„Dark Tourism“– Evaluation of Visitors Experience after Visiting Thanatological Tourist Attractions

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Marijana Bittner

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Although thanatourism is a unique kind of tourism, whose history goes back to ancient times and the middle ages, literature on this touristic demand is still scarce, despite the fact that classification and categorization of thanatological tourist sites has existed for a certain number of years. Considering how the phenomenon of thanatourism, or „dark tourism“has not been sufficiently explored in Croatia, and there is not enough literature to qualitatively research it, this study represents an attempt to come to a conclusion whether visits to a thanatouristic site contribute to a better understanding of the broader subject to which the tourist site is related, using qualitative methods. Reviewing published literature on the subject of „dark tourism“ and using the method of semi-structured interviews on a sample of ten respondents of Croatian origin, we shall attempt to see whether thantological tourist sites are a part of the cultural and historical heritage, whether a visit to a thanatological tourist site develops a desire to visit another tourist site with similar features, and whether there is a need for a more detailed study on the subject matter which initiated the making of a certain thanatological site. It would also be interesting to view the lucrative side of such sites, i.e. their economic potential. The purpose of this study is to highlight pointers of maintenance and preservation of existing sites or the formation of new ones, mainly on the grounds of former Yugoslavia, as an area of frequent conflicts of various ethnic groups.

„Dark Tourism“– Evaluation of Visitors Experience after Visiting Thanatological Tourist Attractions

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Marijana Bittner

2011-01-01

Although thanatourism is a unique kind of tourism, whose history goes back to ancient times and the middle ages, literature on this touristic demand is still scarce, despite the fact that classification and categorization of thanatological tourist sites has existed for a certain number of years. Considering how the phenomenon of thanatourism, or „dark tourism“has not been sufficiently explored in Croatia, and there is not enough literature to qualitatively research it, this study represents a...

The practice of everyday death: Thanatology and self-fashioning in John Chrysostom’s thirteenth homily on Romans

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Chris L. de Wet

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between the discourse of death, or thanatology, and self-fashioning, in John Chrysostom’s thirteenth homily In epistulam ad Romanos. The study argues that thanatology became a very important feature in the care of the self in Chrysostom’s thought. The central aim here is to demonstrate the multi-directional flow of death, as a corporeal discourse, between the realms of theology, ethics, and physiology. Firstly, the article investigates the link between the theological concepts of sin and death. Secondly, the study argues that death also becomes a highly paradoxical discourse when it enters the realm of Chrysostomic virtue-ethics, where the mortification of excessive passion leads to life, while ‘living’ in passion only results in death on every level of existence – death as a discourse therefore becomes interiorised, a process functioning as a subset of a more extensive biologisation of the spiritual life-cycle. Finally, Chrysostom also utilises death in a very physiological way, especially in his comments on the relationship between sin and the passions, and one’s physical health and appearance (which is also related to the soul.

The demise of the last emperor: its influence on Japanese society from a thanatological viewpoint.

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Takahashi, Y

1989-10-01

Emperor Hirohito of Japan died of cancer at the age of 87 on January 7, 1989. He was once worshipped as a god incarnate. After World War II, he renounced his divinity and became the symbol of both the state and the unity of the people. His demise brought into focus some unique aspects of the Japanese view of life and death. This paper discusses three topics pertaining to what the Emperor's death highlighted from a thanatological viewpoint: (1) junshi, or following one's master into death, (2) the disclosure of the nature of a malignant illness, and (3) death with dignity.

Some issues of shaping thanatology as a discipline: Ethnological and anthropological perspectives

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Pavićević Aleksandra

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Development of death studies, choice of topics and aspects of their interpretations were influenced by many factors, both global and local. The former were related to universal processes of medicalization, bureaucratization and professionalization of death and dying, as well as to processes of general secularization of society and culture. The latter were connected with specific and dominant local social and cultural praxes, politics and academic traditions. In this paper we will point out specificities of death studies development in different academic communities. We will also open the question and offer some answers on disciplinary identity of thanatology and, at the end, we will consider possibilities and needs for introducing the discipline in curriculum at different education levels. The aim of the paper is to settle preliminary frames for future investigation; the emphasis is placed on ethnological and anthropological perspective and on English and Serbian language bibliography. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177028

Publication Trends in Thanatology: An Analysis of Leading Journals.

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Wittkowski, Joachim; Doka, Kenneth J; Neimeyer, Robert A; Vallerga, Michael

2015-01-01

To identify important trends in thanatology as a discipline, the authors analyzed over 1,500 articles that appeared in Death Studies and Omega over a 20-year period, coding the category of articles (e.g., theory, application, empirical research), their content focus (e.g., bereavement, death attitudes, end-of-life), and for empirical studies, their methodology (e.g., quantitative, qualitative). In general, empirical research predominates in both journals, with quantitative methods outnumbering qualitative procedures 2 to 1 across the period studied, despite an uptick in the latter methods in recent years. Purely theoretical articles, in contrast, decline in frequency. Research on grief and bereavement is the most commonly occurring (and increasing) content focus of this work, with a declining but still substantial body of basic research addressing death attitudes. Suicidology is also well represented in the corpus of articles analyzed. In contrast, publications on topics such as death education, medical ethics, and end-of-life issues occur with lower frequency, in the latter instances likely due to the submission of such work to more specialized medical journals. Differences in emphasis of Death Studies and Omega are noted, and the analysis of publication patterns is interpreted with respect to overall trends in the discipline and the culture, yielding a broad depiction of the field and some predictions regarding its possible future.

Music thanatology: prescriptive harp music as palliative care for the dying patient.

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Freeman, Lindsay; Caserta, Michael; Lund, Dale; Rossa, Shirley; Dowdy, Ann; Partenheimer, Andrea

2006-01-01

Music thanatology represents an emerging area in which the raw materials of music, usually harp and/or voice, assist and comfort the dying patient. During prescriptive "music vigils, " the clinician-musician carefully observes physiological changes, cues, and breathing patterns, thereby synchronizing the music to reflect or support the patient's physiology and overall condition. Using data collected from 65 patients, this study was designed to assess the effectiveness of prescriptive harp music on selected palliative care outcomes using a sample of de-identified data forms from past music vigils. Patients were administered a 25- to 95-minute intervention of prescriptive harp music. Data collected included vital signs and observational indicators before (Ti) and after (T2) the vigil. Patients were more likely to experience decreased levels of agitation and wakefulness while also breathing more slowly and deeply with less effort at the conclusion of the music vigil. Results from this study suggest that a prescriptive vigil conducted by a trained music thanatologist could provide an effective form of palliative care for dying patients.

[Development of forensic thanatology through the prism of analysis of postmortem protocols collected at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Jagiellonian University].

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Konopka, Tomasz

2011-01-01

When assessed based on the analysis of postmortem protocols, the successes of forensic thanatology appear to differ from those that might be assumed using as the foundation a review of publications and textbooks. The greatest achievements date back to as early as the 18th and 19th centuries, when the morphological changes observed in the majority of types of deaths resulting from disease-associated and traumatic causes were described. Within the past 130 years, however, or in other words, in the period when autopsy protocols were written that are today collected in the archives of the Krakow Department of Forensic Medicine, the causes and mechanisms of death became understood even when the said factors were associated with discrete postmortem changes only or no no such changes whatsoever were left. At the end of the 19th century and for a long time afterwards, a difficult problem was posed by sudden deaths, where the postmortem examinations demonstrated solely atherosclerosis and the cause of death was described as "heart palsy". As it turned out, a great portion of such deaths represented individuals with myocardial infarction; in spite of its evident macroscopic presentation, the diagnostic management of the disease was progressing very slowly. Myocardial infarction, known at least since 1912, was associated by forensic medicine with the phenomenon of sudden death only in the forties, and the ability to detect myocardial infarction in practice developed only in the fifties of the last century. The achievement of the present dissertation is the formulation of a theory ascribing such a long delay in macroscopic diagnostics of myocardial infarction to forensic medicine specialists being attached to and fond of employing the "in situ" autopsy technique, which was unfavorable from the viewpoint of heart examination, since the organ was not dissected free and removed from the body in the course of a postmortem examination. When autopsies started to concentrate on

Análise da formação tanatológica do aluno de Enfermagem da Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Brasil Análisis de la formación tanatológica del alumno de enfermería de la Universidad Federal deo Maranhão, Brasil Analysis of the training in thanatology of nursing students from the Federal University of Maranhao, Brazil

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Elba Gomide Mochel

2011-07-01

guarantee the dignity of dying people. Methodology. Qualitative research with document (Pedagogical project of the class and subject’s curriculums and exploratory (Nursing students’ participant observation and analysis of their journals with experiences towards death analysis. Information was collected from 2008 to 2009. Results. Thanatological training is focused on theoretical contents and is not adequately systematized, what could lead to superstitious practices from the students. Conclusion. bThanatology training given to nursing students is not enough and needs to be improved in its theoretical and practical components.

Thanatology and self-fashioning in John Chrysostom's thirteenth

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2015-11-25

Nov 25, 2015 ... For an event so mutual among human beings, death is often quite difficult to express, let alone ..... that the rich eat, as Chrysostom so often complains, are often ... lust for wine, greed and sexual lust never find satisfaction.

E. キュブラー=ロスの思想と死にゆく子どもの問題 : unfinished business を手掛かりにして

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青柳, 路子

2002-01-01

This paper describes thought of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who is well-known as an expert on the subjects of death and dying, or a pioneer on Thanatology. Further, according to her texts, the writer attempts to deal with issues surrounding the dying child, which come to the front by the description of her thought-especially the image of "butterfly and cocoon" symbolized Death as transition, and unfinished business. According to her texts, unfinished business has the following three aspects; First...

Death in Middle Adulthood: A Case Study of a Japanese Woman with Terminal Cancer

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Kondo-Arita, Megumi

2017-01-01

What is the focus of Death-and-Life Studies? (In Japan, we use the English term “Death-and-Life Studies” rather than “Thanatology, ” for the field covers not only “death, ” but concerns both “life” and “death”). This broad scientific study still holds many possibilities concerning study and research from “birth to life” and “death.” People can speak of their births through acquired memory. People can experience death as their own but cannot speak of it in the first person; we have not yet res...

Tanatologia della critica. Le riviste nell’epoca della valutazione

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Valeria Pinto

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Thanatology of critics. The journals in the age of evaluation. This article deals with the issue of the transformation of the role of the journals induced by the new mechanisms of evaluation of research, focusing on the humanities journals as a specific form of critical culture. The thesis is that the standardization processes in progress – a policy of digitalisation which is primarily a digitization of politics – lead to the extinction of the journal as a place for the discussion of the “Fragwürdige” and to the extinction of the essay as form.

Renaissance of criticism on the concept of brain death--the role of legal medicine in the context of the interdisciplinary discussion.

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Markert, L; Bockholdt, B; Verhoff, M A; Heinze, S; Parzeller, M

2016-03-01

In the practice of legal medicine in Germany, the assessment of brain death is of minor importance and attracts little attention. However, since several years, international criticism on the concept of brain death has culminated. By reviewing literature and the results of a questionnaire distributed among the participants of the 93rd Annual Congress of the Germany Society of Legal Medicine, the state of knowledge and the current views on brain death were evaluated. Literature search of recent publications regarding brain death was performed (PubMed database, references of legal medicine, Report of the President's Council on Bioethics, USA 2008). A questionnaire was developed and distributed among the participants of the Congress. The assumption that individual and brain death are synonymous is criticized. Internationally, there are trends to harmonize the very different clinical criteria to assess brain death. The diagnostic advantage of novel techniques such as CT angiography is controversially discussed. It becomes apparent that procedures which record the blood flow and perfusion of the brain will be applied more in the future. Regrettably, these developments are not described in the literature of legal medicine. Moreover, among German forensic scientists, different views concerning brain death exist. The majority favors its equivalent treatment with individual death. The thanatological background can be improved concerning certain aspects of brain death as well as its legal implications. Teaching and research in legal medicine should include the subject brain death. Expertise in forensic science may contribute to the interdisciplinary discussion on brain death. The transfer of actual knowledge, also on disputed ethical aspects of thanatology, to physicians of all disciplines is of great importance.

Czech Adaption of the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale in a Sample of Nursing Students.

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Bužgová, Radka; Janíková, Eva

2017-01-01

The use of multidimensional scales for assessing fear of death among nursing students can assist in teaching and evaluating the effectiveness of targeted training in thanatology. Research has demonstrated good psychometric characteristics of the Czech version of the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale (CL-FODS). It was applied to nursing students ( N = 256), who reported as their biggest fear the process of their own dying. Greater fear of death and dying was found in students who had no experience of the dying and death of a loved one. Good internal consistency was achieved for the four subscales of the Czech CL-FODS.

University students' perspectives on a psychology of death and dying course: exploring motivation to enroll, goals, and impact.

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Buckle, Jennifer L

2013-10-01

This study provides an in-depth investigation of the motivations, goals, and impact on 23 university students enrolled in a Psychology of Death and Dying course. Through a grounded theory analysis of precourse perspective and postcourse reflection assignments, several key themes emerged. Participants were motivated to enroll in the course by their self-identified lack of knowledge on the topic and its professional and personal relevance. They identified three main course goals: cognitive comfort, preparation to support others, and personal growth. At the end of the course, participants noted heightened awareness of personal mortality and increased comfort with death-related topics, as well as reduced fear, surprise at the depth of the thanatology field, and enriched context for their experiences with death and dying. The implications of the results for death educators, researchers, and students are discussed.

Virtual anthropology: useful radiological tools for age assessment in clinical forensic medicine and thanatology.

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Dedouit, Fabrice; Saint-Martin, Pauline; Mokrane, Fatima-Zohra; Savall, Frédéric; Rousseau, Hervé; Crubézy, Eric; Rougé, Daniel; Telmon, Norbert

2015-09-01

Virtual anthropology consists of the introduction of modern slice imaging to biological and forensic anthropology. Thanks to this non-invasive scientific revolution, some classifications and staging systems, first based on dry bone analysis, can be applied to cadavers with no need for specific preparation, as well as to living persons. Estimation of bone and dental age is one of the possibilities offered by radiology. Biological age can be estimated in clinical forensic medicine as well as in living persons. Virtual anthropology may also help the forensic pathologist to estimate a deceased person's age at death, which together with sex, geographical origin and stature, is one of the important features determining a biological profile used in reconstructive identification. For this forensic purpose, the radiological tools used are multislice computed tomography and, more recently, X-ray free imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound investigations. We present and discuss the value of these investigations for age estimation in anthropology.

POSSIBILITIES OF COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY AND MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING IN FORENSIC MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF MECHANICAL TRAUMA AND SUDDEN DEATH (A LITERATURE REVIEW

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L. S. Kokov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT. The review analyzes the possibility of multislice computed tomography (MSCT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI use in the forensic examination of corpses of adults. We present the critical analysis of literature on post-mortem imaging in terms of forensic thanatology. The review is based on basic Internet resources: Scientific Electronic Library (elibrary, Scopus, PubMed. The review includes articles that discuss both advantages and limitations of post-mortem MSCT and MRI imaging in forensic examination of the corpse.Through studying the available literature, the authors attempted to answer two questions: 1 which method was more suitable for the purposes of forensic examination of the corpse - MSCT or MRI; 2 whether the virtual autopsy replaced the traditional autopsy in the near future?Conclusion: comprehensive study of the corpse often requires both imaging methods; in cases of death under mechanical damage, MSCT exceeds the range of possibilities of MRI; today, virtual autopsy cannot completely replace traditional autopsy in forensic science, since there are no convincing evidence-based comparative studies, as well as the legal framework of the method. 

[The influence of mourning on feeding habits and its implications for nutritional behavior].

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Campos, Maria Teresa Fialho de Sousa

2013-09-01

The lack of preparation for dealing with death and the absence of the loved one may lead to organic and psychological reactions that, due to the adaptive capacity of the individual to the period of mourning, may result in interference in feeding habits and consequently on the person's nutritional status. This article addresses the effects of recent mourning on feeding behavior, followed by the analysis of the dietary interview from various standpoints. This includes the postmortem nutrition and feeding habits of the bereaved and the implications of this process on hunger, on thirst and on family cooking, with a focus on nutritional behavior and on the decisions that surround it. This is a review of the literature on the theme of death and mourning, which seeks to contextualize this theme around reflections based on this experience. It emphasizes the interaction of nutrition with the science of thanatology, which is an area still not properly examined and lacking study. The identification of this influence and its implications enables better planning of food strategies, contributing greatly to actions for coping and support during mourning.

Family members' views on the benefits of harp music vigils for terminally-ill or dying loved ones.

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Ganzini, Linda; Rakoski, Alexa; Cohn, Sharilyn; Mularski, Richard A

2015-02-01

Music-thanatology is a palliative modality that uses harp and voice to provide bedside vigils, particularly for terminally ill or actively dying. We sought to determine the benefits of music vigils for terminally ill patients. Survey of 55 family members, whose terminally ill loved one experienced a music vigil during hospitalization, regarding effects on the patient's breathing, relaxation, comfort, pain and ability to sleep. Written comments on negative and positive results of the vigils were coded using content analysis. Family members perceived that the vigils resulted in modest improvement in the patients' breathing, relaxation, comfort, and ability to sleep, with fewer positive effects on pain, and almost no negative effects. Open ended comments focused on the positive benefit in increasing calm, relaxation, comfort. Comments on the positive effects for the family were almost as common as comments on the positive results for the patient. The use of music-vigils in palliative care should be investigated more extensively as our study supports that this intervention has benefits, almost no risk, minimal cost, and may improve patient-family experience of the dying process.