ANT352H1

Anthropology of Life and Death

What might it mean to think of death as inside of life, as opposed to at the end of it? This class examines Anthropological approaches to understanding life and death in our contemporary moment, one marked by widespread illness, war, policing, suicide, accident, and further loss. How do we go on living surrounded by death every day? Why are certain deaths valued above others? We will examine a range of related themes including funerary rituals, grief and mourning, violence and killing, illness and ageing, and ghosts and the afterlife.