The evidence of death and dying has been removed from the everyday lives of most Westerners. Yet we constantly live with the awareness of our vulnerability as mortals. Drawing on a range of genres, bands and artists, Mortality and Music examines the ways in which popular music has responded to our awareness of the inevitability of death and the anxiety it can evoke. Exploring bereavement, depression, suicide, violence, gore, and fans’ responses to the deaths of musicians, it argues for the social and cultural significance of popular music’s treatment of mortality and the apparent absurdity of existence.
Christopher Partridge is Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, UK. Recent publications include The Occult World (2014, ed.,), The Lyre of Orpheus: Popular Music, the Sacred and the Profane (2013), Dub in Babylon (2010), and Holy Terror: Understanding Religion and Violence in Popular Culture (2010, ed.,). He is co-editor of Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Popular Music.
Introduction1. Mortality and Immortality2. Death and the Sacred 3. The Undead and the Uncanny4. Morbidity, Violence, and Suicide5. Transfiguration, Devotion and Immortality
Mortality and Music: Popular Music and the Awareness of Death offers a sustained examination of how contemporary popular music gives room for listeners to meaningfully negotiate the sometimes contradictory implications of modernity’s denial of an afterlife.
Christopher Partridge, Lancaster University) Partridge, Christopher (Professor of Religious Studies, Professor of Religious Studies, PARTRIDGE, Partridge
Linda Woodhead MBE, Christopher Partridge, Hiroko Kawanami, UK) Woodhead, Linda, MBE (Lancaster University, UK) Partridge, Christopher (Lancaster University, Linda Woodhead
Linda Woodhead MBE, Christopher Partridge, Hiroko Kawanami, UK) Woodhead, Linda, MBE (Lancaster University, UK) Partridge, Christopher (Lancaster University, Linda Woodhead
Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman, Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn, Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman, USA) Miller, Monica R. (Lehigh University, USA) Pinn, Anthony B. (Rice University, Christopher Partridge