SOCA2022
10 units
2000 level
Course handbook
Description
The anthropology of death is a capacious field that link together broad debates of violence, suffering, power, socio-environmental relations, medicine, faith, gender, race, modernity, secularity, and many more. Death and dying are universal experiences that are shared by all that live. As a cultural universal, it presents a unique lens to interrogate the human experience and the core question of anthropology, namely ‘what does it mean to be human’? Through the study of death and dying, we can get insight into diverse aspects of cultural knowledge and practice as these manifests in rituals, rites of passage, symbols and taboos. In this course, we will look at how death and dying form part of everyday life, culture and sociality, how belief in the afterlife, connections to spirits and notions of an-other create boundaries of belonging, exclusion and inclusion, engagement with our environment and ‘nature’, memory and memorialising. We will look at death and dying beyond trauma and discord, and, through interrogating mythologies and notions of ghosts and monsters, vampires and zombies, instead see how end of life forms part of living.
Availability2024 Course Timetables
Callaghan
- Semester 2 - 2024
Online
- Semester 2 - 2024
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students will be able to:
1. Examine how death and dying forms part of and informs everyday life, cultural practice, and knowledge.
2. Contribute to contemporary debates about life and death.
3. Critically analyse how the politics of death form part of their own lives and culture.
4. Interpret death and dying as a socio-cultural phenomenon.
5. Appraise the role of ethnographic research methods and apply ethnographic research skills in the study of living cultures.
Content
Mythologies of death: Indigenous and non-Indigenous myths and rituals; the undead.Politics of death and extinction: globalisation; hidden deaths; massacres; euthanasia; the right to live, the right to die; extinction debates.Social death: precarious lives.Memory and memorialising: understanding our present through our relationship to the dead; the stories of the dead.
Assumed knowledge
SOCA1020 What is Anthropology?
Assessment items
Presentation: Executive summary (250 words) and oral presentation
Written Assignment: Field Report
Project: Major Project
Written Assignment: Ethnographic essay (2000 words)
Contact hours
Semester 2 - 2024 - Callaghan
Lecture-1
- Face to Face On Campus 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s) starting in week 1
Tutorial-1
- Face to Face On Campus 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s)
Semester 2 - 2024 - Online
Lecture-1
- Online 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s)
Tutorial-1
- Online 1 hour(s) per week(s) for 12 week(s)
Course outline
Course outline not yet available.
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.