Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-43).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. vii-x) and index.

Inaug.-diss.--Erlangen. / Lebenslauf.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--City University of New York, 1994. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-192).

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-43).

Project (D. Min.)--Iliff School of Theology, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-136).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1988. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 239-243).

In this dissertation, I examine how buyers and sellers interact in the Massachusetts funeral market. I utilize theories in economic sociology and ritual studies to explain how these interactions coalesce into a functioning market. To do so, I draw on semi-structured interviews with funeral consumers and funeral directors in Massachusetts. Standard economic theories would predict that funeral consumers weigh the costs and benefits associated with each choice they face before purchasing those products that best maximize their individual utility. Economic sociologists respond by pointing out that economic actors face uncertainty, a state in which they cannot assess the costs and benefits of their many options. Instead, consumers rely on 'social devices' - such as social norms and rules - to guide their behavior; however, they are 'intentionally rational' in that they seek to maximize their utility. Rather than thinking of consumers as rational utility maximizers or as uncertain, intentionally-rational actors, I argue that the majority of funeral consumers' purchases are unreflexive and thus cannot be thought of as choices at all. When consumers do make choices, they do not seek to maximize their utility, but instead purchase goods and services that perform what Viviana Zelizer labels relational work. Such purchases serve to define, maintain, or change social relationships. The ways that consumers approach their purchases shape the ways that sellers compete with one another. Because most consumers return to the same funeral home again and again without considering alternative providers and because consumers are socially required to purchase those goods and services necessary to complete the funeral ritual, sellers cannot draw in new customers by lowering prices or by developing new products. With these avenues closed off, sellers must compete by building social networks in their communities; however, they must work to define their network connections in specific ways. Customers must see their involvement in the community as motivated by a desire to contribute to civic life rather than a desire to generate business. Ultimately, then, sellers also perform relational work, and their relational work serves as the main competitive mechanism in funeral markets.

In the past couple of years, Czech press has repeatedly reported on the ascending number of funerals without any ceremony. Among the interpretations of the approximately 30% share of this kind of funeral were high level of secularization, disintegration of social bonds and the modern denial of death. The present thesis offers a change of perspectives and focuses the analysis of the phenomenon "funeral without a ceremony" on the acteur perspective. Based on the analysis of ten semi-structured interviews, the author 1) indentifies the motivations, attitudes and situational factors that build up the respondent's legitimations of the decision for a funeral without a ceremony; and 2) systematically analyses and interprets the ritual practices and symbolic action (ritualizations), which the respondents report in relation with the death of a close one. A detailed analysis of the respondents narratives shows, that a funeral without a ceremony organized by a certified undertaker does not necessarily mean that the death is devoid of ritual, framing it in a way meaningful to the respondents. In a final remark, the author discusses the application of Tony Walter's ideal types of approach to death (Walter 1996) and concludes that while current death and funerary practice in the Czech Republic appears to...

<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)