Published: Saturday, October 30, 2010, 6 H 45
Homework for the class of Professor Ian Brown at the University of Alabama could simply give some students the miracle.Brown teaches a class on tombstones and cemeteries, leader of the students studying outside the cemeteries of Tuscaloosa County to forage for their research projects. This looks like a gimmick to Halloween, but Brown, an archaeologist said examines the ways people bury their dead can reveal much about the culture and how it changes.
"There is much of the information contained in stone", he said. ""It's artifacts and they are full of information".A recent sunny afternoon class Brown has been studied in a crowded cemetery cemetery beside the main road in the town of student Cottondale.Les examined a range of markers, concrete with glass from of a rustic stained in a conspiracy with the bodies of seven babies rather than formal stones delicate fraternal images and symbols carved.
"What do you think that you are seeing here?Brown asked that perplexed students on the genesis of the cemetery in the garden of the 1834 Ruhama Baptist Church.Finally a ventured a devinée: is a Métis, rare in Alabama cemetery with graves of blacks and whites.
Brown has confirmed the hypothesis, but notes that easily recognizable in their full long markers of concrete - black - tombs seemed old and were at one end of the cemetery, whereas white serious, some of them trimmed with photographs and military honours were to another.
Brown, who is also President of the International Association studies of the Tomb, teaches the class on all two ans.Il also leads his own long term study, called "the marking serious project," which is followed by all 250 estimated in Tuscaloosa County cemeteries.
Each of its students, graduate and undergraduate students choose a research topic to work on the length of the cours.Les topics covered are the appearance of the lambs on the headstones - they have often on the graves of babies - where are located the members of the family in relation to each other.
Crystal Broussard, a graduate student in social work, working on a project on how the epitaphs reflect different representations of the mort.Comme employee hospice studied ways of handling of death and dying, she said that the class of gravestone studies gave him a new perspective.
Grief of family members, she said: "" have a vacuum in their lives, but at least they can fill a space with beautiful reflections of the person, they are missing. ""
Said Brown is one of the points is trying to convey.
"Cemeteries are for the living," he said. "This is what I always tell my students - cemeteries are not the dead .c ' is what people are doing with the cemetery that is interesting.
But that doesn't stop some students to tremble when they learn the class.
"My sorority sisters are out fear," said Rebecca Smith, a second. "Once you explain they are like "I guess it's kind of cool - but it is monstrous".?
Join the conversation by clicking comment or by email at Wolfson to hwolfson@bhamnews.com
This entry transmitted via the service for full-text RSS - if this is your content and you read on someone to another site, please read our FAQ page fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Article five filters features: After Hiroshima - non-rapport Cancer Catastrophe of Fallujah.
No comments:
Post a Comment