Death

Upon successful completion of this unit, it is expected that students will be able to:

Undergraduate

1. Identify and analyse a variety of ways that the Western and Christian theological traditions have thought about death.
2. Critically evaluate such understandings in light of and in conversation with other resources employed by Christian theology.
3. Articulate a coherent theological response to the question ‘What is death?’

Postgraduate

1. Identify and analyse a variety of ways that the Western tradition and Christian theological traditions have thought about death.
2. Critically evaluate such understandings in light of and in conversation with other resources employed by Christian theology.
3. Articulate a coherent theological response to the question ‘What is death?’
4. Identify, critique, and develop responses to questions surrounding death raised in contemporary culture.

Undergraduate

• Document study (1,000 words) (25%)
• Annotated bibliography (1,000 words) (25%)
• Essay (3,000 words) (50%)

Postgraduate

• Document study (1,000 words) (25%)
• Annotated bibliography (1,500 words) (25%)
• Essay (4,500 words) (50%)

Set texts recommended for purchase are highlighted in blue

• Allison Jr., Dale C. Night Comes: Death, Imagination, and the Last Things. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2016.
• Anderson, Ray S. Theology, Death and Dying. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
• Billings, J. Todd. The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2020.
• Bradley, Ben, Fred Feldman, and Jens Johansson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1962.
• Jüngel, Eberhard. Death: The Riddle and the Mystery. Translated by Iain Nicol and Ute Nicol. Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1975.
• Kalantzis, George, and Matthew Levering, eds. Christian Dying: Witnesses from the Tradition. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018.
• May, Todd. Death. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.
• Novello, Henry L. Death as Transformation: A Contemporary Theology of Death. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.
• Rose, Gillian. Love’s Work. London: Chatto & Windus, 1995.
• Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. On the Shortness of Life. Translated by Charles D. N. Costa. New York: Penguin Books, 2005.
• Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.