Candi K. Cann is an Associate Professor of Religion in the Honors College at Baylor University, USA.

Part I: The Study of Dying, Death and Grief: An Overview

Chapter 1: Introduction by Candi K. Cann

Chapter 2: State of the Field of Death in the United States by George E. Dickinson

Chapter 3: Brain Death and the Politics of Religion by Donald Joralemon

Chapter 4: Understanding Grief: Theoretical Perspectives by Kenneth J. Doka

Part II: Disposal of the Dead: Past, Present and Future

Chapter 5: Symbolizing Imperial Affiliation in Death: Case Studies from the Inka Empire (AD 1400-1532) by Colleen Zori

Chapter 6: The Romanian Orthodox Church and Issues of Cremation by Marius Rotar

Chapter 7: Reframing Sites of the Dead in Brazil by Renato Cymbalista & Aline Silva Santos

Chapter 8: Stand By Me: The Fear of Solitary Death and the Need for Social Bonds in Contemporary Japan by Chikako Ozawa-de-Silva

Chapter 9: Politics of Death and Mortuary Rituals in Trinidadian Hinduism by Priyanka Ramlakhan

Chapter 10: The Right to be Dead: Designing Future Cemeteries by Jakob Borrits Sabra & John Troyer

Part III: Representations of Death: Narratives and Rhetoric

Chapter 11: Post-Mortem (2010): Saint Salvador Allende and Historical Autopsy by Moisés Park

Chapter 12: Mourning Deaths and Constructing Afterlives in the Red Army at War by Steven G. Jug

Chapter 13: Corpses That Preach: Óscar Romero and the Martyred Priests of El Salvador by Mandy Rodgers-Gates

Chapter 14: Photographing Human Finitude: Philosophical Reflections on Photographs of Death by Mathew A. Crawford

Chapter 15: De Imago to Word: The Exile of the Dead from Parish Symbolism in Reformation England by Lacy K. Crocker Papadakis

Part IV: Youth Meets Death: A Juxtaposition

Chapter 16: The Comprehension of Death and Afterlife in Children by Ramiro Tau

Chapter 17: The Effects of Parental Death on Religiosity within an American Context by Renae Wilkinson

Chapter 18: Ashes to Ashes: Continuing Bonds in Young Adulthood in the Netherlands by Renske Visser

Part V: Questionable Deaths and Afterlives: Suicide, Ghosts & Avatars

Chapter 19: Exeunt: The Question of Suicide at the Origin of Early Christianity by Michael J. Thate

Chapter 20: How Not to Become A Ghost: Tales of Female Suicide Martyrs in Sixteenth-Century Vietnamese 'Transmissions of Marvels' (truy¿n k¿) by Cuong T. Mai

Chapter 21: The Cat Came Back: Revenant Pets and the Paranormal Everyday by Sara Knox

Chapter 22: From Ancestors to Avatars: Transfiguring the Afterlife by Jenny Huberman

Part VI: Material Corpses and Imagined Afterlives Around the World

Chapter 23: From the Underworld of Yama to the Island of Gems: Concepts of Afterlife in Hinduism by June McDaniel

Chapter 24: A Broad Survey of Zulu Ancestor Veneration and the Challenges it Faces by Radikobo Ntsimane

Chapter 25: Death and Life in a Pluralistic Society: Boundary-Making and Boundary-Crossing in Sino-Burmese-Tibetan Borderlands by Keping Wu

Chapter 26: Viking Death: Pre-Christian Rites of Passage and Funerary Feasting by Davide Zori

Chapter 27: Death, Resurrection and the World to Come: Jewish Views on Death and Afterlife by Nicholas R. Werse

Chapter 28: The Afterlife and Death: An Islamic Perspective by David Oualaalou

Chapter 29: Coffins, Candles, and Cameras-Aspects