Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: HNSC 3314 Human Encounters with Death and Bereavement: Session 4: Death-Related Practices & the US Death System

Readings & Videos

Weekly Content

Weekly lecture video
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2019): "Death Investigations" (22 mins video)
Fresh Air audio (2014) "A Mortician Talks Openly About Death, And Wants You To, Too" (31:49)
This American Life audio (1997) "Business of Death" (60 mins)
Atul Gawande article (2014) "What doctors don’t learn about death and dying"
BJ Miller video (2015) "What really matters at the end of life" (19:08)
[OPTIONAL] Boom Cymru video (2018) “The Curious Era of Death Photography” (4:29)

Citation: LastWeekTonight (May 20, 2019) Death Investigations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (22:20) https://youtu.be/hnoMsftQPY8?si=u-z10GrR6Ss4y2C_

Citation: Terry Cross (October 8, 2014) A Mortician Talks Openly About Death, And Wants You To, Too. (31:00) Fresh Air NPR https://www.npr.org/2014/10/08/352765943/a-mortician-talks-openly-about-death-and-wants-you-to-too

Business of Death (PodCast)
Glass, Ira. (April 18, 1997) Business of Death (57:00) (audio/PodCast) This American Life https://www.thisamericanlife.org/60/business-of-death
Usually we talk about death as a tragedy, a mystery, a hard-to-comprehend fact of life. But in addition to all that, for all sorts of people it's also ... a job. This week, stories of undertakers, homicide detectives, slaughterhouse workers, enunculators, autopsy pathologists, exterminators, and others. Does their contact with death teach them something we should learn?
What doctors don’t learn about death and dying
Gawande, Atul. (Oct 31, 2014) What doctors don’t learn about death and dying. IDEAS.TED.COM https://ideas.ted.com/death-and-the-missing-piece-of-medical-school/

Citation: Miller. BJ. (March 2015) What really matters at the end of life. TED2015 https://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_the_end_of_life

OPTIONAL VIDEO

The curious era of death photography
Boom Cymru (11 May 2018) The curious era of death photography. (4:29) https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/the-curious-era-of-death-photography/p066vrf0?playlist=dying-thoughts

Activities Due

Longer Slack post (Sun)
Two Slack replies (Wed)
Session #4 Quiz on Blackboard (Wed)