The anthropology of death or the new anthropology and the religious complex connected to death

Abstract

In this article the authors give a review of new anthropological work pertaining to dying, death and beliefs in life after death. Dying and the valorization of ways of dying are the subject of a paper by sociologist Todor Kuljić, while other relevant texts commented on by the authors are the results of the work done by anthropologists. Thus, the traditional belief in “prikoljiš” is analyzed in the text of Ivan Kovačević, while the folk belief in dying after death was analyzed by Dušan Bandić, and modern forms of grief in obituaries are analyzed by Ivan Čolović. The traditional belief in the vampire is the subject of analysis in papers by Dušan Bandić and Lidija Radulović, while the analysis of beliefs in immortality, present in a new religion, is the topic of a paper by Danijel Sinani.

Keywords

• anthropology
• death
• Serbia
• beliefs
• vampire
• obituaries