Good Death: China and Comparative Perspectives

Catalog description

What makes a “good death”? How do people imagine, interpret, and describe the processes of dying? How do individuals respond to, live through, and move beyond the death of others? How do beliefs, customs, material cultures, and social structures co-constitute the lived realities of death? Drawing on insights from medical anthropology, anthropology of religion, and anthropology of ethics, this course explores diverse perspectives on the “good death”. With a primary ethnographic focus on China, using an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, we will investigate: 1) the sociocultural constructions of death, 2) the processes of aging and dying, 3) the practices of end-of-life care, 4) debates about voluntary death, 5) how the living deal with the deceased, and 6) how people live with irrevocable losses. Prerequisite: GPS or sophomore standing (or not open to first semester students) Fulfillment: CORE SSPC/IPC; GCS Major Elective: Chinese History, Society, and Culture.