The initial successes in recent years in harnessing machine learning technologies to improve medical practice and benefit patients have attracted attention in a wide range of healthcare fields. Particularly, it should be achieved by providing automated decision recommendations to the treating clinician. Some hopes placed in such ML-based systems for healthcare, however, seem to be unwarranted, at least partially because of their inherent lack of transparency, although their results seem convincing in accuracy and reliability. Skepticism arises when the physician as (...) the agent responsible for the implementation of diagnosis, therapy, and care is unable to access the generation of findings and recommendations. There is widespread agreement that, generally, a complete traceability is preferable to opaque recommendations; however, there are differences about addressing ML-based systems whose functioning seems to remain opaque to some degree—even if so-called explicable or interpretable systems gain increasing amounts of interest. This essay approaches the epistemic foundations of ML-generated information specifically and medical knowledge generally to advocate differentiations of decision-making situations in clinical contexts regarding their necessary depth of insight into the process of information generation. Empirically accurate or reliable outcomes are sufficient for some decision situations in healthcare, whereas other clinical decisions require extensive insight into ML-generated outcomes because of their inherently normative implications. (shrink)

Developments in Machine Learning (ML) have attracted attention in a wide range of healthcare fields to improve medical practice and the benefit of patients. Particularly, this should be achieved by providing more or less automated decision recommendations to the treating physician. However, some hopes placed in ML for healthcare seem to be disappointed, at least in part, by a lack of transparency or traceability. Skepticism exists primarily in the fact that the physician, as the person responsible for diagnosis, therapy, and (...) care, has no or insufficient insight into how such recommendations are reached. The following paper aims to make understandable the specificity of the deliberative model of a physician-patient relationship that has been achieved over decades. By outlining the (social-)epistemic and inherently normative relationship between physicians and patients, I want to show how this relationship might be altered by non-traceable ML recommendations. With respect to some healthcare decisions, such changes in deliberative practice may create normatively far-reaching challenges. Therefore, in the future, a differentiation of decision-making situations in healthcare with respect to the necessary depth of insight into the process of outcome generation seems essential. (shrink)

Inequities shape the everyday experiences and life chances of individuals at the margins of societies and are often associated with lower health and particular challenges in accessing quality treatment and support. This fact is even more dramatic for those individuals who live at the nexus of different marginalized groups and thus may face multiple discrimination, stigma, and oppression. To address these multiple social and structural disadvantages, intersectional approaches have recently gained a foothold, especially in the public health field. This study (...) makes an empirically informed argument for the merits of increasing the use of intersectional frameworks in the mental health field. In the mental health field, the potential for greater attention to multiple unjustified disadvantages appears to be of particular importance, as many mental health service users already face stigma and discrimination because of their mental health issues and thus may benefit particularly frequently and far-reachingly from effective problem awareness about multiple disadvantages. Intersectional approaches may help address the complexity, interdependence, and mutual constitution of social inequalities better than previous approaches that examined only one category of sociostructural stratification. By helping to identify the needs of those at the greatest risk of poor health, intersectional frameworks and tools can contribute not only to better address the needs of multiple disadvantaged individuals with mental health issues but also to the promotion of equity in the field of mental health, contributing to the reduction of health disparities. (shrink)

Background Artificial intelligence-driven Clinical Decision Support Systems (AI-CDSS) are being increasingly introduced into various domains of health care for diagnostic, prognostic, therapeutic and other purposes. A significant part of the discourse on ethically appropriate conditions relate to the levels of understanding and explicability needed for ensuring responsible clinical decision-making when using AI-CDSS. Empirical evidence on stakeholders’ viewpoints on these issues is scarce so far. The present study complements the empirical-ethical body of research by, on the one hand, investigating the requirements (...) for understanding and explicability in depth with regard to the rationale behind them. On the other hand, it surveys medical students at the end of their studies as stakeholders, of whom little data is available so far, but for whom AI-CDSS will be an important part of their medical practice. Methods Fifteen semi-structured qualitative interviews (each lasting an average of 56 min) were conducted with German medical students to investigate their perspectives and attitudes on the use of AI-CDSS. The problem-centred interviews draw on two hypothetical case vignettes of AI-CDSS employed in nephrology and surgery. Interviewees’ perceptions and convictions of their own clinical role and responsibilities in dealing with AI-CDSS were elicited as well as viewpoints on explicability as well as the necessary level of understanding and competencies needed on the clinicians’ side. The qualitative data were analysed according to key principles of qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz). Results In response to the central question about the necessary understanding of AI-CDSS tools and the emergence of their outputs as well as the reasons for the requirements placed on them, two types of argumentation could be differentiated inductively from the interviewees’ statements: the first type, the clinician as a systemic trustee (or “the one relying”), highlights that there needs to be empirical evidence and adequate approval processes that guarantee minimised harm and a clinical benefit from the employment of an AI-CDSS. Based on proof of these requirements, the use of an AI-CDSS would be appropriate, as according to “the one relying”, clinicians should choose those measures that statistically cause the least harm. The second type, the clinician as an individual expert (or “the one controlling”), sets higher prerequisites that go beyond ensuring empirical evidence and adequate approval processes. These higher prerequisites relate to the clinician’s necessary level of competence and understanding of how a specific AI-CDSS works and how to use it properly in order to evaluate its outputs and to mitigate potential risks for the individual patient. Both types are unified in their high esteem of evidence-based clinical practice and the need to communicate with the patient on the use of medical AI. However, the interviewees’ different conceptions of the clinician’s role and responsibilities cause them to have different requirements regarding the clinician’s understanding and explicability of an AI-CDSS beyond the proof of benefit. Conclusions The study results highlight two different types among (future) clinicians regarding their view of the necessary levels of understanding and competence. These findings should inform the debate on appropriate training programmes and professional standards (e.g. clinical practice guidelines) that enable the safe and effective clinical employment of AI-CDSS in various clinical fields. While current approaches search for appropriate minimum requirements of the necessary understanding and competence, the differences between (future) clinicians in terms of their information and understanding needs described here can lead to more differentiated approaches to solutions. (shrink)

Machine learning-driven clinical decision support systems (ML-CDSSs) seem impressively promising for future routine and emergency care. However, reflection on their clinical implementation reveals a wide array of ethical challenges. The preferences, concerns and expectations of professional stakeholders remain largely unexplored. Empirical research, however, may help to clarify the conceptual debate and its aspects in terms of their relevance for clinical practice. This study explores, from an ethical point of view, future healthcare professionals’ attitudes to potential changes of responsibility and decision-making (...) authority when using ML-CDSS. Twenty-seven semistructured interviews were conducted with German medical students and nursing trainees. The data were analysed based on qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz. Interviewees’ reflections are presented under three themes the interviewees describe as closely related: (self-)attribution of responsibility, decision-making authority and need of (professional) experience. The results illustrate the conceptual interconnectedness of professional responsibility and its structural and epistemic preconditions to be able to fulfil clinicians’ responsibility in a meaningful manner. The study also sheds light on the four relata of responsibility understood as a relational concept. The article closes with concrete suggestions for the ethically sound clinical implementation of ML-CDSS. (shrink)

Giorgia Pozzi’s feature article1 on the risks of testimonial injustice when using automated prediction drug monitoring programmes (PDMPs) turns the spotlight on a pressing and well-known clinical problem: physicians’ challenges to predict patient behaviour, so that treatment decisions can be made based on this information, despite any fallibility. Currently, as one possible way to improve prognostic assessments of patient behaviour, Machine Learning-driven clinical decision support systems (ML-CDSS) are being developed and deployed. To make her point, Pozzi discusses ML-CDSSs that are (...) supposed to deliver physicians an accurate estimation of the likelihood of narcotic, sedative and stimulant opioid misuse by a given patient (like, e.g., ‘NarxCare’). Regarding cases of deviating assessment between human evaluators and automated systems, the medico-ethical discussion has so far mainly focused on disagreement between clinicians and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms,2 for example in ‘second opinions’ that have been reconstructed as disagreements between physician testimony and ML-CDSS testimony.3 Examples such as those of PDMPs, by contrast, draw attention to situations in which patient testimony potentially contradicts ML-CDSS testimony. Pozzi examines decision-making situations in which ML-CDSS testimony factually overrides the testimony of the person affected. Thus, in the presented case of patient Kathryn, the testimony of her own physical and mental condition was insufficient to overturn the unfavourable outcome for …. (shrink)

Definition of the problemHealth Apps are becoming increasingly important for a preventive and responsible orientation of the health system. Currently, most of these digital health applications (DiGA) are based on so-called self-tracking technologies which record physiological and psychological data via sensors, usually combined with personalized everyday information. In the last few years, these digital developments have launched an intense and clearly polarized debate about the opportunities and dangers of self-tracking in healthcare.ArgumentsAfter a brief overview of medical self-tracking, this essay wants (...) to systematize and check the polarized discourse on the basis of its decisive individual and social potentials. It turns out that self-measurement techniques have long been an integral part of medical practice in diagnostics and therapy.ConclusionThe area of tension between individual empowerment and potential loss of control by the users will be emphasized as being especially important for the implementation of health Apps in primary health care. Finally, possible implications for the current design of the new German Digital Care Law (Digitale-Versorgung-Gesetz) are shown and some existing “blind spots” are highlighted. (shrink)

Definition of the problem The research and regulatory levels for data-intensive research in medicine are divergent. This results in a heterogeneous global field of regulating institutions with regionally unequal regulations, both in terms of the depth and restrictiveness of regulations. Despite or precisely because of the lack of globally binding regulation, nonbinding or only partially binding normative guidelines can also serve as orientation. But how should such normative regulation be designed in view of data-intensive research in medicine and what should (...) it be based on? Arguments The question of how concrete and in detail such research should be regulated can only be answered on a case-by-case basis for specific situations and institutions. Whether new norms or weightings of norms should be introduced, or whether the norms and their weightings should remain in place, can only be answered with reference to strong normative arguments. So far, there is a lack of compelling arguments in favour of new standards in view of data-intensive medical research. However, it is always necessary to translate norms, whether new or old, and apply them to a new method or technology. As in the past, both established and transparently communicated standards and an independent judgement on the application of these standards are therefore required. Conclusion In view of their particular suitability for this task, ethics committees should continue to be required and qualified as a procedural authority in the approval of data-intensive research in medicine; as an independent institution, they should make a judgement appropriate to the individual case on the basis of existing norms and standards. However, the changing practices of data-intensive research projects can also be reflected in new demands on research ethics committees, which should be addressed with reforms of their operating mode. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Die Forschungs- und Regulierungsebene bei datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin liegen auseinander. Ein heterogenes Feld aus regulierenden Institutionen mit regional ungleichen Regelungen, sowohl hinsichtlich der Dichte als auch der Restriktivität von Regelungen, steht einer globalen Entwicklung der Technologien entgegen. Trotz oder gerade wegen mangelnder global-gültiger Regulierungen können auch unverbindliche oder nur bedingt verbindliche normative Vorgaben der Orientierung dienen. Doch wie soll eine solche normative Regulierung angesichts datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin ausgestaltet werden und woran soll sie sich orientieren? Die (...) Frage, wie konkret und detailliert man eine solche Forschung regulieren sollte, lässt sich nur im Einzelfall für bestimmte Situationen und Institutionen beantworten. Ob dabei neue Normen oder Gewichtungen von Normen vorgenommen werden sollen, oder ob die Normen und deren Gewichtung weiterhin bestehen bleiben sollen, lässt sich nur mit Verweis auf starke normative Argumente beantworten. An zwingenden Argumenten für neue Normen angesichts der datenintensiven medizinischen Forschung mangelt es bisher. Dennoch ist eine Umsetzungsarbeit von Normen, egal ob neue oder alte, und deren Anwendung auf eine neue Methode oder Technologie allemal zu erbringen. Es bedarf daher – wie schon bisher – beider: sowohl etablierter und transparent kommunizierter Normen als auch des unabhängigen Urteils zur Anwendung dieser Normen. Angesichts der besonderen Eignung für diese Aufgabe sollten auch weiterhin Ethik-Kommissionen als prozedurale Instanz bei der Bewilligung von datenintensiver Forschung in der Medizin gefordert und befähigt werden, die als unabhängige Institution ein Urteil im Einzelfall anhand vorgegebener Normen fällen. Nichtsdestotrotz können sich die veränderten Praktiken datenintensiver Forschungsprojekte auch in neuen Anforderungen an Ethik-Kommissionen niederschlagen, denen mit Reformen der Arbeitsweise begegnet werden sollte. (shrink)

Bioethics has developed approaches to address ethical issues in health care, similar to how technology ethics provides guidelines for ethical research on artificial intelligence, big data, and robotic applications. As these digital technologies are increasingly used in medicine, health care and public health, thus, it is plausible that the approaches of technology ethics have influenced bioethical research. Similar to the “empirical turn” in bioethics, which led to intense debates about appropriate moral theories, ethical frameworks and meta-ethics due to the increased (...) use of empirical methodologies from social sciences, the proliferation of health-related subtypes of technology ethics might have a comparable impact on current bioethical research. This systematic journal review analyses the reporting of ethical frameworks and non-empirical methods in argument-based research articles on digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health that have been published in high-impact bioethics journals. We focus on articles reporting non-empirical research in original contributions. Our aim is to describe currently used methods for the ethical analysis of ethical issues regarding the application of digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health. We confine our analysis to non-empirical methods because empirical methods have been well-researched elsewhere. Finally, we discuss our findings against the background of established methods for health technology assessment, the lack of a typology for non-empirical methods as well as conceptual and methodical change in bioethics. Our descriptive results may serve as a starting point for reflecting on whether current ethical frameworks and non-empirical methods are appropriate to research ethical issues deriving from the application of digital technologies in medicine, health care and public health. (shrink)

Funeral Orations as Indicators of what a Good Life Ought to Be The central aim of this study was to uncover, based on funeral orations, what the Igbo of South-East Nigeria regard as the good life. Over two hundred and fifty funeral orations/tributes were investigated. These were classified into: tributes by spouses; by offspring; by close family members; by friends, associates and organizations. The study revealed that the notion of the good life among the Igbo was based (...) on primary duties and obligations at each of the four levels identified above and on related secondary duties and obligations. The good life was measured by the extent to which these duties and obligations were discharged and in the way their performance manifested in the provision of social amenities, help to educate members of the community and so on. What would ordinarily be regarded as virtues were considered desirable only in so far as they helped people fulfill their primary and secondary obligations, otherwise they were regarded as sterile or "bottled" virtues. (shrink)

Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. Edited by Paul Williams and Patrice Ladwig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv + 296. £60.

The centrality of death rituals has in anthropologically informed studies of Buddhism been little documented. The current volume brings together a range of perspectives on Buddhist death rituals including ethnographic, textual, historical and theoretically informed accounts, and presents the diversity of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and China. It arises out of the University of Bristol's Centre for Buddhist Studies research project Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China, funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and (...) Humanities Research Council. This project involved extensive new research in Thailand, Laos and China. Other items from that project included several public exhibitions, extensive stills photographs, and several video films. The project-team produced two 30 minutes films on the ghost festival in Laos and China, one on urban funerals in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and several shorter clips dealing with funeral cultures in Laos, Thailand and China. Most of this material (and an extensive bibliography on the topic) is available free of charge from the project website located at the webpage of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies (Centre for Buddhist Studies) at the University of Bristol. (shrink)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, funerals have been conducted consistently in Norway, but, of course, the ceremonies were subject to rules and regulations, while digitization was on the increase. Against the background of already ongoing discussions, both in contexts related to the Church of Norway and in practical-theological discourses, this article analyses scenes and excerpts from interviews conducted in 2021 and asks: What does the sociologist Hartmut Rosa’s concept of resonance convey in the pandemic situation? – This concept aims at a (...) mode of relating that empowers fulfilling, resonant relationships between subjects and between subject and world; the aim here is to bring it into play as a sensitizing concept, in a situation of supposedly increased distance and unaffectedness between people. The article discusses where the concept conveys the need for stable frameworks, and where it conveys the need for ongoing work with an ecclesiastical-theological self-understanding in the field of church funerals. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to indicate the slightness of the foundation on which a commonly received doctrine about Roman funerals rests, and to discuss a point in connexion with the ritual of funera acerba.

This article examines the political controversy in the United States surrounding a new process for the disposition of human remains, alkaline hydrolysis. AH technologies use a heated solution of water and strong alkali to dissolve tissues, yielding an effluent that can be disposed through municipal sewer systems, and brittle bone matter that can be dried, crushed, and returned to the decedent’s family. Though AH is legal in eight US states, opposition to the technology remains strong. Opponents express concerns about public (...) health and safety and about the dignity of our mortal remains. Proponents focus on AH’s environmental benefits over cremation and earth burial, aligning the technology with the “green burial” movement. Drawing from historical sources, Science, Technology, and Society literature, interviews with funeral professionals, industry literature, and various media sources, this article examines four prominent conceptions of the dead human body as they are deployed by various funeral stakeholders seeking to exercise authority over the dead human body, to influence the trajectory of AH technology in the United States, and to chart a course for US deathcare culture in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

I discuss the problem that Kant’s ethics seems to be incapable of capturing our strong intuition that emergencies create a context for actions that is very different from other cases of helping and from other opportunities to further obligatory ends. I argue that if we pay attention to how Kant grounds beneficence we see that distress and emergency function as constitutive concerns. They are vital to establishing the duty of beneficence in the first place, and they also guide the application (...) of duties to specific cases. Kant’s conception of imperfect duties to others, when understood correctly, offers a way to understand why emergencies are morally important, but also why other factors have a place in our moral reasoning. (shrink)

The theme of death is of great consequence in Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger because most of the existentialist views about death are encapsulated in the debate between them. While Heidegge4 carrying with a certain religious conviction, is of the view that death confers meaning on human existence, Sartre believes that death is a great evil which makes life meaningless. Sartre's position obviously sprouts from his atheistic persuasion which does not accommodate a presage of a future existence or embrace the (...) ideals associated with the good life. For the Yoruba, however Sartre's position does not make sense and is preposterous; they believe strongly that the human personality survives death. In this paper I want to show that the Yoruba conception of human existence and death-as conveyed by the Iremore - reflects an extracosmic and a more comprehensive reading of existence that reinforces the values associated with an honorable lift. (shrink)

. This article offers a comprehensive comparison of the funeral rites that Aischylos has Klytaimestra perform for Agamemnon in the Oresteia with historically customary, and so normative, rites as reconstructed for the classical period from extant historical sources. I examine the extent to which Aischylos manipulates traditional funeral rites in order to demonstrate the health of an oikos; I argue that Klytaimestra performs corrupt funeral rites as an indication of the unhealthy and illegitimate household she now heads, (...) whereas Orestes and Elektra perform customary rites as proof of their allegiance to the healthy and thus legitimate oikos of their father. (shrink)

There is much to like in Bermúdez's analysis, yet it is incomplete and at times problematic for social decision making and, by extension, interpersonal conflict. Here I explain how four frames – gains, losses, me, we – operate in conjunction and how humans gravitate toward a “me–loss” frame that, without intervention, leads to a breakdown of cooperation and an arguably tragic funeral of the commons.

Funerals are a reflective practice to bid farewell to the departed soul. Different religions, cultural traditions, rituals, and social beliefs guide how funeral practices take place. Family and friends gather together to support each other in times of grief. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, the way funerals are taking place is affected by the country's rules and region to avoid the spread of infection. The present study explores the media portrayal of public sentiments over funerals. In particular, the present (...) study tried to identify linguistic dimensions associated with lexical components of social processes, affective processes, fear, and disgust. An exhaustive search of newspaper coverage of funeral and related articles was made for a specific corona period. After an initial screening for the details and language used, a total of 46 newspaper articles on funerals were finalized for the analysis. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to determine the association between linguistic dimensions of function words and words related to social and affective processes, as presented in the newspaper articles. Sentiment Analysis and Cognition Engine (SEANCE) was applied for the analysis of sentiment, social cognition, and social order. Bayesian correlation analysis and regression revealed positive and significant associations between function words and affective processes, between pronouns and social processes, and between negative adjectives and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Also, significant negative associations were found between polarity nouns and psychological processes of fear and disgust and between polarity verbs and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Bayes factor 10 provides strong evidence in favor of the study hypotheses. The media is influenced by the prevailing sentiments in society and reflects their perception of the current social order and beliefs. The findings provide a glimpse into the prevailing sentiment of society through the lens of media coverage. These understandings are expected to enhance our observations of how people express their feelings over the loss of their loved ones and help mental health professionals develop their therapeutic protocols to treat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-affected population. (shrink)

The proliferation of unconventional death practices in North America, however innovative, is in part an expression of societal confusion about the nature of death and grief. If the church can recover the theological and liturgical fabric of funerals, reclaiming their main purpose as public confession rather than private pastoral care, Christian funerals can serve as a hopeful counter-witness to an uncertain culture.

This article aims to show how critical-feminist studies can improve research on funerals by contributing to a more complex understanding of ritualization and how it can be explored. The article discusses central issues within critical-feminist theory in relation to previous studies of funerals in Sweden and presents theoretical approaches that may improve the field of funeral studies. Intersectionality, queer phenomenology and ritual practice theory are introduced as examples of approaches that might help the researcher deal with questions of representation (...) in research, rejection of othering and application of non-essentialism – central issues in critical-feminist theory. Critical-feminist studies may, for example, uncover intersections of power relations in the ritual field, reveal experiences of inclusion/exclusion and contribute to a relational and dynamic understanding of ritual practice. Thereby, they provide complex knowledge of funerals, essential for understanding their functions for individuals and societies in times of ritual change. (shrink)

Cordus, who gave Pompey's body decent burial, is apostrophizing Fortune: Pompey asks no splendid burial, no incense, no loyal Roman shoulders to carry the father of his country, no funeral procession displaying mementos of former triumphs, no solemn music in the fora, no mourning army circling about the pyre and casting their arms in it.

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted and reshaped experiences of bodily disposal and memorialization around the world. One key characteristic of almost all religious practices and traditions is the centrality of face-to-face gatherings (Baker et al. 2020). The spatial turn shows the need to study space and place in research on religion (Knott 2010). Avril Maddrell has utilized a spatial lens for death studies with her concept of the deathscape, by which she means both the places associated with death and the (...) dead and how these are infused with meaning (Maddrell and Sidaway 2010). The aim of my article is to uncover which spaces were used in Finnish funerals and what they reveal about deathscapes during Covid-19. The forty-five pieces of correspondence that form the qualitative data of the research were received between October 2020 and February 2021; they offer some important, real-time insights into how funeral spaces and burial places were experienced during the two first waves of the pandemic. The findings reveal that participation in the ritual was more important than the actual site of the funeral, burial or memorial. The findings indicate that deathscapes in Finnish funerals during Covid-19 typically dealt with how ritual space was created during restrictions. The physical site was important as long as it created ritual space and was aligned with the personality of the deceased. Central to these actively created spaces was that they followed the deceased body either physically, virtually or spiritually. The latter was a conceptual finding from the data and a means by which the writers pointed to spatialities of belief and virtual attendance that were not digitally mediated. (shrink)

Gricean pragmatics seems to pose a dilemma. If semantics is limited to the conventional meanings of types of expressions, then the semantics of an utterance does not determine what is said. If all that figures in the determination of what is said counts as semantics, then pragmatic reasoning about the specific intentions of a speaker intrudes on semantics. The dilemma is false. Key points: Semantics need not determine what is said, and the description, with which the hearer begins, need not (...) provide the hearer with knowledge of what was said, or the ability to express what was said, from the hearer's context. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Impersonating the Dead:Mimes at Roman FuneralsGeoffrey S. SumiRoman aristocratic and imperial funerals often had a theatrical quality to them. We are told of the presence of musicians and dancing satyrs as part of the procession (pompa) and the excessive, even feigned grief, on the part of mourners, some of whom were professionals.1 Most striking of all was the performance of an actor (a "funerary mime") who donned a mask (...) that portrayed the likeness of the deceased and wore clothing that represented the highest offices and honors that the deceased had achieved. While dressed in this manner, the actor impersonated the deceased, imitating, and sometimes mocking, his well-known physical characteristics and movements and his words.2 To our modern sensibilities such a custom might seem odd, but a recent commentator on Roman aristocratic funerals has pointed out how the tone of a single funeral celebration ranged from "the patriotic and somber, to sad, to joyous and festive."3 The performance of this funerary mime, in which the dead momentarily came back to life in vivid form, apparently could reflect the full range of emotions on display at a Roman funeral. Despite recent studies on the Roman funeral, we still lack an analysis of the funerary mime that draws together all of the ancient evidence. Such an [End Page 559] analysis can shed light, as I hope to show, not only on the nature of the actor's performance, but also on what this performance might mean for our understanding of Roman funerals, both under the Republic and the Empire. Further light can be shed on the custom of the funerary mime by using Bakhtin's model of carnival as a way of demonstrating how in Rome certain carnivalesque elements could be interwoven into otherwise serious and even somber public events.4The first source that describes the practice of the funerary mime most explicitly is a passage of Diodorus, quoted by Photius, which is taken from his discussion of the funeral of L. Aemilius Paullus, the famous conqueror of Perseus who died in 160 B.C.:(Diod. 31.25.2)5Those Romans who by reason of noble birth and the fame of their ancestors are pre-eminent are, when they die, portrayed in figures that are not only lifelike as to features but show their whole bodily appearance. For they employ actors who through a man's whole life have carefully observed his carriage and the several peculiarities of his appearance. In like fashion each of the dead man's ancestors takes his place in the funeral procession, with such robes and insignia as enable the spectators to distinguish from the portrayal how far each had advanced in the cursus honorum and had had a part in the dignities of the state.(Loeb trans.)In this passage, Diodorus describes not only the use of masks to portray the facial features of the deceased, but also the employment of [End Page 560] actors () to play the role of the deceased at the funeral. The word can simply mean "imitator" in general terms, one who pretends to be someone or something else, but it can be used specifically of actors.6 Diodorus goes on to explain that this, during the lifetime of the deceased, observed the gait or carriage () of the deceased and "the several peculiarities of his appearance" (). The result of this "lifetime" of observation was that the actor could perform these traits faithfully at his subject's funeral. The translation of as "the several peculiarities of his appearance" renders into English the ambiguities of the Greek without making clear precisely what is meant. By this phrase, Diodorus must mean gestures or other physical movements, since it should refer to something, such as gait or carriage with which it is paired, that actors could observe, imitate, and then perform for a large audience. By the same token, it is unlikely that this phrase refers either to distinguishing physical characteristics, such as facial features or expressions, since these would have been depicted by the mask itself, or, for that matter, to physical blemishes of the body, such as scars, which would have been concealed by the dress... (shrink)