CULTURE AND DEATH. THE END OF LIFE IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF MEDIA MEDIATION

This book attempts to define and show the contemporary re-emergence of multimedia taming of death. It is no longer the taming of death itself (as a biological fact), but rather its figure appearing in Western culture. The analyses undertaken here therefore concern the mechanisms defining tanatically marked cultural texts, which are understood as media mediations of human thoughts, emotions and attitudes related to death, changing with the development of technology. They are primarily theoretical in nature - this work is a deductive attempt to indicate the general law, which we call the "secondary taming" of death, inferred from many known humanistic concepts.

• In-depth analysis of cultural representations of death
• Interdisciplinary perspective combining philology, philosophy and cultural studies
• Theoretical reflections illustrated with examples from Western culture
• Insightful look at the mechanisms that define cultural texts
• Understanding how the media shapes our perception of death
• An attempt to define the multimedia taming of death

The considerations undertaken in the work do not focus on the cultural texts themselves, but on the mechanisms that define them and through which these texts function. The theoretical proposal, built on reason and logical inference, is illustrated with examples of texts and narratives known from contemporary Western culture. Such a research approach requires insight and multifacetedness of the arguments, which in order to prove the thesis often use inconsistent (or even, as it may sometimes seem, contradictory) philological, philosophical and cultural studies concepts.

Tomasz Błaszczyk, PhD in humanities, literary scholar and media expert, graduate of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, focuses his scientific interests on issues related to death and its reception in culture. His publications, published among others in "Czas Kultury", "Kultura Współczesna" and "Sensus Historiae", make a significant contribution to research on contemporary culture and its complexity.

This gives the considerations carried out in the work an interdisciplinary character, necessary - as it seems - in discussions on issues related to culture, which in itself is a very complex and multifaceted phenomenon, and therefore so difficult to define and describe. This book will certainly interest students, cultural researchers, media experts and all those who want to better understand how death functions in our contemporary reality.