Mortuary Dialogues: Death Ritual and the Reproduction of Moral Community in Pacific Modernities

Introduction : Mortuary Ritual, Modern Social Theory and the Historical Moment in Pacific Modernity / Eric K. Silverman and David Lipset -- Fearing the Dead : The Mortuary Rites of Marshall Islanders amid the Tragedy of Pacific Modernity / Laurence M. Carucci -- Into the World of Sorrow : Women and the Work of Death in Maori Mortuary Rites / Che Wilson and Karen Sinclair -- Death and Experience in Rawa Mortuary Rites, Papua New Guinea / Doug Dalton -- The Knotted Person : Death, the Bad Breast and Melanesian Modernity among the Murik, Papua New Guinea / David Lipset -- Mortuary Ritual and Mining Riches in Island Melanesia / Nicholas A. Bainton and Martha Macintyre -- Finishing Kapui's Name : Birth, Death and the Reproduction of Manam Society, Papua New Guinea / Nancy C. Lutkehaus -- Transformations of Male Initiation and Mortuary Rites among the Kayan of Papua New Guinea / Alexis T. von Poser -- Mortuary Failures : Traditional Uncertainties and Modern Families in the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea / Eric K. Silverman -- Everything Will Come Up Like TV, Everything Will Be Revealed : Death in an Age of Uncertainty in the Purari Delta, Papua New Guinea / Joshua Bell -- Afterword. Mortuary Dialogues in Pacific Modernities and Anthropology / David Lipset, Eric K. Silverman and Eric Venbrux.

Mortuary Dialogues presents fresh perspectives on death and mourning across the Pacific Islands. Through a set of rich ethnographies, the book examines how funerals and death rituals give rise to discourse and debate about sustaining moral personhood and community amid modernity and its enormous transformations. The book's key concept, "mortuary dialogue," describes the different genres of talk and expressive culture through which people struggle to restore individual and collective order in the aftermath of death in the contemporary Pacific.

Introduction : Mortuary Ritual, Modern Social Theory and the Historical Moment in Pacific Modernity / Eric K. Silverman and David Lipset -- Fearing the Dead : The Mortuary Rites of Marshall Islanders amid the Tragedy of Pacific Modernity / Laurence M. Carucci -- Into the World of Sorrow : Women and the Work of Death in Maori Mortuary Rites / Che Wilson and Karen Sinclair -- Death and Experience in Rawa Mortuary Rites, Papua New Guinea / Doug Dalton -- The Knotted Person : Death, the Bad Breast and Melanesian Modernity among the Murik, Papua New Guinea / David Lipset -- Mortuary Ritual and Mining Riches in Island Melanesia / Nicholas A. Bainton and Martha Macintyre -- Finishing Kapui's Name : Birth, Death and the Reproduction of Manam Society, Papua New Guinea / Nancy C. Lutkehaus -- Transformations of Male Initiation and Mortuary Rites among the Kayan of Papua New Guinea / Alexis T. von Poser -- Mortuary Failures : Traditional Uncertainties and Modern Families in the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea / Eric K. Silverman -- Everything Will Come Up Like TV, Everything Will Be Revealed : Death in an Age of Uncertainty in the Purari Delta, Papua New Guinea / Joshua Bell -- Afterword. Mortuary Dialogues in Pacific Modernities and Anthropology / David Lipset, Eric K. Silverman and Eric Venbrux