We deny the fact of death by trying to forget about it. “The natural processes of corruption and decay have become as disgusting as the natural processes of birth and copulation were a century ago,” argues Geoffrey Gorer. In those moments when we actually contemplate it, death generally invokes dread. A number of industries cater to our fears, and an increasing number of people die away from home. The elderly are housed in places apart, and strangers prepare the bodies of dead for us. For us, death remains—and must remain—something hidden.

This class reads death against the grain: By studying the ways people in other societies navigate the end of life, we will see that there is a variety of possible responses to human frailty and finitude. Students will learn about the diverse ways human beings respond to their finitude, mourn their dead, and imagine the afterlife. Examples of topics that we will cover include: mortuary rituals and funerary behavior, the cultural construction of death, the effects of death on the social fabric, morning and bereavement, hospice and end-of-life issues, and medical and ethical issues relating to death. Throughout the course, students will examine the variety of social and cultural responses to the biological fact of death. We will see that death is an integral part of human life while appreciating the tremendous diversity of cultural attitudes toward death.

There are two required books for this course: Erik Mueggler’s The Age of Wild Ghosts and Beth Conklin’s Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society, which will be in the University bookstore. All other required readings will be posted on the course site as Adobe PDF files. Some of the files are large, so it is recommended that you use a high bandwidth connection to retrieve them. The readings are listed on the course schedule below and must be completed prior to the assigned due date (the Monday of the week for which they are assigned).

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Highlights

• Spend your Maymester in Indonesia studying the incredible cultural diversity of a country that consists of more than 16,000 islands!
   
• Learn from the Mentawai people in Sumatra and about Hindu-Buddhism and religious politics in Bali.
   
• Marvel at vibrant and global urban centers in a predominantly Muslim country.
   
• This program is great for students in anthropology, the social sciences, humanities, and CMCI, or anyone with an interest in culture, religion, and politics in Asia.
   
• Check out the CAS Indonesia Global Seminar blog series!

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Highlights

• Visit archaeological sites including the ancient mountaintop city of Monte Albán, the tombs of Mitla, the hilltop fortress at Yagul, and the Queen’s palace of Teposcolula.
   
• Experience an ongoing archaeological field project and get to see the excavations of a 1200-year old city and hear about the research from the archaeological team.
   
• Learn about the pre-Columbian history of Mexico including the origins of agriculture, early village life, hieroglyphic writing and sacred history, the rise and fall of cities, and Lord 8 Deer, Jaguar Claw.
   
• Travel throughout the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca from highland valleys to the tropical Pacific coast and experience the languages, cuisine, art, and culture of Oaxaca’s indigenous peoples.   
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• The Rio Verde Project directed by Professor Joyce: 

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In this class, we study disasters from a broad anthropological perspective questions the false dichotomy between nature and society, and has put front and center the role of human agency in the creation of disasters. This perspective argues that disasters occur within the context of archaeologically/historically created patterns of vulnerability.

Professor Geraldo Gutiérrez

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See the for specifics, recommendations, and prerequisites.

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Where did human beings come from?

How did we come to inhabit the world?

Why don’t we eat wild foods anymore?

How did complex urban societies rise and fall?

All this and more…..

Professor Douglas Bamforth

See the for specifics, recommendations, and prerequisites.

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Archaeozoology will give students practical and analytical skills in the identification and analysis of animal bones from archaeological sites. Students in the course will engage with current methodological and theoretical issues in the discipline, and develop a basic familiarity with the vertebrate skeleton using museum specimens, reference collections, and archaeological material. Participants will cultivate the ability to understand human behavior and human-environmental relationships through skeletal remains of ancient animals – including basic taphonomy, quantitative analysis/data visualization, and animal paleopathology. Students will also learn best practices for the curation of faunal remains, and engage with new research direction and trends in archaeozoology, including 3D scanning and biomolecular techniques (isotopes, ancient DNA, and Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry). Each student will develop an original research project that complements their existing academic goals. Those interested in the course can email william.taylor@colorado.edu for more information. Space is limited. Museum & Field Studies (MFS) students should contact the Graduate Program Coordinator, Janet Bensko, at janet.bensko@colorado.edu to enroll.  

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