This course explores selected religious rituals and practices associated with death and mourning, with particular attention to the human body as a locus of sacrality and dread, honor and desecration, redemption and contamination, and the repository of individual and collective memory. Utilizing scholarly inquiry, textual analysis, and experiential learning/reflection, we will consider historical as well as contemporary responses to death in different socio-cultural contexts and religious traditions (Judaism; Hinduism; Christianity; the Black church/community); thus, issues of race, class, and gender will be woven throughout our discussions. This course counts toward the Gender Studies minor. After the first week of the semester, permission of the instructor will be required in order to register for this course.