Psych/History: Magic Mountain
The Lives of Death in Modern Europe, 1880-Present
Available spots
Course Details
Preferred majors for this course: Psychology, History, English, Art, Political Science, International Relations It isn't a story spoiler to note that mortality is a fixed fact of the human experience. We all die. The curious thing about the absolute truth of our mortality is how little work we put into processing what death means to our lives as individuals or as a community. This course will change that as it also changes you. Our goals will be ambitious and exacting. As we chase the many lives of modern death in Europe from the late 19th century through the Holocaust and Stalin's gulags and beyond, we will use Social Psychology, History, Literature and Art as our daily tools. Be prepared for the journey of a lifetime. We will teach in front of an infamous plaster-cast death mask in Vienna, on a day when we will also meet the ghost of Sigmund Freud in the museum where he founded psychoanalysis. Similarly, we will visit the museum of Judaism on a day when we explore the positive psychology of Viktor Frankl--a Jewish Psychologist who was himself deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis--in his former home and clinic. From overarching questions about loss, bereavement and cultural ways that lives have been celebrated after death, we will explore: 1) Famous last words and what the dying have done across time to shape their own legacy 2) How poetry, art, cemeteries and rituals have shaped understandings of death and loss 3) How/Why Europeans have a view of death and remembrance that is not like our own 4) How have Europeans and others looked at "near-death" experiences? 5) What are European ideas now about medically assisted suicide? 6) What is the "death with dignity" movement and how are European leading it? 7) How can interrogating our own ways of seeing death help us to live better lives? The German writer Thomas Mann wrote about death as its own "magic mountain." In this class, we will climb that mountain and lose our fear along the way of what the summit might show. 3 Credits. Dr. Magdalena Leszko and Dr. Doug Mackaman.


















Contact Details
651-341-1806
dougmackaman@gmail.com
416 Laurel Avenue Saint Paul, MN 55102