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 unique 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 psychoanalytic, feminist, and historical--with essays by prominent and promising scholars. All the contirbutions 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 in both unknowable and repeatably constructed. In so doing, the colection shows how thematics--as an issue in scholarly research--can servce as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions. Essays are organized in three sections: REading Death: Sign, Psyche, Text; Death and Gender; and History, Power, Ideology. Contributors are Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, Regina Barreca, Elisabeth Bronfen, Carol Christ, Sander Gilman, Sarah Webster Goodwin, Margaret Higonnet, Regina Janes, Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Ronald Schleifer, Charles Segal, and Garrett Stewart.