HIST 354 - History and the Politics of Grief

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as GNCS 354) How is the recognition of grief linked with modern ideals of rights and citizenship? In this intensive, students examine the mourning rituals—funerals, cemeteries, dress, postmortem photographs, relics, and jewelry—that proliferated and took on new meanings in nineteenth-century Britain, marking new ways of embodying and visualizing grief. Along with literary and personal expressions of loss, we explore how public commemorations of the dead gained political value in movements and moments such as factory regulation, abolition of slavery, urban reform, child welfare, and the First World War. We begin the semester with discussion of common readings and analysis of material objects from Vassar’s Loeb Art Center. Students then undertake supervised work on independent research projects (which may explore connections between the long nineteenth-century and present-day mourning practices), peer reviews, and presentations. Lydia Murdoch.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: INT