Religion Scholar Alan F. Segal Discusses His New Book on the Afterlife in Western Religion at Barnard College, Nov. 10
Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion Offers First Comprehensive Analysis on Western Beliefs and Behavior
 New York, NY-- Throughout the ages and in every culture, people have grappled with the question of what happens to us after we die. Barnard College Professor Alan Segal, one of the foremost scholars of religion, has spent nearly 15 years studying and researching how Jews, Christians and Muslims approach the question.
On November 10, at 7 p.m., Segal will lecture on his new book, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion, published by Doubleday, in which he offers the first comprehensive historical and cultural analysis of the subject, and brings new understanding to both Western beliefs and human behavior. Segal will also discuss the book in context of the current political climate and the elections.
"The news of the 21st century is that the mainline churches, synagogues, and mosques have more in common with each other than they do with their fundamentalist co-religionists. This divide affects everything from the group's voting patterns to their views of the afterlife. An easy way to locate these religious groups is to ask them about their views of afterlife. Thus, the notion of the afterlife continues to play a very important role in defining religious groups in the United States," said Alan Segal, Professor of Religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies.
The event will take place as part of Barnard's Books Etc. series and will be held in the Julius S. Held Lecture Hall, Barnard Hall (117 th Street and Broadway). The event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact The Office of Public Affairs at 212-854-7907.
At the heart of the book - written in the cultural and intellectual tradition of James Carroll and Harold Bloom - lies the question of why a particular culture chooses to imagine the afterlife in a specific way. Starting with contemporary American views on the afterlife held by the religious and political right and left, to Islamic suicide bombers and terrorists, Segal combines history, geography, mythology, archaeology, and biblical analysis to help us understand how the Western belief systems and patterns of human behavior have come about.
"The book is not just a historical analysis of the afterlife, but it asks a specific question about why people envision their afterlife in one form or another," said Segal. "What is at stake when you imagine your afterlife as an immortal soul or a resurrected body? I see the afterlife as a mirror of our selves, so in constructing afterlife, people are really making a statement about what is important in their lives."
In Life After Death, Segal examines why a particular culture chooses to comprehend the afterlife in a specific way, and how we have developed our contemporary views of ourselves. The book begins with a look at contemporary American views on the afterlife, in particular the views of Jewish Americans and Arab Americans, and draws parallels between these contemporary values and ancient cultures. He makes the timely comparison between ancient Islamic ideas about the afterlife and martyrdom with those held by modern suicide bombers and terrorists. He also explores why left- and right-wing representatives in our political scheme have different views of the afterlife.
Segal traces the roots of our beliefs back to the ancient Greek and Egyptian civilizations to find out the forces that shaped their ideas about the afterlife. Why did Egyptians, for instance, build monumental pyramids and mummify their dead? Why exactly did the ancient Greeks believe that only the soul lives on after death--a radical concept at the time--whereas the ancient Israelites believed in the literal resurrection of the body at the end of time? Why do some Islamic traditions believe that Allah will reward martyrs with a heavenly harem of 72 virgins?
Do these ideas about life after death have anything to do with historical events or the kinds of values we hold when we are still alive? Segal's answer is an unqualified "yes." Beliefs about the afterlife are directly affected by events in the here and now. In tracing the organic, historical relationships between sacred texts and communities of belief and comparing the visions of life after death that have emerged throughout history, Life After Death sheds a revealing light on the intimate connections between notions of the afterlife, the societies that produced them, and the individual's search for the ultimate meaning of life on earth.
In conclusion, Segal argues that the American view is that everybody deserves a life after death. "History always lies, but since our view of afterlife is fiction we can safely believe it," Segal said.
Alan F. Segal is professor of religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies at Barnard College. He is the author of Paul the Convert , Rebecca's Children, and Two Powers in Heaven, as well as numerous scholarly articles.
Contact: Petra Tuomi, (212) 854-7907, ptuomi@barnard.edu
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