Research Guides: EALC 247: Death and the Afterlife in East Asian Religions (HC): Books

Required books

Coffinman by Jon Turner (Preface by); Shinmon Aoki; Taitetsu Unno (Foreword by); Wayne S. Yokoyama (Translator)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 0972139508
Publication Date: 2004-04-01
Looks at one man's very personal struggle to engage his Shin Buddhist faith to make sense of his experiences with the dead and dying. The author chronicles his progression from repulsion to a gradual realisation of the tranquillity that accompanies death.
Nature's Embrace by Satsuki Kawano
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780824833725
Publication Date: 2010-03-01
Based on extensive fieldwork, Nature's Embrace reveals the emerging pluralization of death rites in postindustrial Japan. Low birth rates and high numbers of people remaining permanently single have led to a shortage of ceremonial caregivers (most commonly married sons and their wives) to ensure the transformation of the dead into ancestors resting in peace. Consequently, older adults are increasingly uncertain about who will perform memorial rites for them and maintain their graves. In this study, anthropologist Satsuki Kawano examines Japan's changing death rites from the perspective of those who elect to have their cremated remains scattered and celebrate their return to nature. For those without children, ash scattering is an effective strategy, as it demands neither a grave nor a caretaker. However, the adoption of ash scattering is not limited to the childless. By forgoing graves and lightening the burden on younger generations to care for them, this new mortuary practice has given its proponents an increased sense of control over their posthumous existence. By choosing ash scattering, older adults contest their dependent status in Japanese society, which increasingly views the aged as passive care recipients. As such, this study explores not only new developments in mortuary practices, but also voices for increased self-sufficiency in late adulthood and the elderly's reshaping of ties with younger generations. Nature's Embrace offers insightful discussion on the rise of new death rites and ideologies, older adults' views of their death rites, and Japan's changing society through the eyes of aging urbanites. This book will engage a wide range of readers interested in death and culture, mortuary ritual, and changes in age relations in postindustrial societies.
Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF by Laurel Kendall
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780824833435
Publication Date: 2009-10-01
Presents a study of contemporary Korean shamanism. This book describes how gods and ancestors articulate the changing concerns of clients and how the ritual fame of these transactions has itself been transformed by urban sprawl, private cars, and zealous Christian proselytizing.
Bonds of the Dead by Mark Michael Rowe
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
ISBN: 9780226730134
Publication Date: 2011-11-01
Despite popular images of priests seeking enlightenment in snow-covered mountain temples, the central concern of Japanese Buddhism is death. For that reason, Japanese Buddhism's social and economic base has long been in mortuary services--a base now threatened by public debate over the status, treatment, and location of the dead. Bonds of the Dead explores the crisis brought on by this debate and investigates what changing burial forms reveal about the ways temple Buddhism is perceived and propagated in contemporary Japan. Mark Rowe offers a crucial account of how religious, political, social, and economic forces in the twentieth century led to the emergence of new funerary practices in Japan and how, as a result, the care of the dead has become the most fundamental challenge to the continued existence of Japanese temple Buddhism. Far from marking the death of Buddhism in Japan, Rowe argues, funerary Buddhism reveals the tradition at its most vibrant. Combining ethnographic research with doctrinal considerations, this is a fascinating book for anyone interested in Japanese society and religion.

Identifying Relevant Books

Use the Tripod Books and More catalog to look for relevant titles owned by Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore.

The following subject searches are a sampling of possibilities. To find materials on a topic, try doing a keyword search in the Tripod Catalog to find relevant materials and then use the subject headings assigned to those titles to find more books.

Death AND Buddhism [Keyword Search]
Death-Religious aspects-Buddhism [Subject Search; choose "newest first" under the SORT drop down menu for the most recent publications]

Tripod - For locating books, journals, and other materials held in the Tri-College libraries. Deliveries within the Trico usually arrive in one or two days. Use the "Request" button

Worldcat - An important place to look for many materials not owned by the Tri-College Libraries. This combined library catalog contains more than 300 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world. Many of these items are available to you though interlibrary loan.

EZ Borrow and Interlibrary Loan - Request items that are not available in Tripod on this page. Note that E-Z Borrow provides books in 3 to 5 days. For books not in E-Z Borrow, request though Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Again materials may arrive in as little as 3 days. For journal articles not in Tripod, request through Article Delivery. They will be sent to you by email.

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are a particularly useful kind of article when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles.

The Oxford Bibliographies Online provide literature reviews for a variety of fields including Asian Studies (they specify the following subject areas: Chinese Studies, Buddhism, International Relations, etc. You can take a look at their subjects and complete a few searches to find what you are interested in). The essays take the form of an annotated bibliography. It gives you the benefit of expert advice when identifying what to read for your research.

Oxford Bibliographies Online

Relevant essays include:

"Funeral Practices" Margaret Gouin

"Death [Hinduism]" Ariel Glucklich

"Tibetan Book of the Dead" Casey Alexandra Kemp

Dissertations

Doctoral students go through an exhaustive literature search when writing their dissertations. They also tend to work on new questions, sometimes ones that have received very little attention from scholars before. You can often obtain these dissertations and benefit from all the bibliographic treasues and new ideas. Check Dissertations & Theses to identify dissertations on your topic.

Dissertations & Theses
Dissertations and Theses is a collection of scholarly research in the Humanities and Social Sciences that consists of 2.7 million searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world, and 1.2 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Coverage is from 1861 to the present day.