Sociology 161 Intro to Cultural Anthropology

Sociology 161 Intro to Cultural Anthropology

Reading response about obituaries

For your Blackboard post due on Tuesday October 31st, please read the assigned article by Bytheway & Johnson and use it to analyze three obituaries of people who died in 2017. Two of the three obits should be of people previously unfamiliar to you.

In your reading response, please discuss:

1. What are the important characteristics these people had that made them worthy of getting an obituary?

2. What sequence of events and roles over the life course do these obituaries suggest is normal and appropriate for a person of distinction to follow?

3. How closely do these obituaries fit into the categories Bytheway and Johnson discuss in table 2 on page 223? What does this comparison tell us about which occupations we publicly value and why?