ANTH 540 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Death Organ, Martin Heidegger, Medicalization
22 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Sam Lecture
Petr pavlensky
oPerformance artist known for extreme performative social statements often involving
some form of self-mutilation
oFound not to me clinically mentally unstable
oCultural contexts that dictate what can be described as insanity
oBaseline of pain v pleasure
#MeToo movement, McGill reevaluation of consent policy
oImplicit loci of agency in (culturally variable) descriptions of sex
oCurrently McGill's policy on sexual relations between students and figures in positions of
academic power are free to happen as long as consent is given
This is pending revision
Students often feel profs have all the power, but often within circles of
professors the inverse is felt i.e. male professors are very wary of their female
students and work to be inviting without crossing any lines
Cognitive tendency to simplify outgroup characteristics
oAcross literature, domestic violence is fairly spread across both men & women as
perpetrators
oIs the metoo movement perpetuating the idea of women as "victims"?
Group Presentation: How to Die Well
Death as end of the body
Multiple species mourn the dead (i.e. social mammals & birds): associate loss of life with
inanimate body/its destruction
Humans differentiated by extreme self-awareness & capacity to generate complex symbolic
meaning
oTreatment of body across cultures varies
oAgency/sentience is projected/perceived without need of a body
End of self & death anxiety - generalizable definition of death
oFear of 'annihilation of being' seems to be universal: permanent absence of
consciousness/agency seems to be more general definition of death
oDeath anxiety formally refers to this fear
Caused by friction of several evolutionarily acquired cognitive tools
Distinct from threat fear: no definite object
Argued to extend to death of others
Timeline of conceptualization of death
oFirst humans (possibly all?) seems to be intuitive dualists
oFirst forms of cultural framing supposedly animist (attribution of soul to inanimate
objects)
oDurkheim & others: for pre-literate societies dreams initiated belief in afterlife
As societies developed written language & became more complex, death
framing became more codified, involved, prescriptive
oSome argue that 'death anxiety' itself was driver for more ordered & indoctrinated
systems of thought - gave symbolic control over uncertainty & chaos in the world (primers
of death anxiety
Beyond speculation of history of death anxiety, all we are sure of is that what death means to
humans is greatly culturally variable
oDistancing VS Surmounting Nursing Homes VS Human Sacrifice, Cannibalism
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Performance artist known for extreme performative social statements often involving some form of self-mutilation o o o. Cultural contexts that dictate what can be described as insanity. #metoo movement, mcgill reevaluation of consent policy o o. Implicit loci of agency in (culturally variable) descriptions of sex. Currently mcgill"s policy on sexual relations between students and figures in positions of academic power are free to happen as long as consent is given. Students often feel profs have all the power, but often within circles of professors the inverse is felt i. e. male professors are very wary of their female students and work to be inviting without crossing any lines. Cognitive tendency to simplify outgroup characteristics: across literature, domestic violence is fairly spread across both men & women as perpetrators. Is the metoo movement perpetuating the idea of women as victims? o. Multiple species mourn the dead (i. e. social mammals & birds): associate loss of life with inanimate body/its destruction.
