Goucher College 2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalogue 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
Goucher College 2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalogue PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived catalog. Programs are subject to change each academic year.

SOA 482 - Seminar: Life and Death (4 Cr.)


How do cultures around the world explain and cope with death? How do beliefs about mating, reproduction, and child rearing compare from one cultural context to another? What kinds of cultural rituals do the events of birth and death involve? This course takes an anthropological perspective to the beginnings and ends of human life, with a focus on reproduction, birth, childhood, and death. We will draw from a wide range of studies in anthropological subfields, such as medical anthropology, the anthropology of religion, archaeology, and forensic anthropology, to try and understand how these major periods of the human life course, and just beyond it, are conceptualized and experienced, both in historical and contemporary cultures. Some of the topics we will consider are: reproductive technologies, birthing, child rearing, mortuary ceremonies, body farms, and zombification and vampirism. Prerequisites: Junior standing and one of the following courses: SOA 200 , SOA 201 , or SOA 217 . Fall semester. Offered 2021-2022 and alternate years. Schwarz.