Death and Representation

Death is a subject of increasing interest in virtually all academic disciplines, yet there is surprisingly little theoretical work on the representation of death in literary contexts. "Death and Representation" offers a collection of international and interdisciplinary essays, rich in cultural perspectives but sharing a relatively common vocabulary.

It provides models for a number of interrelated approaches - including psychoanalvtic, feminist, and historical - with essays by prominent and promising scholars.

All the contributions combine theory with textual readings, whether of literature, paintings, historical sources, or - in one case - a passage from Freud.

The essays in "Death and Representation" trace the multifarious ways in which death is both unknowable and repeatedly constructed.

In so doing, the collection shows how thematics - as an issue in scholarly research - can serve as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions.

Essays are organized in three sections: "Reading Death: Sign, Psyche, Text"; "Death and Gender"; and "History, Power, Ideology".