Mirrors of Passing explores the relationship between death, materiality, and temporality, drawing from the fields of archaeology, cultural anthropology, political science, and media studies to explore fundamental questions about the relationship between death and our perception of time.

List of Illustrations Introduction: Mirrors of Passing Sophie Seebach and Rane Willerslev PART I: DEATH'S TIME Chapter 1. The Time of the Dead: Anthropology, Literature, and the Virtual Past Stuart McLean Chapter 2. Orpheus in Love, Death, and Time Marina Prusac-Lindhagen Chapter 3. Death before Time: Mythical Time in Ancient Egyptian Mortuary Religion Rune Nyord Chapter 4. When Bad Places Turn Worse: The Necropolitics of Death Sites in Northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Per Detlef Frederiksen Chapter 5. Narratives of Ebola: Temporal and Material Changes of Social Riverscapes Theresa Amman PART II: MATERIALITIES OF DEATH Chapter 6. "Saving the Dead": Fighting for Life in the Siberian North Rane Willerslev and Jeanette Lykkegård Chapter 7. Death, Rebirth, Objects, and Time in North American Traditional Inuit Societies: an Overview Matthew J. Walsh and Sean O’Neill Chapter 8. Transforming and Creating Multiple Worlds: Strange Attractors in the Mongolian landscape Malthe Lehrmann Chapter 9. The Dead among the Living: Materiality and Time in Rethinking Death and Otherness in Lowland South America Clarissa Martins Lima and Felipe Vander Velden PART III: LIFE AFTER DEATH Chapter 10. Making Presence: Time Work and Narratives in Bereaved Parents' Online Grief Work Dorthe Refslund Christensen and Kjetil Sandvik Chapter 11. The Multiple Identities of Aslak Hætta and Mons Somby: The Case of the Sámi Skulls Susan Matland Chapter 12. Media, Ritual, and Immortality: The Case of a Masculine Hero Johanna Sumiala Chapter 13. The Temporality and Materiality of Life and Death in a Sepik Village Christiane Falck PART IV: EXHIBITING DEATH, MATERIALITY, AND TIME Chapter 14. The Wonderful Exhibition That Almost Was Alexandra Schuessler Index

“In Mirrors of Passing, Seebach and Willerslev have successfully revealed novel ways of approaching death from the perspectives of time, materiality and the social role of the dead. While, as they admit, no final concluding statement about the relationships between death, materiality and time appear possible, this edited collection does not require one. The value of this text comes not from any one particular statement, but from the range of perspectives it offers and what these perspectives can themselves offer those persons wishing to understand death beyond the assumptions about it that are hidden in modern life. This volume is highly relevant for anyone interested in cultural anthropology, social anthropology, museum studies, religious studies or sociological studies of death.” • JASO “This volume is especially relevant for scholars and students concerned with the ethical role of museums as caretakers of our religious material and physical (human) remains as well as for those interested in broader questions of how death, time, and materiality impact human conceptions of spirit and place. Its value for scholars of religious studies lies in its non-Western focus, as it provides—in one volume—a significant contribution to the scholarship on death and conceptions of the afterlife from contemporary indigenous cultures around the world.” • Reading Religion “Ambitious and engaging, the essays in this volume demonstrate how diverse conceptions of time, in relation to death, are present across history, geography, and media. Beginning with the first chapter’s enchanting examination of a James Joyce story, and continuing through the various ethnographies, the contributors have provided us with new ways of engaging with some familiar themes.” • Barbara Graham, author of Death, Materiality, and Mediation: An Ethnography of Remembrance in Ireland