Health, Healing, Death & Dying: Technol.of Inspiration & Expiration

Instructor: Jennifer S. Leath

E-mail: jleath@iliff.edu

Consultation is by appointment only.

This class engages resources addressing the physical, spiritual, emotional, and social health of diverse communities from a variety of perspectives with an emphasis on African and Afro-Diasporic sources. Through this course, students will encounter a variety of perspectives on the nature, morality, justices, and injustices of health, healing, death and dying.  Alternative healing technologies emphasized in this course include diverse forms of advocacy and social protest against medical neglect, abuse, and discrimination in Western medicine – as well as proactive deployments of spirituality and faith.

This course also takes a close look at the nature of dying and death as these function in relationship to one another and in relationship to the life as it relates to health and healing.  Students will also critically engage the ways that health, healing, death, and dying function differently among different communities – and the social and experiential factors that mediate such differences.  Through interdisciplinary materials, this course invites students to consider how to pursue health, healing, death, and dying with respect to themselves, their communities, and social policies with reason and clarity about justice with respect to human existence.  Check out the syllabus here: HHDD.Syllabus Draft (2019).pdf

Course Overview

Course Objectives

Degree Learning Goals: Please take some time to look over the Professional Degree Learning Goals (MDiv, MASC, MAPSC) and the Academic Degree Learning Goals (MTS, MA).

Incompletes:  If incompletes are allowed in this course, see the Master's Student Handbook for Policies and Procedures.

Pass/Fail:  Masters students wishing to take the class pass/fail should discuss this with the instructor by the second class session.

Academic Integrity and Community Covenant:  All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook, or the Joint PhD Statement on Academic Honesty, as published in the Joint PhD Student Handbook, as appropriate.  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Community Covenant.

Core Values: As a community, Iliff strives to live by this set of Core Values.

Accommodations:  Iliff engages in a collaborative effort with students with disabilities to reasonably accommodate student needs.   Students are encouraged to contact their assigned advisor to initiate the process of requesting accommodations.  The advising center can be contacted at advising@iliff.edu or by phone at 303-765-1146. 

Writing Lab:  Grammar and organization are important for all written assignments.  Additional help is available from the Iliff Writing Lab, which is available for students of any level who need help beginning an assignment, organizing thoughts, or reviewing a final draft. 

Inclusive Language:  It is expected that all course participants will use inclusive language in speaking and writing, and will use terms that do not create barriers to classroom community.