Usurping suicide - Professor Suman Gupta

Can an individual act of suicide be socially significant,or does it present too many imponderable features?

This book examines suicide like no other. Unconcerned withthe individual dispositions that lead a person to commit such an act, Usurping Suicide focuses on thereception suicides have produced - their political, social and culturalimplications. How does a particular act of suicide enable a collectivesignificance to be attached to it? And what contextual circumstances predisposea politicised public response?

From Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation during regime changein Tunisia to Dimitris Christoulas's public shooting at a time of increasedpolitical upheaval in Greece, and beyond - this remarkable work examines howthe individuality of the act of suicide poses a disturbing symbolic conundrumfor the dominant liberal order.