No One Lives Forever: Death, Dying, and Grief in the Modern Era

Catalog description

This course will help students learn about the ways we interact with illness and death. Students will explore how serious health crises impact individuals and families. The exploration continues through end-of-life decision-making and death. This course examines funeral practices locally in New Orleans and then shifts to global practices demonstrating different perceptions of death and familial/community connections with deceased. The course examines special topics such as suicide, euthanasia, physician-assisted death, and violent death through the lens of individuals and families and then in the broader context of communities and policy. Students will be asked to reflect on their own values and beliefs about end-of-life decisions and life after death beliefs.