January 6, 2006

Life, Death, and Biocultural Literacy

By LENNARD J. DAVIS

It is a literary convention that at the moment of death, one may finally come to know oneself. In many of Dickens's novels, for example, you'll find a touching deathbed scene. As the dying character fades away, he or she utters a few summarizing words — or, in the case of Shakespeare, a great deal of them — and those around can wipe away a tear and find some significance in the person's demise. In literature, one's identity, paradoxically, often comes to fruition at the

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