Aesthetics as metaphysical meaning-making in the face of death
Keywords:
Death, dying, hospice, ethnography, cultural phenomenology, aesthetic experience, metaphysical meaning-makingAbstract
In my ethnographic research on death and dying in contemporary Finland, I explore how Finns facing end of life due to a long-term illness or other terminal condition seek to orient themselves and make meaning with cultural tools such as imagery, language, and metaphysical thinking. My primary research material is based on extensive fieldwork at Terhokoti Hospice and in the cancer clinic of Helsinki University Hospital, where I have had numerous conversations with terminally ill patients. This paper seeks to explore the way in which metaphysical aesthetics is assuming the role that religious thinking has traditionally played. When the role of institutional religion is diminishing, it becomes important to understand how emotional and spiritual resolution can be arrived at by means of aesthetics.
Section
Articles
Published
2016-12-14
How to Cite
Butters, M. (2016). Aesthetics as metaphysical meaning-making in the face of death. Approaching Religion, 6(2), 96–111. https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.67595
Copyright (c) 2016 Maija Butters
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.