Course Details

SC 230 Overview

In this course, students will examine death and dying not as a preexisting physical fact, but as a constantly changing social relation interpreted through various cultural and social realities. The course will examine how people (and others) experience, give social order to, and make sense of death and dying. Themes may include ceremonial aspects of dying and death; the role of the funeral industry; medical-technology models and the institutionalization of death and dying; and alternatives prevalent in different cultures or historical periods, and among American cultural minorities. Prerequisite: SC 101 or sophomore standing.