Australian newspapers in recent years have increased significantly the column space devoted to obituaries. The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, the Age, the West Australian, the Herald Sun, the Canberra Times, the Advertiser, and the Courier-Mail now publish them in dedicated sections, often allocating an entire page to the obituary art. Their popularity in Australia follows a pattern established during the 1980s in Britain and the United States. Australian practice has been influenced in particular by developments in British journalism, which has seen a phenomenon described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘an odd revival…the rebirth of long newspaper obituaries’.† In its first incarnation, the obituary can be traced to the newsbooks of England which appeared in the 1660s, during the Restoration. It flowered in the 18th century, in the first daily newspapers and magazines; it grew luxuriant, and sometimes ornate, in the 19th century; it became unfashionable and fell into some general neglect in the 20th. Then, with the appointment of reformist editors and, particularly in Britain, the publication of bigger newspapers by an industry no longer subjected to labour restraint, the obituary itself experienced restoration. Though the momentum of renewed practice has been of mutual rapidity on three continents, there are some significant variations in its application. The American product generally favours a style faithful to news-writing principles so far as timing and content are concerned and is frequently expansive when relating the details of surviving family and funeral arrangements. In Britain, the emphasis is more on creative composition and a recitation of anecdotes, with less of a sense of urgency about news value and a consequent accent on character sketch. Both models, in recent years, have displayed a propensity for explicit appraisal and an increasing willingness to publish obituaries of those who have undermined, rather than adorned, society. Newspapers in Australia, while adopting the obituary with apparent fervour, have found their delivery of the product restrained by a lack of resources. Obituary desks in this country are staffed by a solitary journalist-editor. This has resulted in a reliance, often to an unhealthy degree, on contributions by readers. The tone of this material, with its intimacy of address and excess in sentiment, sits uneasily when appearing on the same page as obituaries syndicated from overseas sources. Contemporary obituary publication in the United States has been subjected to some scholarly analysis in terms of gender balance, identification of cause of death, and the demographic mix of its subject selection. This thesis, by means of a six-month content analysis, addresses such questions for the first time in an Australian context. In addition, it examines issues of style, origin and authorship. It finds that cause of death is identified much less than is the case in American obituary practice, that women are significantly under-represented, and that editing is sometimes haphazard. Nevertheless, the accumulated body of evidence points resolutely to a remarkable reinvigoration of practice in Australia’s daily newspapers. The thesis, by discussing the views of specialists in the field of obituary publication, pursues mechanisms for sustaining the momentum and for improving the product.

<p>Sverige har under det senaste seklet genomgått stora samhällsprocesser som sekularisering och modernisering. Vi har i denna studie utgått från framför allt Becks teorier om reflexiv modernisering kontra Webers teser om linjär rationalitet för att besvara frågeställningen; Hur har graden av andlighet respektive religiositet ökat respektive minskat under tidsperioden 1870 - 2008 i Västmanland och kan samhällsprocesser som en reflexiv modernisering ha haft betydelse för dessa eventuella förändringar? Urvalet bestod av 600 dödsannonser insamlade från Västmanlands läns tidning och dessa analyserades för att finna uttryck för religiositet och andlighet. Undersökningens resultat visar minskad grad av religiösa referenser i dödsannonser men en ökning av Svagt andliga sådana. Denna studies slutsats ger stöd åt teorier om sekularisering och ger indikationer på en begynnande religiös pluralism.</p>

"Der Tscheche Věněk Šilhan sagt heutigen Lesern in Deutschland meist nichts. Er hat als Ökonom mehrere Bücher und gewichtige Aufsätze verfasst. Auf dem berühmten Parteitag der KPTsch in Prag-Vysočany, der sich der militärischen Okkupation am 21. August 1968 widersetzte, wurde er in Abwesenheit des internierten Alexander Dubček zum geschäftsführenden Ersten Sekretär des ZK gewählt. Dadurch ist er zu einer der Symbolfiguren des Prager Frühlings geworden."

Sverige har under det senaste seklet genomgått stora samhällsprocesser som sekularisering och modernisering. Vi har i denna studie utgått från framför allt Becks teorier om reflexiv modernisering kontra Webers teser om linjär rationalitet för att besvara frågeställningen; Hur har graden av andlighet respektive religiositet ökat respektive minskat under tidsperioden 1870 - 2008 i Västmanland och kan samhällsprocesser som en reflexiv modernisering ha haft betydelse för dessa eventuella förändringar? Urvalet bestod av 600 dödsannonser insamlade från Västmanlands läns tidning och dessa analyserades för att finna uttryck för religiositet och andlighet. Undersökningens resultat visar minskad grad av religiösa referenser i dödsannonser men en ökning av Svagt andliga sådana. Denna studies slutsats ger stöd åt teorier om sekularisering och ger indikationer på en begynnande religiös pluralism.

A collection of poems that explore the imagined possible deaths of a father and ultimately the concepts of absence and lack through a contemplation of spaces like fields and cemeteries / MFA

Historically, obituaries were created as news items and published in print media with the intentions of informing an audience of public hangings or similar sensational deaths. Over the years, obituaries changed in form to become a way of publicly notifying audiences of one’s life upon their death, focusing more on biography and familial structure than sensation. However, with advancements in communicative mediums, including the increased popularity and easy accessibility of the Internet, traditional understandings of the term ‘obituary’ are challenged to include all forms of media publications that draw on elements of sensation and biography. The combination of this new, inclusive definition and the increasing popularity and advancement of technological mediums has republicized deceased celebrities as marketable and profitable brands that rely on subject formation through media and participatory fandom. However, the branding of celebrated, deceased figures through processes of social subjectification often remains embedded within cultural texts. As a result, audiences are often unaware of their ability to shift or influence identities of the deceased, and their fandom becomes the target of alternative messages embedded in sites of obituarization. By applying Marshall McLuhan’s theory of technology as an extension of human consciousness in addition to Roland Barthes’ theory of mythologisation when examining Michael Jackson’s 2009 death, this thesis explains how the subject formation of deceased individuals becomes so powerful and globalized that their death becomes a positive and beneficial occurrence with regards to the profitability and marketability of their brand. Therefore, the subject formation of celebrated, deceased figures is a fragile process that is altering how North Americans mediate the culture surrounding death and dying. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-08 22:49:48.239

Euphrase Kezilahabi, outstanding Swahili writer, thinker and scholar who was born on 13 April, 1944, passed away on 9 January, 2020. In this obituary, Roberto Gaudioso pays homage to his path-breaking achievements in Swahili creative literature by highlighting his poetry which Gaudioso has studied in depth. He emphasizes that the late Kezilahabi’s contribution as an intellectual and a poet goes beyond limits of space and time, as is shown by generations of researchers and translators who have been working on him.

The need for an examination of the rise of various journalistic and print forms in The Gentleman's Magazine is evident from the absence of scholarship in this area. One of the most important forms born in The Gentleman's Magazine is the obituary. Beginning as a sparse list of deaths appended to the back of each issue of the magazine, it came to occupy a larger role in the publication within a hundred years of its inception. My study proposes to examine the reasons for this shift, focusing on the rise of the biographical form as it is treated in the works of Samuel Johnson, a prominent contributor to The Gentleman's Magazine, and practiced at the hands of John Nichols, one of the magazine's most prominent editors. My study also seeks to characterize the content of the obituaries by historicizing them in the context of the period and within the confines of the editorial policies of the magazine itself. The magazine's editorial persona, Sylvanus Urbanus, provides general terms whereby the dead may be characterized. Ultimately, my study is interested in examining the representations of the deceased in the obituary form as social markers, that are necessary for understanding how groups and individuals represented society. / Master of Arts

This thesis reviews the background, influences, and evolution of three works that form Posthumous, an exhibit by the thesis candidate. The thesis begins with a series of vignettes that relate a number of personal experiences involving death, and photography, which have influenced the conceptual development of the work. Chapters devoted to each piece follow the vignettes. These chapters refer to the various influences that have led to the development of the following works: Obit to Self: April 10, 2005, Posthumous, and Jay. These influences range from the movie Hotel Rwanda, to handbills for punk-rock shows. The thesis ends with a description of the exhibition at the Anderson Gallery.

Este trabalho pretende analisar o obituário como gênero textual específico, dentro do universo maior do espaço biográfico contemporâneo, comparando-o com gêneros com funções e formas com alguma similaridade ao longo da história e esmiuçando suas especificidades textuais no presente, para tentar compreender as razões de sua ascensão no século 20. Narrativa biográfica mortuária que têm migrado, nos últimos trinta anos, de jornais e revistas para volumes em coletânea, os obituários são repletos dos valores biográficos caros à contemporaneidade, encerrados por um regime de verdade (o da imprensa) e pelo pathos específico dos discursos relacionados à morte recente. Seu estudo permite esboçar uma história cultural de um gênero que reflete anseios atuais. / This paper discusses the obituary as a specific genre within the larger universe of contemporary biographical space, comparing it with similar genera in terms of functions and forms throughout history. This paper also scrutinizes its textual specificities in the present time, in order to comprehend the reasons for its rise in the twentieth century. As a mortuary biographical narrative, the obituary has migrated, mostly in the last thirty years, from newspapers and magazines to volumes in collection. This paper tries to understand why it happened. Obituaries are full of biographical values dear to contemporary readers, ruled by a regime of truth (the press) and the pathos of specific discourses related to recent death. Their study may allow us to sketch a cultural history of a genre that reflects current anxieties.