Gail Holst-Warhaft (Adjunct Associate Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, Cornell University)
Having set aside age-old ways of mourning, how do people in the modern world cope with tragic loss? Using traditional mourning rituals as an instructive touchstone, Gail Holst-Warhaft explores the ways sorrow is managed in our own times and how mourning can be manipulated for social and political ends.
Since ancient times political and religious authorities have been alert to the dangerously powerful effects of communal expressions of grief--while valuing mourning rites as a controlled outlet for emotion. But today grief is often seen as a psychological problem: the...
Having set aside age-old ways of mourning, how do people in the modern world cope with tragic loss? Using traditional mourning rituals as an instr...
