Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Encountering mortality: A decade later, the pedagogical necessity of Six Feet Under

2016; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/15505170.2016.1220876

2156-8154

Brad Petitfils,

Race, History, and American Society

In today's society, where the Promethean project of mastering the universe seems to guide the scientific community to its last moment of triumph—human immortality—young people seem to lack curricular opportunities to engage with mortality. This is not surprising, as the legacy of psychology, as far back as the times of Freud and Jung, exposes a complicated history of the pathology of grief. Sociologically, the phenomenon of death denial leaves a critical void in our undergraduate classrooms, and there is not much curricular opportunity to have these conversations with our students. This article explores the use of popular culture as pedagogy through the lens of the HBO series Six Feet Under to facilitate discourse about living with dying around us.