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Death and Dying in “Third Way” Death Manuals: Shaping Life and Death After Neoliberalism

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Interrogating the Neoliberal Lifecycle

Abstract

In this chapter, I consider what might be called the “Third Way” death manuals of Philip Gould and Kate Gross, who were both, in different ways, involved with the New Labour Project. Their memoirs describe their experiences of dying and are notable for the conclusions to which they come; conclusions which suggest values at odds with the individualist and progressive narratives that shape neoliberal views of what it means to life well. In considering the tensions and possibilities that shape their respective narratives, new ways of living in the face of death become possible.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See his interview with Michel Contat in the New York Review of Books, 7 August 1975, translated by Paul Auster and Lydia Davis.

  2. 2.

    Frances Ryan, “Death has become a part of Britain’s benefit system”, Guardian, 27 April 2015. For a dramatic rendition of such real-life scenarios, see Ken Loach’s film from 2016, I, Daniel Blake.

  3. 3.

    See Kaufman (2005, p. 28).

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Correspondence to Beverley Clack .

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Clack, B. (2019). Death and Dying in “Third Way” Death Manuals: Shaping Life and Death After Neoliberalism. In: Clack, B., Paule, M. (eds) Interrogating the Neoliberal Lifecycle. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00770-6_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00770-6_11

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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