Christopher Hitchens' Public dying: Toward a Secular-Humanist Ars Moriendi?

This article explores the public dying of journalist, writer, provocateur, public intellectual, and renowned atheist, Christopher Hitchens. It does so primarily through an analysis of television interviews given by Hitchens following his diagnosis with esophageal cancer in June 2010. Four key themes are identified as emerging from analysis of the interviews: (a) Hitchens’ explicit sense of mission in challenging myths and superstitions surrounding cancer, dying, and death; (b) the personal experience of terminal illness and dying and the particular way (or style of dying) by which it is approached; (c) issues of regret and a life well lived; and (d) questions surrounding religion, the afterlife, and possibility of deathbed conversion. In light of the claim that ours is a culture in search of an ars moriendi, the article examines what we can learn from Hitchens’ auto/pathographic interviews (and writings) and the extent to which this rational-humanist, atheistic, and stoical style of dying provides a useable “template” for others nearing the end of life

You can't cure it so you have to endure it: the experience of adaptation to diabetic renal disease

In this study, the experience of adaptation to diabetic renal disease was examined from a phenomenological perspective. Twenty patients attending a diabetic renal clinic were interviewed in depth. Through the use of a template analysis approach, a set of strong themes relating to changes in lifestyle was identified: changes in the nature of involvement with the medical system, coping strategies, and hopes, fears, and expectations. Almost all participants attempted to construct a "good adaptation" in the face of the uncertainties surrounding their condition by adopting a stoic and fatalistic stance. This is discussed in the context of the claim that contemporary society holds emotional self-expression rather than stoical endurance to be the appropriate response to sufferin