course-details-portlet

SANT2029 - Anthropology of death and dying

About

New from the academic year 2024/2025

Examination arrangement

Examination arrangement: Home examination
Grade: Letter grades

Evaluation Weighting Duration Grade deviation Examination aids
Home examination 100/100 3 days

Course content

Death is a universal human condition and as such, it has garnered large amounts of philosophical and theological reflection. Death is sometimes called "the great equalizer", as human differences become irrelevant faced with mortality. From an anthropological standpoint however, we know that this is not the case. On the contrary, human mortality demands interpretation and all known cultures have rituals, prescriptions and prohibitions in connection with the end of life. At the same time, as researchers have pointed out, how we approach death may not primarily be about dying itself. Rather, it concerns the maintenance of the collective and cosmology, purity and impurity (danger), ideas of what a good or righteous life looks like, the relationship between individual and community, and the values that a given culture hold dear. This makes death a particularly interesting topic for the humanities and social sciences. In this course, we use an anthropological perspective and ethnographic research to investigate selected topics surrounding death and dying. Examples may be medicalized dying and assisted dying, representations of death in popular culture, burial rituals and dying in the context of migration.

Learning outcome

After completing this course, you are expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes, defined as knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

  • Knowledge of some central topics in anthropological research on death and dying.
  • The ability to view these in a larger disciplinary perspective.
  • Knowledge of concrete ethnographic examples of how death and dying are culturally shaped and understood.

Skills

  • are able to relate critically to academic texts in a constructive manner.
  • have acquired the ability to identify, analyse and interpret different practices and/or representations of death and dying.
  • are able to explain, discuss and correctly reference information and academic materials.
  • have acquired training in academic writing.

General competence

  • are able to relate critically to and to question taken for granted practices and assumptions.
  • have an understanding that there are many ways of being in the world.
  • are able to communicate academic materials such as theories, empirical examples and/or problems both in writing and verbally.

Learning methods and activities

Lectures, seminars and a compulsory assignment. Learning activities and compulsory assignments might start before the semester registration deadline. The course is taught in Norwegian, but some lectures might be in english.

Compulsory assignments

  • Essay

Further on evaluation

A three-day home exam. The essay should be between 1500-2000 words.

It is possible to retake the exam. The exam is offered both semesters.

This requires that the compulsory assignment has been approved. Submission and approval of the compulsory assignment can only be done in the semesters in which the course is taught.

The compulsory assignment in this course is an individual essay to be written over the course of three days. This format is a preparation for the home exam. Students will receive individual feedback.

More information will be available on Blackboard at the start of the semester. The compulsory assignment must be approved in order to take the exam.

Required previous knowledge

Ingen

Course materials

The syllabus will be made available on Blackboard at the beginning of the teaching semester.

More on the course

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Facts

Version: 1
Credits:  7.5 SP
Study level: Intermediate course, level II

Coursework

Term no.: 1
Teaching semester:  AUTUMN 2024

Language of instruction: Norwegian

Location: Trondheim

Subject area(s)
  • Social Anthropology
Contact information
Course coordinator:

Department with academic responsibility
Department of Social Anthropology

Timetable

List view
Calendar view

Examination

Examination arrangement: Home examination

Term Status code Evaluation Weighting Examination aids Date Time Examination system Room *
Autumn ORD Home examination 100/100 INSPERA
Room Building Number of candidates
Spring ORD Home examination 100/100 INSPERA
Room Building Number of candidates
  • * The location (room) for a written examination is published 3 days before examination date. If more than one room is listed, you will find your room at Studentweb.
Examination

For more information regarding registration for examination and examination procedures, see "Innsida - Exams"

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