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©All the material in this website is copyrighted to Kathleen L. Fowler unless explicitly indicated otherwise.  Permission is granted to use and distribute this material freely but please attribute properly by retaining the full header information. 11/16/99 Page revised July 20, 2006

SOSC314 Death and Dying, Life and Living
Course Description

Return to Syllabus http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~kfowler/d&dsp07syllabus.html

Course Description: Perhaps nothing is more profoundly human and universal than the experience of and awareness of mortality and loss -- our own and those around us.  As a nation, for example, sometimes our attention is riveted on the death of an individual figure (Terry Schiavo, The Pope, Chief Justice Rehnquist).  Sometimes we are collectively shocked, horrified, and galvanized by the sheer magnitude of deaths caused by events such as the tsunami or genocide in Sudan or the impact of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.  Perhaps nothing is more unique and personal -- and yet informed by our community, our cullture, and our sense of history -- than the ways in which we experience, process, and express our awareness.  And, finally, perhaps nothing is more paradoxical and remarkable than the ways in which such awareness can be brought to enrich our lives to challenge us to live differently and to act differently -- to enhance our creativity, social commitment, compassion, thoughtfulness, and joy.  This course allows students to focus in on questions of Death and Dying and on Life and Living. The semester's work will emphasize the topics of grief, bereavement,  illness, caregiving,aging, and the dying process.  These topics will be considered with an awareness of history and of various cultures with the central stress being on the present and on American multiculture.  We will consider too how such topics are complexified by issues of race, class, gender, cultural values, etc.  Although the focus on various topics at different points in the semester (see Assignment Calendar) allows us to consider many areas, there is much interweaving of the materials of this course.  Thus topics such as aging or grief are not just treated separately in a strictly linear approach, but are woven togther in an "intellectual tapestry."  As various texts and a/v materials "talk to" and "talk back to" other texts, so I encourage you to engage thoughtfully, critically, and imaginatively with the texts and the materials we encounter during the semester.  I especially encourage you to bring the materials to bear on your own experiences and to bring those experiences to bear on the course materials.