Crossing Over: New Narratives of Death

《跨越》寻求建立一个新的跨学科网络，由来自死亡和死亡研究不同领域的国际专家组成，以互动和协作的方式解决当代死亡面貌变化带来的理论和实践挑战。作为时间点的死亡和作为过程的死亡都导致了理论和社会、学术和实用、神秘和日常的交叉--也就是可能通常不会相互作用的领域之间的交叉。“跨越”体现了这样一种信念，即只有通过广泛而创新的思想和实践交流，才能解决如此复杂的问题。该网络将由来自人文和社会科学的学者组成。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多学科死亡小组(EST)的重大贡献。2004)由英语系召集。2015年在谢菲尔德举行的一次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。通过面对面的活动和在线交流工具相结合的方式，“跨越”将发挥作用。例如，文学学者和临终关怀部门工作人员之间的一系列学科的个人成果和创新研究合作，不仅将加深对当代死亡挑战的理解，而且将走向一系列理论家和非学术专业人员都可参与的关于死亡的新叙事。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的变化。最明显的变化是，成年人突然过早死亡的情况很少见，但死亡前长期虚弱和残疾的情况越来越常见。“生命的终结”曾经指的是死亡时刻，英国年龄组织最近提出了一个扩展的定义，指的是最后十年增加的80多岁的寿命。例如，人们可以指出，临终关怀运动对治愈医学提出了挑战；对悲痛的医学化模型改变了人们对失去的理解的批评；以及虚拟纪念网站的发展。“普通”死亡的这些转变在更激进的活动中也有相似之处，比如死亡权利运动。还需要制作理论和实践模型，帮助理解丧亲之痛，以应对玛格丽特·霍洛威(2007)所称的“新死亡”。例子包括自然灾害造成的死亡；酒精或药物滥用造成的死亡增加；青少年自杀；以及青少年与帮派有关的死亡。这些经历被广泛报道，但鲜为人知，而且正如克里斯蒂娜·瓦伦丁(2008)所指出的那样，与此相关的是这样一个事实：“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。哀悼既是一个社会过程，也是一件从根本上讲是私人的事情。正如梅根·奥鲁尔克(Meghan O‘Rourke，2011)所说，我们生活在一种功能失调的文化中，在这种文化中，我们热衷于在电视上阅读死亡消息，而在现实生活中却回避它。因此，该网络将专注于以下研究领域：21世纪“好的死亡”的含义；不断变化的死亡叙事--文学、媒体和社会--以及死亡的持续社会存在；新的和新出现的精神话语；“新死亡”对我们讲述死亡故事的影响；改变葬礼和埋葬习惯。

'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.