TTh 9:35-11:00
Michael R. Leming, Professor
Spring 1998
In the following pages four short projects are described. Each project will be awarded a maximum of 50 points. You are expected to complete two of these assignments. Each assignment should be 4-5 typewritten (double spaced) pages. The due dates for each project are indicated in the description -- take note: NO late projects will be accepted. I will grade your projects as quickly as possible. If you are unhappy with a grade you have the option to replace that score by doing another project, however no one can do more than three projects.
PROJECT 1: TELEVISED DEATH DUE: March 3
Among the ironies of the modern age is this: most of us have much less personal experience with death than did our grandparents, but most of us have seen more "deaths" than our grandparents. How is this possible? Television! The regular fare of TV includes murders, suicides, and stories of fatal illnesses -- some fictionalized in TV dramas, others covered in excruciating detail on the news. For most of us TV is where we learn about death. But what do we learn?
In order to explore the world of TV death watch three hours of television. But not just any three hours. Watch 1 hour of news, 1 hour of drama, and one hour of cartoons. Because there is not time enough to do a complete survey of television programming, you must choose shows where it is likely that a death will occur. This will be no problem on news shows, but you must be selective on dramas and cartoons (i.e. avoid the "Care Bears").
Begin by documenting the deaths shown: explain how they occurred, how they were portrayed, the reactions of those around, etc. Next, contrast the portrayal of death in each medium -- news, drama, cartoon and move on to compare these with other, and with what you are learning about death, and (if possible) with your personal experience of death. Note: You must give equal space to the three types of media -- eg. do not spend more time analyzing cartoons!
Conclude by doing a little social analysis of TV death. Which channels show more death (networks, independents, PBS)? What types of programs (popular with which social classes) deal with death? Does treatment of death vary with targeted audience? Is there a relationship between sponsor and treatment of death? Do sport shows capitalize on the theme of death? Etc.
PROJECT 2:CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION OF DEATH DUE: APRIL 23
This assignment is drawn from the application section following chapter 9 in Leming and Dickinson. We would like you to take advantage of the presence of many international students on the St. Olaf campus. Interview three students on campus from selected countries or subcultures different from your own regarding their death customs. To insure that you are gathering compatible information, you should probably construct an "interview schedule" (a list of questions) to follow in talking to these students. Inquire about their death customs and about their impressions and attitudes toward American death customs. Use the topics in chapter 9 as guides in your questioning, taking notes on their responses.
Begin your write up by describing the death customs you learned from your informants. Go on to analyze your data by looking for similarities and differences in death practices. Are these similarities and differences explained by location, religious background, political systems, economic systems? Do you find similarities in foreign views of American death practices? Are there any deep-seated similarities in the death practices of all people? Compare your findings with the findings presented in chapter 9.
PROJECT 3: THE CEMETERY AS A GUIDE TO THE SOCIAL ORDER DUE: May 5
In The Living and the Dead, Lloyd Warner says, "Just as cemeteries reflect in miniature the past life and historic eras through which the community has passed, so contemporary graveyards symbolically express the present social structure." Warner claims that the basic elements of social organization as well as conflicts within these elements, the status of age, sex class, and ethnic groupings, the associational life of the community, and the current status of the cemetery itself can all be "read" from the clues provided in the cemetery. Go to a cemetery. Take the point of view of an anthropologist, archeologist or private detective. Your primary clues to the adjacent community or larger social order are found in this place. READ the cemetery for these clues (take notes, do not depend on memory). Using this gathered information write as report on what you infer about the social structure, organization and values of the surrounding community. The assignment will be more enjoyable and useful if you pretend to be someone who knows NOTHING about the society that created the cemetery. Cast your report in tentative terms and realize that you will make a few mistakes.
PROJECT 4: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF LOSS DUE: May 14
Interview three persons about the details of the "feelings" relative to some loss they have experienced. You want to know especially how they felt at the time, although you may also be interested in changes in these feelings through time as well as current reflections on past feelings. PLEASE NOTE: The loss does not have to involve the death of a human. There are many sorts of experiences which will be defined as losses: death of a pet, breakup of a marriage dissolution of a love affair, breakup of a friendship through conflict or geographical separation, geographical separation from a beloved place, decline of beauty or strength or vitality through accident, illness, or aging, etc. INTERVIEW THESE PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT EVER THEY DEFINE AS A LOSS EXPERIENCE AND ARE WILLING TO TALK ABOUT, EVEN IF YOU WOULD NOT DEFINE THE EXPERIENCE AS INVOLVING LOSS.
Urge your informants to be as concrete as possible in their descriptions of how they felt. Do not, for example, be satisfied with such generalizations as, "I felt awful." Probe for the concrete details of what "feeling awful" was composed of. Explore also the various meanings of the lost object, person, place, whatever, had for them. LISTEN CAREFULLY. Take notes as they are speaking.
Using these materials and what you have gleaned thus far in the class write an essay on the loss experience. Try to collate your interviews to identify the generic experience of loss: What exactly is lost? What is the source of the pain of loss?
There are many avenues you might explore in this essay. Here are some suggestions. In light of your materials, consider whether it is justifiable to think of grief following the death of a well loved human as a phenomenon similar to grief experienced following the loss of a well loved home. Consider the experience of mass death and destruction in light of what you have learned from your informants about a single loss. Consider whether a scale could be constructed that would measure the intensity of a loss.
Go back to Sociology 248 -- Sociology of Dying, Death, and Bereavement
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