Korean Funerary Portraits

There’s who you are, who you think you are and how you want to be remembered. For Koreans, funerary portraits, which honor the dead at funerals, symbolize all three.

This NY Times article sensitively addresses these portraits and gives a bit of background.  It also has a gallery of 20 such portraits.

Agnes Hwang, age 66, (by Juliana Sohn)

Shik Ja Hong, age 72. (by Juliana Sohn)

 

 

High School Death and Dying Course

"Few subjects run more powerfully counter to an American teenager’s innate sense of immortality than a confrontation with the reality of life’s end. The study of death became more common at the college level with the publication of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s influential book, “On Death and Dying,” in 1969. But it is rare that the subject is discussed at the high school level, particularly with an approach that includes fairly explicit instruction in caring for a cadaver."

This essay describes a death and dying course at a Jewish high school in Florida: For Jewish Students, Field Trip Is Window on Death and Dying.