(Please note that the draft agenda below specifies topics and approximate dates that will undoubtedly change given individual scholars’ availability and unique approaches to the project’s overall theme.)
Breaking the Silence #1 (Sept. 2018)
“What the History of Death and Dying Teaches Us about Life and Living”
Dr. Brandy Schillace
(Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum, Case Western Reserve University)
Research Associate and Public Engagement Fellow Dr. Schillace looks at how cultures around the world approach death, today and historically. Hardly a century ago, for example, Victorians mourned their dead in a way very differently than we do today. What happened to individuals’ experience of death when life-extending medical technology replaced hair jewelry and memento mori?
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Breaking the Silence #2 (Sept. 2018)
“Great Deeds! With the Dead!: On the Use and Abuse of Corpses for Life”
Dr. David Clark
(Professor of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University)
How have artists and citizens represented the dying body and mutilated corpse from the Napoleonic Wars to the desaparecidos (disappeared) of Argentina to AIDS activism? Dr. Clark introduces us to a humanities-centered approach to reading the visual language of human remains.
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Breaking the Silence #3 (Oct. 2018)
“The Living Dead: Fiction, Horror, and Bioethics”
Dr. Catherine Belling
(Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics,
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine)
The night before Dr. Belling's talk, don't miss a free screening of George Romero’s film Night of the Living Dead!
Zombies dominate the popular imagination, but why is there so little talk about “real” death in American culture? Why keep imagining the living dead? “They won’t stay dead,” but have you ever thought about why we might not want them to die?
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Breaking the Silence #4 (Nov. 2018)
“Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering”
Dr. Scott Samuelson
How does a philosopher see suffering? Why do we suffer anyway? What do philosophers have to say about this? And how do we cope with pointless suffering that leads to death?
Breaking the Silence #5 (Dec. 2018)
“Starting the Conversation: My Personal Journey”
Randi Belisomo
(Reporter and Multi-Media Journalist, WGN-TV, Chicago, and
Founder of Life Matters Media)
Breaking the Silence #6 (Dec. 2018)
Hands-On Workshop: How to Complete an Advance Directive
After a short dinner reception, a team of volunteers from Northwestern Memorial Hospital—Jane Light (journalist), Ellen Elpern (Advanced Practice Nurse), and Mandy Browning (Project Coordinator in Medical Humanities and Bioethics)—will set up consultation tables to help audience members discuss and, if desired, fill out advance directives with witnesses. They will also provide information on creating video and mobile advance directives.Breaking the Silence #7 (Jan. 2019)
Dr. David Glassman
(President, Eastern Illinois University)
Leading forensic anthropologist Dr. David Glassman recounts his time working at the Body Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee. Why study the decomposition of bodies in every place and over all manner of time as possible? Could the close scrutiny of dead bodies produce more than just scientific knowledge for CSI professionals? Could it lead to telling reflections on human psychology as well as a uniquely philosophical view of living and dying?
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Breaking the Silence #8 (Feb. 2019)
Medical ethics expert Dr. Craig Klugman urges everyone—young and not so young—to think about the importance of advance care planning. After screening his award-winning short film, Dr. Klugman will hold an open question and answer session. Why do so many Americans act as though death will never “happen” to them? And why do we assume that planning for death is the exclusive concern of the aged? What do younger folks need to consider in communicating their last wishes?
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Breaking the Silence #9 (March 2019)
“Having the Final Conversation”
Dr. Maureen Keeley
(Professor of Communication Studies, Texas State University)
Award-winning author of Final Conversations: Helping the Living and the Dying Talk to Each Other, Dr. Maureen Keeley helps us find ways of talking about death in the most important situations we’ll ever encounter. How do we talk about death with those we love and with those we are losing? What can we do to remedy our tendency to avoid talking honestly and directly about death?
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How did people in the age of Shakespeare mourn for and bury their dead? What did writers have to say about death in poetry, stories, and plays? What does this tell us about attitudes towards dying in an earlier era, and how does this compare to our contemporary acts of remembering and taking care of our dead?
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Breaking the Silence #11 (April 2019)
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall
Edgar Barens
(Media Specialist and Documentary Filmmaker, University of Illinois, Chicago)
Academy Award nominee Edgar Barens gives us a never-before-seen picture of palliative care behind the walls of a maximum-security prison (Iowa State Penitentiary). What happens when prisoners provide hospice care? What can we learn from the wishes of a man dying in prison? The filmmaker will answer questions about the six months he took shooting footage behind prison walls.
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Breaking the Silence #12 (April 2019)
Dr. John Hoberman
(Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Texas, Austin)
Why are racial minorities (African Americans in particular) far less likely to complete advance directives or to choose palliative care? What role does the doctor’s thinking about race play in these extremely important life decisions? How do stubborn myths about racial differences still operate—and cause harm—in the care of black patients? And what can medical communities do to deliver more culturally sensitive care that is beneficial and humane to all communities?
Doudna Fine Arts Center 1343
(217) 581-3968
humanitiescenter@eiu.edu
