epistemology, this study adopted a qualitative approach and case study method, which provided descriptions of the ecology, contexts, and relationships characteristic .of the undertaker's vocation by focussing on patterned expressions of views and attitudes. The aim was to gain insight into the undertaker's experience of the many faces of death, with a genuine interest and deep respect for their world. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Like death, the defining human reality underlying our relationships and views of life's meaning, the experiences and activities of undertakers, remains an uncommon subject for psychological research. Existential anxiety roots a society-wide denial of the fundamental nature of death. which necessitates the development of institutions to take responsibility for the dying and dead. As the image and service of the stigmatised funeral industry improves, society's experience of death should become more meaningful. The overview of the research into these topics noted the need for further studies. Within a holistic, ecosystemic epistemology, this study adopted a qualitative approach and case study method, which provided descriptions of the ecology, contexts, and relationships characteristic .of the undertaker's vocation by focussing on patterned expressions of views and attitudes. The aim was to gain insight into the undertaker's experience of the many faces of death, with a genuine interest and deep respect for their world. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

This study examines the illustrations that appear at the Office of the Dead in English Books of Hours, and seeks to understand how text and image work together in this thriving culture of commemoration to say something about how the English understood and thought about death in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Office of the Dead would have been one of the most familiar liturgical rituals in the medieval period, and was recited almost without ceasing at family funerals, gild commemorations, yearly minds, and chantry chapel services. The Placebo and Dirige were texts that many people knew through this constant exposure, and would have been more widely known than other 'death' texts such as the Ars Moriendi. The images that are found in these books reflect wider trends in the piety and devotional practice of the time. The first half of the study discusses the images that appear in these horae, and the relationship between the text and image is explored. The funeral or vigil scene, as the most commonly occurring, is discussed with reference to contemporary funeral practices, and ways of reading a Book of Hours. Other iconographic themes that appear in the Office of the Dead, such as the Roman de Renart, the Pety Job, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, the story of Lazarus, and the life of Job, are also discussed. The second part of the thesis investigates the musical elaborations of the Office of the Dead as found in English prayer books. The Office of the Dead had a close relationship with music, which is demonstrated through an examination of the popularity of musical funerals and obits, as well as in the occurrence of musical notation for the Office in a book often used by the musically illiterate. The development of the Office of the Dead in conjunction with the development of the Books of Hours is also considered, and places the traditions and ideas that were part of the funeral process in medieval England in a larger historical context.