Overview

How porous is the border between life and death? How do the dead influence the living and in what way? What can Heaven, Hell, Purgatory and the two Limbos tell us of our contemporary world today? In The Mirror of Death, Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte explores the hermeneutical potential of the regions in the hereafter. After an exciting voyage through the emergence of the afterlife and of the constancy of death’s presence in the history of humanity, Vanhoutte shows, through the study of the nature and genealogy of the various realms in the beyond, how an invigoratingly new and critical perspective of a wide variety of contemporary phenomena is unveiled when reading them through the interpretative lens of these regions where the dead dwell. Modern politics, our fellow human beings, the times of our lives, the capitalistic economic system, medicalization, wokism, and living in crisis will never look the same.

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9781538171851

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Who would expect that a hermeneutics of the afterlife would chase such ghosts as these? From Plato, Cicero, and Montaigne, to Sartre, Foucault, and Agamben, Vanhoutte charts the regions of the afterlife in a way that has not been seen since Dante. While all philosophy might be a learning how to die, strangely enough a hermeneutics of the afterlife is a learning how to live--or better, a learning about life, not only here and now, but trans-historically. This book is as serious as it is surprising, written with an understanding that surpasses both knowledge and faith. It is a revelation. --Jeffrey W. Robbins, Lebanon Valley College, author of Radical Democracy and Political Theology A ghost chase of places of the afterlife, Vanhoutte's brilliant intellectual history ensures we will never think about death the same way. This intellectual Baedeker of the afterlife demonstrates that how we live in and think about this life is always understood and referenced by how we think about and anticipate the afterlife. --Michael Grimshaw, associate professor of sociology, University of Canterbury

A ghost chase of places of the afterlife, Vanhoutte's brilliant intellectual history ensures we will never think about death the same way. This intellectual Baedeker of the afterlife demonstrates that how we live in and think about this life is always understood and referenced by how we think about and anticipate the afterlife. --Michael Grimshaw, associate professor of sociology, University of Canterbury Who would expect that a hermeneutics of the afterlife would chase such ghosts as these? From Plato, Cicero, and Montaigne, to Sartre, Foucault, and Agamben, Vanhoutte charts the regions of the afterlife in a way that has not been seen since Dante. While all philosophy might be a learning how to die, strangely enough a hermeneutics of the afterlife is a learning how to live--or better, a learning about life, not only here and now, but trans-historically. This book is as serious as it is surprising, written with an understanding that surpasses both knowledge and faith. It is a revelation. --Jeffrey W. Robbins, Lebanon Valley College, author of Radical Democracy and Political Theology A ghost chase of places of the afterlife, Vanhoutte's brilliant intellectual history ensures we will never think about death the same way. This intellectual Baedeker of the afterlife demonstrates that how we live in and think about this life is always understood and referenced by how we think about and anticipate the afterlife. Who would expect that a hermeneutics of the afterlife would chase such ghosts as these? From Plato, Cicero, and Montaigne, to Sartre, Foucault, and Agamben, Vanhoutte charts the regions of the afterlife in a way that has not been seen since Dante. While all philosophy might be a learning how to die, strangely enough a hermeneutics of the afterlife is a learning how to live--or better, a learning about life, not only here and now, but trans-historically. This book is as serious as it is surprising, written with an understanding that surpasses both knowledge and faith. It is a revelation.

A ghost chase of places of the afterlife, Vanhoutte's brilliant intellectual history ensures we will never think about death the same way. This intellectual Baedeker of the afterlife demonstrates that how we live in and think about this life is always understood and referenced by how we think about and anticipate the afterlife. --Michael Grimshaw, associate professor of sociology, University of Canterbury

Author Information

Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is a philosopher and research fellow at the department of philosophy of the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. His previous books include Limbo Reapplied. On Living in Perennial Crisis and the Immanent Afterlife and Purgatory. Philosophical Dimensions.

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