Miscellaneous

Professor Steven Prothero
 * RN 106:** Death and Immortality

Take this class. It is the best academic class I've ever taken at B.U. and Prothero is an amazing teacher. Really, check out ratemyprofessor if you don't believe me. The workload is generally light, although sometimes he assigns a whole book to read for a day. Otherwise it's a chapter from a book or nothing at all. There are three writing assignments: write your own obituary, write your own funeral bulletin and analyze it, and write an essay about a particular martyr (this includes martyr's life, death, community who made the person into a martyr, and your analysis). In addition to the writing component, there are two quizzes (definition & quote I.D.) and an exam. Overall, you study five different models of how death and the afterlife (or lack thereof) work. The models include the psychosomatic model (Christianity, Islam, Judaism), materialist, docetic, spiritualist, and one other I can't remember. The progression of the course is very logical. The class is run as part lecture and part discussion. Prothero actually picks on people to talk and tell their opinions, even though its a 150+ person class. And he tries to remember people's names. So I absolutely loved this class and recommend it to anyone. Reviewer: Vanessa Rubin

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