Regina M. Janes proposes a new theory of the origins of the hereafter. Drawing on a variety of religious traditions and contemporary literature and film as well as cognitive science and evolutionary psychology, Inventing Afterlives shows that in asking what happens after we die we define the worlds we inhabit and the values by which we live. This book, which travels time and disciplines, cannot be ignored. Scholars and students of sociology, anthropology, religion, and cultural history will find Inventing Afterlives particularly useful for developing new approaches to conceptualizing and interrogating beliefs in the hereafter. Janes's study strips away theological and anachronistic understandings about belief in life after death, leaving us with a productive framework with which to question the validity of both our own assumptions about the afterlife and those of other scholars.