The Handbook of Traumatic Loss adopts a broad, holistic approach that recognizes traumatic loss much more fully as a multidimensional human phenomenon, not simply a medical condition. Initial chapters build a foundation for understanding traumatic loss and explore the many ways we respond to trauma. Later chapters counterbalance the individualistic focus of dominant approaches to traumatic loss by highlighting a number of thought-provoking social dimensions of traumatic loss. Each chapter emphasizes different aspects of traumatic loss and argues for ways in which clinicians can help deal with its many and varied impacts.

Gandolfo constructs a theological anthropology that begins with the condition of human vulnerability as a site to answer why human beings experience and inflict terrible suffering. This volume argues that vulnerability is a dimension of human existence that causes us great anxiety, which forms the basis for violence but also affords the possibility

Providing an overview of the myriad ways that we are touched by death and dying, both as an individual and as a member of society, this book will help readers understand our relationship with death. Kastenbaum and Moreman show how various ways that individual and societal attitudes influence both how and when we die and how we live and deal with the knowledge of death and loss. This landmark text draws on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, such as history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage of understanding death and the dying process. Death, Society, and Human Experience was originally written by Robert Kastenbaum, a renowned scholar who developed one of the world’s first death education courses. Christopher Moreman, who has worked in the field of death studies for almost two decades specializing in afterlife beliefs and experiences, has updated this edition.

Maynard explores the contributions that 15th century Julian of Norwich's (who lost her own family to the Plague) theology and spirituality may offer to survivors of traumatic loss--the losses suffered by survivors of September 11 and the Tsunami as well as those who have lost a loved one to AIDS. Reading Julian's work taught Maynard that a transcendent experience of love offers hope in the midst of loss, and she shares that inspiration in this resource.

The fourth book in the series featuring the irascible but loveable amateur sleuth Daniel Jacobus Vaclav Herza, the last of a dying breed of great but tyrannical conductors, has been music director of Harmonium for forty years. The world famous touring orchestra was created for him when he fled Czechoslovakia for America during the political turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1956. It is the eve of the opening of a dramatic new concert hall designed by Herza himself. It is also the eleventh hour of intense contract negotiations with the musicians that have strained relations within the organization. When the acting concertmaster, Scheherazade O'Brien, is summarily dismissed by the despotic Herza for the permanent concertmaster position, an audition she was poised to win, O'Brien slits her wrists and the orchestra becomes convulsed. Now, blind, cantankerous violin teacher Daniel Jacobus, who had shunned O'Brien's earlier plea for help against Herza's relentless harassment, investigates Herza's dark past not only in Prague, but in Tokyo and New York. With the help of his old friends Nathaniel Williams, Max Furukawa, and Martin Lilburn, he seeks not only revenge but redemption from the guilt of his own past.

A profound look at how death and dying is understood, negotiated, and experienced by different cultures.

At the age of forty-six, the author, summoned by a compelling inner voice to leave everything, embarked on an intense spiritual quest to find God. This account of her journey inwards reflects her spiritual development over the period of her father’s illness and death, as well as her mother’s deteriorating mental condition. Rooted in scripture, this little volume offers an illuminating, even dazzling, portrayal of one woman’s capacity to deal, entirely alone, with the deepest grief and pain without losing perspective. Her great gift to us is her ability to see everything in the light of eternity and as the will of God. From this spiritual vantage point, she was given eyes to see far. This book reflects the intensity of her consciousness of God and the tension under which she lived and wrote. The more mystical passages, often lyrical in expression, reveal a depth and an immediacy, which makes the message compellingly direct. Anyone caring for an elderly parent, grieving the loss of a loved one, or struggling to make sense of pain and suffering, will find encouragement and hope in these pages.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Death, the ultimate change, is an unexpected Leitmotiv of Ovid’s career and reception. The eighteen contributions collected in this volume explore the theme of death and transfiguration in Ovid’s own career and his posthumous reception, revealing a unity in diversity that has not been appreciated in these terms before now.

Transfiguring America is the product of more than ten years of research and numerous published articles on Margaret Fuller, arguably America's first feminist theorist and one of the most important woman writers in the nineteenth century. Focusing on Fuller's development of a powerful language that paired cultural critique with mythmaking, Steele shows why her writing had such a vital impact on the woman's rights movement and modern conceptions of gender. This groundbreaking study pays special attention to the ways in which Fuller's feminist consciousness and social theory emerged out of her mourning for herself and others, her dialogue with Emersonian Transcendentalism, and her eclectic reading in occult and mythical sources. Transfiguring America is the first book to provide detailed analyses of all of Fuller's major texts, including her mystical Dial essays, correspondence with Emerson, Summer on the Lakes, 1844 poetry, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and New York Tribune essays written both in New York and Europe. Starting from her own profound sense of loss as a marginalized woman, Fuller eventually recognized the ways in which the foundational myths of American society, buttressed by conservative religious ideologies, replicated dysfunctional images of manhood and womanhood. With Woman in the Nineteenth Century, after exploring the roots of oppression in her essays and poetry, Fuller advanced the cause of woman's rights by conceptualizing a more fluid and equitable model of gender founded upon the mythical reconfiguration of human potential. But as her horizons expanded, Fuller demanded not only political equality for women, but also emotional, intellectual, and spiritual freedom for all victims of social oppression. By the end of her career, Steele shows, Fuller had blended personal experience and cultural critique into the imaginative reconstruction of American society. Beginning with a fervent belief in personal reform, she ended her career with the apocalyptic conviction that the dominant myths both of selfhood and national identity must be transfigured. Out of the ashes of personal turmoil and political revolution, she looked for the phoenix of a revitalized society founded upon the ideal of political justice.

The romantic sweep of Death and Transfiguration greets the reader immediately, from the onset of the first verse of the play to its dramatic conclusion. Set in the stunning locale of the magnificent vistas of the Swiss Alps by the Viervaldstettersee, this play takes you on a breathtaking journey into the psychological worlds of its characters. Based partly on earlier stories and legends of Faust, more specifically, works by Christopher Marlowe and Wolfgang von Goethe, we find him in this version challenging the temptations of evil rather than embracing them. The cosmic conflict between good and evil, between the light and the darkness, is the central theme of this work. Can man withstand the temptations of the evil forces or will he eventually succumb to those desires? Can his will, his spirit withdraw from the constant knocking of Satan? Can love overcome the seeds of hate and anger? Faust, at the outset, resists the invitation to join Mephistopheles; and, in subsequent engagements with the amoral and immortal prevaricator, he attempts and continues to withstand the clever manipulations of the devil. As a result of this ongoing conflict, the plot intensifies as this singular antagonist unveils and harnesses his many talents and powers, relentlessly attempting to infuse his will into the characters. The touching love story between Faust and Margaret takes on new dimensions here. Her growing madness tests the very sanity of Faust himself who finds himself more and more incapable of action as the tragedy unfolds. Will he too join her in the darkness? Is there, or can there be any redemption or salvation from suffering? Set throughout in poetry, the heart pounding pulse and rhythm of the work undeniably transports the reader or the spectator watching the play to new dimensions. Relish in a work that is unpredictable and unique, a play that will test your own convictions.