October 17, 2001
Sp13
Contact: Sarah Maxwell
Director of Media Relations
507.646.4183
Written by Jill Hopson ’03
Death And Bereavement Expert Teaches Timely Class At Carleton College
Students learn the sociology of grief as they cope with a national tragedy
Northfield, Minn.— Unlike most college professors, sociologist Michael Leming hardly had to break from his lesson plan to talk about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with shocked students in his "Death, Dying and Bereavement" class. Because issues raised by the tragedy are related to course material and his expertise, providing a forum for discussion of the attacks has been more than a service to his students. The grief caused by images of falling buildings, the national response to the violence and the long-term repercussions of one morning of terror fit right into Leming’s regular course material.
The 13 students in his class have been able to look at the events from an academic point of view because none of them lost loved ones on Sept. 11. "My students weren’t dealing with immediate, personal grief, but the kind of grief that everyone’s dealing with," Leming said.
Josh Aaronson, a senior sociology and anthropology major from Toronto, Canada, said the discussion in Leming’s class the day after the attacks put the events in perspective. "It was nice because everyone was in turmoil and he sort of eased the tension. We talked about heroism, what the victims died for and kind of memorialized people we didn’t know," Aaronson said.
In the weeks since the tragedy, Leming has continued to facilitate class discussion by demystifying death, Aaronson said. "Because he deals with death so much, he’s very comfortable talking about it in passing. It’s a taboo subject in our society, and he makes it more approachable."
Leming, a visiting professor at Carleton, has taught classes on death and dying for over 25 years, but he has never had the course material be so relevant to every student. With his students, he has addressed the way in which Americans will recover and how the nation is restoring order.
"One student pointed out that the meaning of the attacks is socially constructed, that Americans have called the events ‘meaningless,’ but they were really very meaningful to the perpetrators," he said.
But as Americans abate the significance of the terrorists’ message, he said, they attach new importance to the deaths of the victims. The dead are now considered heroes, he said. "People are saying that victims lost their lives for a cause, that airlines will be safer and terrorism will be stopped at our borders…We want to say that our lives aren’t meaningless and they didn’t die for nothing. We all try to assign meaning for those evils in our lives we find most humbling." he said.
Attaching importance to the victim’s deaths is one way for Americans to cope with fear. People don’t want to think about the fact that death is eminent for everyone, Leming said.
"The truth is, when you fly in an airplane, inside there are peanuts, 7-Up and security. But four inches away, outside the window, is death and destruction," he said.
The aftermath of the tragedies is part of a longstanding tradition of humans coping with disaster, he said. It’s no different than an earthquake that kills three times as many people somewhere else, but it’s worse for Americans who become vulnerable when our country is attacked, he said. "We’re not as safe as we were three weeks ago. At some level we’re now vulnerable where we weren’t before and Americans are trying not to be vulnerable," Leming said.
Searching for solace in a more dangerous world, people have joined together as they recover from the tragedy, creating what Leming calls a "civil religion" from the destruction.
Phrases that have become popular since the attacks, including "enduring freedom" and "unity" are all part of the language of generic religion, he said.
Aaronson said he is more aware of the emergence of a civil religion since the attacks because of what he’s learned in Leming’s class. "From a sociological perspective, we talk about the function this tragedy serves in our society. Mostly, it has promoted unity. Every cloud has a silver lining, and this was by no means a good thing, but it has brought people together," he said.
Leming said he believes that it would be helpful if the rediscovery of civil religion will culminate in a national day of mourning. A permanent sculpture could also be built to honor the people who lost their lives on Sept. 11, he said. "We need to have symbols of regeneration and resurrection," he said.
To contact Michael Leming at his Carleton College office, call 507.646.7164.
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