Aesthetics as metaphysical meaning-making in the face of death

Abstract

Maija Khandro Butters, Helsinki University Maija Butters is a cultural anthropologist and doctoral candidate in the Science of Religions at Helsinki University. Previously she has written on Tibetan Buddhist art. Her dissertation study ‘Personal landscapes of death in Finland’ focuses on the experiences of hospice patients. She is especially interested in the imageries of modern death and dying.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