Book contents
- Facing Death Across Cultures
- Facing Death Across Cultures
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to a Cultural Species
- Module 1 The Basic Psychological Components of Culture
- Module 2 Becoming Human
- Module 3 Acculturation
- Module 4 Multicultural Adaptation
- Module 5 Health and Well-Being
- Module 6 Disease and Healing
- Module 7 Diversity and the Conventional Medical World
- Module 8 Thinking about Death
- Module 9 Managing Mortality and Difficult Passages
- Module 10 Cultures Approach the End
- Module 11 Critical and End-of-Life Care
- Module 12 Culture, Passages, and Psychosocial Supports
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Introduction to a Cultural Species
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2025
- Facing Death Across Cultures
- Facing Death Across Cultures
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction to a Cultural Species
- Module 1 The Basic Psychological Components of Culture
- Module 2 Becoming Human
- Module 3 Acculturation
- Module 4 Multicultural Adaptation
- Module 5 Health and Well-Being
- Module 6 Disease and Healing
- Module 7 Diversity and the Conventional Medical World
- Module 8 Thinking about Death
- Module 9 Managing Mortality and Difficult Passages
- Module 10 Cultures Approach the End
- Module 11 Critical and End-of-Life Care
- Module 12 Culture, Passages, and Psychosocial Supports
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
If you are reading this, I suspect you are a human (our household felines, though brilliant in their own way, adamantly reject the value of literacy). You are classified homo sapiens sapiens in scientific nomenclature. Sapiens, indicating intelligence in Latin, repeats to emphasize our firm belief that we are doubly the smartest creatures on earth and to distinguish our subspecies from homo sapiens neanderthalensis and our other supposedly less intelligent cousins now gone extinct. You and I resemble each other genetically to a remarkable degree: whatever your gender, skin color, blood type, or preference for Star Trek or Star Wars franchises, we are virtually identical in those spiraled strands of chemical instructions. We are also identical in our opening and closing chapters, however brief, all first gestating in a womb and all eventually ceasing our rhythms of breath and heartbeat somehow. Knowing the inevitability of that cessation point motivated the writing of this book, because despite attempted escape into social media, high art, or sports fandom, that final moment will visit us all, whomever we are and from wherever we are.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Facing Death Across CulturesHealth and Mortality in a Diverse World, pp. 1 - 5Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025