Luther W. Stalnaker Lecture
“Freedom to Grieve”
Nancy Berns, Professor of Sociology
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 7 p.m.
Jordan Stage, Sheslow Auditorium

When someone we love dies, we have to make sense of a new world. Nancy explores the challenges people face when learning to live with loss in a culture that pushes the idea of “closure.” People grieving face not only the pain of a loss, but social expectations about how they should grieve.

Consequences follow when we force people to use a universal roadmap for grieving and then judge those who do not follow it as wrong or sick. Nancy will explain how people need freedom to grieve because it is through grieving that we give visibility to the pain felt, the world shattered, the person lost, the joy remembered, and the love continued. She argues that rather than needing “closure,” people can learn to carry joy and grief together.

Reception to follow in the Madelyn M. Levitt Hall of Honor.