Existential Anxiety and the Human Experience

Do you struggle with death anxiety? Have you ever wondered about how the awareness of our own mortality affects our society? It turns out that death awareness and death anxiety affect almost every element of the human experience! One might even argue that this awareness is the very thing that makes us human. This course is based on the ideas of Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist who wrote about the impact of existential terror (death-awareness) on society. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Denial of Death, in 1974, and sadly died that same year, but his work lives on today. Learning about the impact of our own death awareness can help us understand ourselves and our societies.

In this course, you will gain a foundational understanding of Ernest Becker's ideas, as well as an introductory understanding of Terror Management Theory, the field of research derived from Ernest Becker's writings. You will apply the ideas covered in the course to identify the way death anxiety shows up in your own life as well as identifying societal trends. Finally, we hope that you will feel empowered to reassess your own values and sources of meaning in light of this knowledge to evaluate the type of life you want to lead and the person you aim to become.