Chapter 18 Teaching challenging material: emotional geographies and geographies of death
Restricted access

Geographies of death has become an increasingly visible within Emotional, Urban, Rural and Political Geography sub-disciplines, exploring the spatialities, practices, politics and policies around death and memorialisation, embracing issues of morbidity, mortality, extinction, gender, identity, culture, religion, ethnicity and the environment, to name but a few. Teaching geographies of death can be a challenging task, as alongside the academic value of the topic there must also be consideration of the associated personal reflections and experiences relating the subject matter for both students and teaching staff. This chapter draws on the reflections and experiences of staff and students in designing and delivering a new third year undergraduate module ‘Geographies of Death’, the first of its kind within the UK. The authors recommend a wide range of pedagogical approaches and modes of teaching including craft activities, café style discussions, cemetery fieldtrips and traditional lecture and seminar components. Additionally, this chapter contributes to debates around teaching challenging material, arguing that whilst the emotional aspects of the module should be approached with some care and consideration for emotional-affective sensitivities, educators should not try and remove emotion from the content altogether. Indeed, the emotional-affective dimension to such material can illustrate the significance of the topic and make for effective engagement and therefore effective teaching.

You are not authenticated to view the full text of this chapter or article.

Access options

Get access to the full article by using one of the access options below.

Other access options

Redeem Token

Institutional Login

Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials

Login via Institutional Access

Personal login

Log in with your Elgar Online account

Login with you Elgar account
Handbook