Section Description

This course will explore some of the ways in which American cemeteries are studied by historians who recognize them as a major feature of the American landscape. We will consider cemeteries as a historical document reflecting past and present cultural beliefs, and cultural change. This course has a practical field component that involves working in a neighborhood cemetery putting the historical methods learned in the course into practice. This will involve investigating the spatial arrangement of grave plots, gravestone types, cemetery plantings, cemetery boundaries and structures, and the documentary and visual records of the cemetery and those buried there. This work will also help to reveal the local relationships between the dead, living, and their god.