units

APG5340

Faculty of Arts

18 September 2017 19 April 2024
Monash University

Postgraduate - Unit

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

print version

12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

LevelPostgraduate
FacultyFaculty of Arts
Organisational UnitCentre for Studies In Religion and Theology
OfferedNot offered in 2014
Coordinator(s)Dr Tamara Prosic

Notes

Previously coded RLM5140

Synopsis

The unit explores the ways in which different cultures confront the experience of death through metaphor, ritual, and symbolic association, and the ways in which they memorialize the dead. It considers the nature of beliefs about life, death and the hereafter; funerary rituals and strategies for body disposal; the physical and symbolic boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead; the perceived impact of the dead on the affairs of the living; the dying process as a public or private event; taboos about dying and death in everyday discourse and the language used regarding death; death in myths. Examples will be drawn from major religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism), ancient Mediterranean cultures, and modern secular societies, including contemporary Australia.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit students will:

  1. Gain familiarity and be conversant with the main conceptions and ritualisation of death and symbolic themes in a range of different cultures and societies
  2. Reflect critically on the influence particular death ethos has on the conduct of the living
  3. Understand the nature and the social function of death related practices
  4. Develop a capacity to understand, analyse and contextualise the symbolic language of death
  5. Research and complete a research essay that considers the process of memory and ceremony in relation to the dead, within a specific cultural situation
  6. Pursue original independent research relating to the process of memory and ceremony in relation to the dead, relating it to broader theoretical reflection on the symbolism of death, and its relationship to a broader cultural context.

Assessment

Written work: 80% (7000 words)
Tutorial presentation: 20% (2000 words)

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Tamara Prosic

Prohibitions

ATS4340, APG4340