Matters of Life and Death
greensheet

MUSE/Phil 29C, Sec 8 (Area C2)
Metropolitan University Scholar’s Experience (MUSE) Seminar
Professor Janet D. Stemwedel

Class Basics
Regular class meetings: MW 1200-1315 (DMH 347)
Course website: http://www.stemwedel.org/MUSE/Life_and_Death_class.html

How to Contact Your Professor
Office hours: Mondays 1:30-3:00 PM,
Thursdays 10:00 AM-12:00 noon,
and by appointment.
Office: FOB 232
Phone: (408) 924-4521
E-mail: jstemwed@email.sjsu.edu
Website: http://www.stemwedel.org/

Introduction to MUSE
University-level study is different from what you experienced in high school. The Metropolitan University Scholars’ Experience (MUSE) is designed to help make your transition into college a success by helping you to develop the skills and attitude needed for the intellectual engagement and challenge of in-depth university-level study. Discovery, research, critical thinking, written work, attention to the rich cultural diversity of the campus, and active discussion will be key parts of this MUSE course. Enrollment in MUSE courses is limited to a small number of students because these courses are intended to be highly interactive and allow you to easily interact with your professor and fellow students. MUSE courses explore topics and issues from an interdisciplinary focus to show how interesting and important ideas can be viewed from different perspectives.

Course Description
We all have to die sometime, but is that death good for us, bad for us, or nothing to us? How is death defined, and what influences its definition? What do our practices around dying and death — from the traditional to the cutting edge of medical technology — say about our attitudes toward death? And what implications does our mortality have for the meaningfulness of our lives?
This course will explore these questions by engaging with works in philosophy, history, anthropology, literature, and film. It will consider historical and cultural contexts ranging from ancient Rome to 19th century Europe, from the Amazonian rainforest to the Himalayan foothills, from medical ethics committees in the U.S. and Japan to the modern American funeral industry. This multidisciplinary approach to the question of what our mortality means to us will give you experience in using different kinds of texts to approach a question. Further, the course will help you develop the critical thinking skills necessary to help you decide how the recognition of your own mortality will influence your understanding of your own life.

Course Goals

• To examine the interaction of analytical and creative processes in the production and perception of significant works of the human intellect and imagination. [GE]
• To examine the significance of the historical and cultural contexts in which such works are created and interpreted. [GE]
• To prepare students to participate in social and cultural communities associated with artistic and literary endeavors to enrich their personal and professional lives. [GE]
• To establish a strong foundation for becoming a university level student and scholar. [MUSE]
• To become acclimated to both the intellectual and social activities of university life. [MUSE]
• To recognize the ways in which philosophical, historical, anthropological, and literary and artistic approaches can be brought together to shed light on a problem, a practice, or a text.
• To appreciate the different sorts of tools and conceptual frameworks utilized by these different disciplines.

Learning Objectives and Activities for this Course

This course qualifies as an Area C2 (Humanities & Arts – Letters) course in your General Education requirements. It is designed to enable you to achieve the following learning outcomes:

• To recognize how significant works illuminate enduring human concerns.
• To respond to such works by writing both research-based critical analyses and personal responses.
• To write clearly and effectively.
• To understand the learning process and your responsibility and role in it.
• To know what it means to be a member of a metropolitan university community.

The following content and activities will be incorporated into the course as you engage in the subject matter of the course:

• Issues of diversity.
• Writing assignments consisting of a minimum of 1500 words in a language and style appropriate to the subject area of this course.
• Active learning through class participation and discussions.
• Assignments and class activities involving critical thinking skills, information competency, critical writing and reading skills, and effective group interactions.
• Activities that provide an opportunity to experience significant works of the human intellect and imagination; understand the historical and cultural contexts in which such specific texts were created; and recognize the accomplishments of and issues related to women and diverse cultures reflected in such texts.

The big questions. In addition to helping you develop the skills you need to succeed as a college student, this course will ask you to grapple with questions of importance in your life. Discovering ways to think about “big questions”, sources of information that might shed light on these questions, and ways to develop your own answers to them will be valuable to you in life, not just in school. The central questions we will discuss this term are:

• Is my own death good for me, bad for me, or nothing to me?
• How do we define death, and what concerns shape that definition?
• What attitudes do the living have toward the dead and the dying, and what cultural influences shape these attitudes?
• How does recognizing that I will die someday affect how I understand my life and what gives it meaning?

Course Text and Materials
Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Margaret Edson, Wit
A Spartan Scholar from the Start
“Matters of Life and Death” Course Reader

Course Requirements
The learning process is not a matter of being a receptive container and having your instructor pour knowledge into your head. Rather, your learning in this course requires your active involvement (although I will work to facilitate your learning at every turn). It will require work. However, the payoff for you will be more that just a particular body of knowledge from course readings and lectures. You will leave this course with skills that you can use to help you in your other courses, and even in real life.

In order to develop these skills, you will do the following:

• Read the assigned readings before class. Some of this reading will be hard! Keep track of questions you have as you do the reading. After you have finished reading a selection, jot down the points that seem to be most important in that selection and the points that are most puzzling. Be ready to discuss the reading in class, even (especially!) if you think you might not understand it completely.
• Participate in class discussions. Work with the class to figure out what the readings mean, how they bear on questions of our mortality, and why these questions matter. Participation is not just a matter of reporting what the reading says, nor of simply voicing your own opinion. Rather, we will be examining all our assumptions. Participation will involve helping to identify assumptions made by the authors, your classmates, your instructor, and yourself. This requires good listening skills as well as good speaking skills! Participation includes in-class discussions (and possibly pop quizzes) and online discussions.
• Keep a reflective course log with your personal responses to the issues and questions raised in class. Periodically, I will distribute questions or statements to serve as a starting point for your written response. Four of these personal responses will be collected and graded on the dates listed on the syllabus, but you may select which entries you want to turn in.
• Write analytical essays. For three of the readings, you will write a brief (600 word) exploration of a key issue raised by the reading. The aim of this exploration will be to analyze the claims made by the author and discuss how these claims should – or should not – inform our understanding of our own mortality. At the second class meeting, you will sign up for the readings for which you will write your analytical essays.
• Write response essays. Twice during the semester, you will write a very brief (300 word) response to the analytic essay of a classmate. The aim of this essay is to raise alternatives or challenges to your peers’ interpretations of the texts, as well as to develop your sense of audience in your writing. At the fourth class meeting, you will sign up for the readings for which you will write your response essays.
• Perform library research on the death rituals of a particular culture, religious tradition, or historical period within a culture. You will learn to make use of online databases to locate relevant literature and to distinguish scholarly sources from popular sources. Your research will culminate in an oral presentation to the class and a brief written report.
• Utilize important campus resources. This will include meeting with the instructor and Peer Mentors outside of class, making use of an online discussion forum for the course, and attending various MUSE workshops and activities to acquaint yourself with the resources SJSU has to support your academic success and your general well-being. You will attend at least two MUSE events and at least one non-MUSE campus or community event and submit a brief (1 page) written report on each.
• Take a final exam. The final exam will give you an opportunity to reflect on connections between the various materials we discuss over the course of the semester, and to decide how information from a variety of disciplines and genres bears on questions that matter to us in real life.

Course Grade Breakdown

Analytical essays 15%
Response essays 10%
Research presentation 15%
Research report 15%
Course Log entries 10%
MUSE activities 5%
Participation 10% This may include pop quizzes!
Final exam 20%

Major Due Dates
There are no due dates listed in the syllabus for the analytic essays and response essays. Your due dates for these assignments will depend on which essays you sign up for.

Everyone's first analytic essay will come due between September 13 and October 4.
Everyone's second analytic essay will come due between October 11 and October 25.
Everyone's third analytic essay will come due between November 1 and December 6.

Everyone's first response essay will come due between September 20 and October 18.
Everyone's second response essay will come due between November 1 and December 6.

You are responsible for keeping track of your actual due dates!
Click here for Analytic Essay schedule.
Click here for Response Essay schedule.

Research Presentation (week of November 15)
Click here for presentation schedule.

Research Report: due Wednesday, November 17.

Course Log entries:
Course Log entry #1 due Friday, September 17.
Course Log entry #2 due Wednesday, September 29.
Course Log entry #3 due Wednesday, October 27.
Course Log entry #4 due Wednesday, November 10.

Reports on MUSE and non-MUSE events: all three must be handed in by December 6.

FINAL EXAM: Friday, December 17, 9:45 AM-12:00 noon.

Class Meetings, Assignments and Activities

CR indicates a reading from the Course Reader.

Week 1 (Aug 25)
Introduction to MUSE, SJSU, and an interdisciplinary examination of life and death.
To be discussed: Syllabus, course materials, MUSE objectives and activities. What makes a life meaningful?

Activity: Greensheet bingo

Skills & Information:

• How to find course readings.
• How to read a greensheet.
• Ingredients for a productive class discussion.

Week 2 (Aug. 30, Sept. 1)
A speck in the universe: Is human life meaningful or absurd?
To be discussed: What could give my life meaning? What could make my life absurd?

Activity: Class in the computer lab. (Mon. Aug 30 -- Meet in IS 134A at class time.)

In-class writing assignment (in the computer lab): Is death good for you, bad for you, or nothing to you? Explain your answer. (Mon. Aug 30)

Reading Assignment: Nagel, “The Absurd” (CR) (due by class time Wed. Sept. 1)

Skills & Information:

• How to use WebCT for online discussions and assignments.
• How to get an email account (and orientation to places on campus where you can log on).

Week 3 (Sept. 8)
My death: Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich and the horror of being mortal.
To be discussed: Does mortality make our lives meaningless? Can mortality save our lives from meaninglessness? How are philosophy and literature different?

Assignment: Take notes on the second half of The Death of Ivan Ilyich (turn in on Sept. 13)

Reading Assignment: Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, pp. 35-91. (due by class time Wed. Sept 8)

Skills & Information:

• How to read effectively.
• How to take notes effectively.

Week 4 (Sept. 13, 15)
A good death: what common folk know about dying (and living).
To be discussed: How is death a different experience for peasants than for the well-to-do? What could make the experience of death less terrible?

Activity: Library orientation. (Wed. Sept 15 -- Meet in King Library room 217 at class time. )

Assignments: Course Log entry #1 (due Sept. 17)

Reading Assignment: Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, pp. 92-end. (due by class time Mon. Sept 13)
Ariès, “Tamed Death”, pp. 7-14 (CR) (due by class time Mon.. Sept 13)

Skills & Information:

• How to navigate the resources at the Library.

Week 5 (Sept. 20, 22)
Death is nothing to me: Lucretius.
To be discussed: What is the atomist understanding of human body and soul? If death is the permanent end of my existence, do I have anything to fear? What’s the use of Lucretius’ argument if we don’t know whether death is the end of me?

Assignment: Visit instructor’s office hours (or make an appointment).

Reading Assignment: Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe, III.26-95, 135-176, 323-336, 418-475, 622-632, 795-1094. (CR) (due by class time Mon. Sept 20)

Skills & Information:

• How to reconstruct and evaluate an argument.
• How to navigate texts with marginal numbering.
• How to consult with instructor outside of class.

Week 6 (Sept. 27, 29)
Life is pain: Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy.
To be discussed: What is Schopenhauer’s understanding of human body and soul? What is human life like? How should we understand the will to live? What is essential to human beings? What defines me as an individual?

Assignment: Course Log entry #2 (due Sept. 29)

Activity: “Four categories” writing exercise

Reading Assignment: Schopenhauer, “On the Suffering of the World”, pp. 41-50 (CR).
“On the Vanity of Existence”, pp. 51-54 (CR) (due by class time Mon. Sept 27)

Schopenhauer, “On Affirmation and Denial of the Will to Live”, pp. 61-65 (CR).
“On the Indestructibility of Our Essential Being …”, pp. 66-76 (CR).
Kramer, “Tibetan Attitudes Toward Death”, pp. 70-79 (CR) (due by class time Wed. Sept 29)

Skills & Information:

• How to read philosophy.
• How to analyze philosophy.

Week 7 (Oct. 4,6)
Playing chess with Death: The quest for meaning in The Seventh Seal.
To be discussed: How do humans respond to the chaos of life? How do humans respond to the advances of Death? Does religious faith end the quest for meaning?

Viewing Assignment: The Seventh Seal (due Oct. 4)

Reading Assignment: Kübler-Ross, “On the Fear of Death”, pp. 15-23 (CR).
“Attitudes Toward Death and Dying”, pp. 25-49 (CR) (due by class time Wed. Oct. 6)

Activity: Find out about the Peer Mentor Center. (Oct. 6; class will meet in the usual place.)

Skills & Information:

• How to get help from Peer Mentors.
• How to “read” a film.

Week 8 (Oct. 11, 13)
Library research
To be discussed: Strategies for the research assignment. Possible topics.

Assignments: Formulate a question (or set of questions) you hope to answer in your research; develop a list of keywords for your literature search.
Complete the online SJSU Plagiarism Tutorial (http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/plagiarism/index.htm)

Activity: Library database tour. (Wed. Oct. 13 -- Meet in King Library room 217 at class time)

Skills & Information:

• How to formulate a research topic.
• How to formulate a good search strategy.
• How to use the library’s research tools.
• How to avoid plagiarism.

Week 9 (Oct. 18, 20)
The right way to grieve: modern Western attitudes and practices around death.
To be discussed: Is there an “American” attitude toward death? What evidence do we have for a culture’s attitudes? What historical developments explain our modern attitudes toward death? What cultural factors influence our modern practices around death?

Activity: Popular/scholarly comparison.

Reading Assignment: Mitford, “The American Way of Death”, pp. 14-19 (CR).
Mitford, “What the Public Wants”, pp. 123-137 (CR).
Ariès, "Forbidden Death", pp. 84-107 (CR).(due by class time Mon. Oct 18)

Skills & Information:

• How to tell popular from scholarly literature.

Week 10 (Oct. 25, 27)
Consuming grief: ritual mortuary cannibalism among the Wari’
To be discussed: How does a culture’s understanding of the body and the world affect what it views as the right way to deal with a corpse? What purposes do rituals serve for the mourners?

Assignment: Course Log entry #3 (due Oct. 27)

Reading Assignment: Conklin, “ ‘Thus are our bodies, thus was our custom’: mortuary cannibalism in an Amazonian society”, pp. 75-101 (CR). (due by class time Mon. Oct 25)

Skills & Information:

• How to read an ethnography.

Week 11 (Nov. 1, 3)
Defining death.
To be discussed: Is “brain death” really death? How does technology influence our definition of death? How does culture influence our definition of death?

Reading Assignment: Lock, “Displacing Suffering: The Reconstruction of Death in North America and Japan”, pp. 207-244 (CR).
Callahan, “Death and the Research Imperative”, pp. 654-656 (CR).
Greenberg, “As Good as Dead”, pp. 36-41 (CR). (due by class time Mon. Nov 1)

Skills & Information:

• How to develop a four-year plan.

Week 12 (Nov. 8, 10)
Living with mortality.
To be discussed: How does mortality fit into one’s self-image? What are the generational factors in attitudes toward death and dying? What sorts of attitudes can improve the experience of dying?

Assignment: Course Log entry #4 (due Nov. 10)

Reading Assignment: Callahan, “Living with the Mortal Self”, pp. 120-155 (CR).
Behar, “Death and Memory: From Santa María del Monte to Miami Beach”, pp. 34-89 (CR).
(due by class time Mon. Nov 10)

Skills & Information:

• How to get the most out of class discussions.

Week 13 (Nov. 15, 17)
Research presentations

Assignment: Prepare a one-page handout for your classmates.
Research report (due by class time Wed.Nov. 17)

Week 14 (Nov. 22, 24)
Modern medicine versus death: responding to terminal illness.
To be discussed: How does the doctor’s understanding of death differ from the patient’s understanding of death? What factors make for a better death? What factors make for a worse death?

Reading Assignment: Edson, Wit (due by class time Mon. Nov 22)

Week 15 (Nov. 29, Dec. 1)
Morbid fascination: life and death in Harold and Maude
To be discussed: How does age affect one’s outlook on life and death? What is the purpose of life? What is the importance of control in a meaningful life?

Viewing Assignment: Harold and Maude (due Nov. 29)

Reading Assignment: Heilbrun, “Preface”, pp. 1-10 (CR). “On Mortality”, pp. 205-215 (CR).
Grigoriadis, “A Death of One’s Own” (CR).(due by class time Wed. Dec 1)

Week 16 (Dec. 6, 8)
Taking stock
To be discussed: The meaning of death, the meaning of life.

Last day to turn in reports on MUSE and non-MUSE activities: Mon., Dec. 6.

Skills & Information:

• How to review readings and class notes effectively.
• How to assess a term’s worth of progress (and set goals for next term).
• How to survive finals.
• How to use a course to explore issues that matter to you.

FINAL EXAM: Friday, December 17, 9:45 AM - 12:00 noon