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email: hsl@umn.edu
516 Delaware Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
email: hsl@umn.edu
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Resources to help explore a variety of cultures and religions as their beliefs, practices, customs and traditions around the issue of death, grief and funeral/burial rituals.
PubMed search
Article Databases
Health Sciences & other databases for death/dying & cultures/religions
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PubMedSearches MEDLINE, which is the primary source of journal articles for the health sciences. Coverage is from the 1940s to the present, Potential search terms to use with this database: bereavement, grief, disenfranchised grief; beliefs, cross-cultural comparison; funeral rites, burial
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CINAHL Ultimate (Nursing & Allied Health)Covers nursing and allied health journal articles. Potential search to use with this database: all of the terms listed under PubMed with the addition of the following: complicated grief, personal loss, burial practices, cultural values
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MorgueThe Morgue attempts to provide students, scholars and researchers with an on-line tool specifically targeted at the literature in the field of Mortuary Science. The database can be searched by author’s name, journal title, article title and subject. The Morgue does not index articles relating to association news, conventions, interviews, features, reader’s forums, advertisements, classified ads, obituaries, or briefs.
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ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerialsThe American Theological Library Association (ATLA) Religion Database lists journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. Some listings link to full text of articles.
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Academic Search PremierPotential search terms for this database: bereavement, grief, mourning customs, rites & ceremonies, christen mourning customs, Islamic mourning customs, Jewish mourning customs
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APA PsycInfoFind articles in thousands of psychology journal from 1806 to current year. Potential search terms for this database; bereavement, grief, death rites, religious practices
Burial Rituals -- Cultural & Religious
Selected Books from the University Libraries collection
- Parkes, C., Laungani, P., Young, B., Taylor & Francis, & Ebrary, Inc. (2016). Death and bereavement across cultures (Second ed.). New York: Routledge.
- Robben, A.. (2018). Death, mourning, and burial : A cross-cultural reader (Second ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
- Selin, H., Rakoff, R.. (2019). Death across cultures : Death and dying in non-Western cultures (Science across cultures v. 9). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
- Laqueur, T. (2015). The work of the dead : A cultural history of mortal remains. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
- Betsinger, Scott, Tsaliki, Murphy, Betsinger, Tracy K, Scott, Amy B, & Tsaliki, Anastasia. (2020). The odd, the unusual, and the strange bioarchaeological explorations of atypical burials (Bioarchaeological interpretations of the human past). Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Online Resources
- Cultural and Religious Funeral Customs
- Death and Burial Rituals in World Religions
- Death, Funeral, Requiem -- Orthodox Christian Traditions, Customs and Practice
- Funeral Customs by Religion, Ethnicity and Culture
- Funeral Etiquette: At the service
- Muslim Funeral Traditions
- A Guide to a Proper Buddhist Funeral
- Japanese Buddhist Funeral Customs
- Jewish Funerals, Burial & Mourning
- Military Funeral Customs
- Religious Funeral Customs
- Transition Rituals: A Faith By Faith Guide to Rites for the Deceased
- A Complete Guide to Traditional Chinese Funeral Customs
- Islamic Funeral Guide
- Symbolism on Gravestones (Association for Gravestone Studies)
- Cemetery Symbolism
Videos
Guides to APA Style
APA Style (American Psychological Association)
- Citation Managers
- Use citation managers to organize citations, store and manage PDFs, and format in-text citations and bibliographies.
- Citation management workshops at UMN Libraries.
- APA Formatting And Style Guide (7th ed.)
- OWL Online Writing Lab, Purdue University.
- In-text citation basics
- Reference list basics
- Paper Format (APA Style)
- From APA.org - covers title, margins, line spacing, headers and more.
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
- The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition) is the style manual of choice for writers, editors, students, educators, and professionals in psychology, sociology, business, economics, nursing, social work, and justice administration.
Last Updated: Aug 5, 2025 4:39 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/MORT/3371