Crossing Over: New Narratives of Death

“跨越”旨在建立一个新的跨学科网络，由来自死亡和临终研究不同领域的国际专家组成，以互动和合作的方式应对当代死亡不断变化的面貌所带来的理论和实践挑战。死亡作为时间中的一个瞬间，死亡作为一个过程，都会导致理论与社会，学术与实用，神秘与日常的交集，也就是说，通常不会相互作用的领域之间的交集。“跨越”体现了一种信念，即只有通过广泛和创新的思想和实践交流才能解决如此复杂的问题。该网络将由人文社会科学领域的学者组成。它将由赫尔大学新成立的多学科生命终结研究中心指导，但也包括谢菲尔德大学由英语系召集的多学科死亡小组（est. 2004）的重要贡献。2015年在谢菲尔德举行的会议将分享该网络的研究成果，并将向广泛的专业人士和公众开放。“跨越”将通过面对面活动和在线交流工具的结合发挥作用。例如，一个文学学者和在临终关怀部门工作的人之间的一系列学科和创新研究合作的个人产出不仅会提高对当代死亡挑战的理解，而且会朝着新的死亡叙述的方向发展，其中一系列理论家和非学术专业人员可以参与其中。我们迫切需要这样一个网络，以应对死亡的文化和社会经验、死亡观念和死亡管理方面的变化。最明显的变化是，成年早期的突然死亡很少见，但死前长期的虚弱和残疾却越来越普遍。“生命终结”曾经是指死亡的那一刻，“Age UK”最近提出了一个扩展的定义，指的是80岁以上寿命的最后十年。例如，人们可以指出，临终关怀运动对治疗医学的挑战；对医疗化悲伤模型的批评改变了人们理解失去的方式；以及虚拟纪念场所的增长。这些“普通”死亡的转变在更激进的活动中也有类似之处，比如“死亡权利”运动。还需要产生理论和实践模型，以帮助理解丧亲之痛，以回应Margaret Holloway（2007）所称的“新死亡”。例子包括自然灾害造成的死亡；酗酒或滥用药物造成的死亡人数增加；青少年自杀;青少年与帮派有关的死亡这些经历被广泛报道，但很少被理解，并且与事实密切相关，正如克里斯汀·瓦伦丁（2008）指出的那样，“死者在活着的人的生活中保持着重要的社会存在”。与此同时，我们与死亡的关系变得越来越矛盾。哀悼既是一种社会过程，也是一种基本的私人行为。正如Meghan O' rourke（2011）所观察到的，我们生活在“一种功能失调的文化中，在这种文化中，我们贪婪地消费电视上的死亡新闻，而在现实生活中回避它。”因此，该网络将集中在以下研究领域：21世纪“善死”的意义。不断变化的死亡叙事——文学、媒体和社会——以及死者在社会上的持续存在。新的和新兴的精神话语。“新死亡”对我们如何讲述死者的影响。改变丧葬习俗。

'Crossing Over' seeks to establish a new interdisciplinary network of international experts from different fields of research on death and dying to work interactively and collaboratively on the theoretical and practical challenges posed by the changing face of contemporary death. Both death as a moment in time and dying as a process result in intersections of the theoretical and the social, the academic and the pragmatic, the arcane and the everyday - that is, intersections between spheres which might not usually interact. 'Crossing Over' exemplifies a belief that such complex matters can only be addressed by a wide and innovative exchange of ideas and practices.The network will consist of scholars from the humanities and social sciences. It will be directed from the University of Hull's newly-established, multi-disciplinary Centre for End of Life Studies but also includes a significant contribution from the University of Sheffield's multi-disciplinary Death Group (est. 2004) convened from the Department of English. A conference in Sheffield in 2015 will share the fruits of the network's research and will be open to a wide range of professionals as well as members of the public.'Crossing Over' will function through a combination of face-to-face events and on-line communication tools. Individual outputs from a range of disciplines and innovative research collaborations between, for example, a literary scholar and someone working in the hospice sector will not only produce an enhanced understanding of the challenges of contemporary death but will move towards new narratives of death in which a range of theorists and non-academic professionals can have a stake.Such a network is urgently needed in order to address changes in the cultural and social experience of death, in ideas about death, and in the management of death. The most obvious change is that sudden, early adult death is rare but long periods of frailty and disability prior to death are increasingly common. Where 'end of life' once referred to the moment of death, Age UK have recently suggested an expanded definition that means the last ten years of increased 80-plus lifespans. One can point to, for example, challenges to curative medicine materialised in the Hospice Movement; critiques of medicalised models of grief changing the way loss is understood; and the growth of virtual memorial sites. These shifts in 'ordinary' death have parallels in more radical activities such as the Right to Die movement. There is also a need to produce theoretical and practical models that will assist in the understanding of bereavement in response to what Margaret Holloway (2007) has termed 'the new death'. Examples would include deaths caused by natural disasters; the increase in deaths caused by alcohol or substance abuse; teenage suicide; and teenage gang-related deaths. These experiences are widely reported but little understood and go hand-in-hand with the fact that, as Christine Valentine (2008) notes, 'the dead retain a significant social presence in the lives of the living'.At the same time, our relationship with death has become increasingly paradoxical. Mourning is both a social process and something that is fundamentally private. As Meghan O'Rourke (2011) has observed, we live in 'a dysfunctional culture in which we avidly consume news of death on TV and duck away from it in real life.' The network will, therefore, focus on the following research areas: The meaning of 'the good death' in the 21st century.Changing narratives of death - literary, media and social - and the continuing social presence of the dead.New and emergent discourses of spirituality.The impact of 'the new death' on how we story the dead.Changing funeral and burial practices.