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SLIDE PRESENTATION

Candi CannEmily CramerWendy Peltier

James Wake Memorial Lecture 2024: Death, Culture, and Religion: How Different Worldviews Impact the Dying Process

RECORDED ON FRIDAY, NOV. 8 

Presented by Dr. Candi Cann, associate professor of religion, Baylor University; Dr. Emily Cramer, Comm '02, associate professor of health communication, Marquette University; Dr. Wendy Peltier, professor of medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin 

Join us for the James Wake Memorial Lecture hosted by the Marquette University College of Nursing and the Institute for Palliative and End-of-Life Care. We welcome Marquette students, alumni, parents, friends, and community members who are involved in this field of study and profession to attend. 

Cultural and religious worldviews deeply impact the ways in which dying, death, and grief are understood and managed. Examining various traditions from a comparative perspective within a medical framework reveals varying and shifting cultural attitudes that are multi-layered and complex. Cann argues that one cannot simply examine religious cultures alone, as they are embedded in a larger social and cultural framework that impacts how dying is managed, how death is defined, and how different conceptions of life after death affect grief. Ultimately, both medical frameworks and religious worldviews intersect and impact one another. Following the keynote address, a reactor panel will discuss how anyone can apply this information to provide culturally appropriate care. 

Following this presentation, participants should be able to: 

  • Summarize how major cultural and religious worldviews (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism) define and understand death.
  • Describe core death-related traditions, practices, and rituals of major cultural and religious worldviews.
  • Identify best practices for interprofessional palliative care teams to provide culturally appropriate patient care. 

This memorial lecture is held biennially in memory of James Wake, chaplain and husband of Dr. Madeline Wake, former Provost of Marquette University. James’ career was devoted to helping others through social work and chaplaincy. 

MORE ABOUT THIS SESSION:

 

Dr. Candi Cann, associate professor of religion, Baylor University

Candi CannDr. Candi Cann, associate professor of religion, teaches at Baylor University in both the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and the Religion department. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative religion from Harvard University, an M.A. in Asian Religions from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and a B.A. in Asian studies and English from St. Andrews in North Carolina. In 2023, she held a Fulbright at Han Nam University, in Daejeon, South Korea.

Dr. Cann's research focuses on death and dying, and the impact of remembering (and forgetting) in shaping how lives are recalled, remembered, and celebrated. She has published five books and numerous articles and book chapters. Her first book, Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-first Century (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), centers on grief and memorialization in the contemporary world. Dying to Eat: Cross Cultural Perspectives on Food, Death and the Afterlife (University Press of Kentucky, 2017) is an edited collection on the intersection of food in death and grief. The Routledge Handbook of Death and Afterlife (Routledge, 2018) is an edited collection containing thirty chapters examining death and afterlife from around the world. Her most recent book, Death and Religion: The Basics (Routledge, 2023), examined the role of religion in death, dying and grief around the world, and argues that medical culture may be nearly as important as religious worldviews in determining how one views death and the afterlife. Finally, she has a forthcoming book with MIT press titled Augmented, which discusses the intersection of death, disability, and technology, and will be published in 2025. In addition to her writing, Dr. Cann’s work has been featured in podcasts, films, and interviews with the BBC, NPR, C-SPAN’s Book TV, Milk Street, Financial Times, Washington Post, and many others. You can find her online at www.deathscholar.com.

At Baylor, she teaches world cultures, social world, world religions, Buddhism, Christian heritage, and death and dying, and she is an advisor to Baylor’s Hawai’i Club.

When she isn’t writing or in the classroom, she can be found hanging out with her family, creating pottery, or drinking coffee and reading books. 

 

Dr. Emily Cramer, associate professor of health communication, Marquette University

Emily CramerDr. Cramer, Comm '02, is a health and strategic communication scholar who studies the affordances of new media in healthcare with a focus on reducing health disparities and closing communication gaps. Emily recently returned to Marquette, her undergrad alma mater, after seven years at Howard University, where she conducted research on communication around conditions of pregnancy, such as preeclampsia, which disproportionately impact Black women. She is thrilled to be back at Marquette’s Diederich College of Communication, where she will continue to examine the interactional experiences of women and minorities in healthcare settings and help grow the college’s minor in health communication. Before entering academia, Emily spent 10 years in communications at a hospice and palliative care agency in Chicago.

 

Dr. Wendy Peltier, professor of medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin

Wendy PeltierDr. Peltier is a professor in the Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine with a longstanding interest in medical education. She received her MD degree from Rush University’s Medical College and completed residency in Neurology and a Neuromuscular Fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr. Peltier joined the faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1997. During her time there, she served as neurology residency director for a decade and was recipient of the MCW Faculty Vitality Award in 2011, which led to a focus in palliative medicine. She served as palliative care section head for eight years and was involved in bringing inpatient hospice services to Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in partnership with Horizon Home Care and Hospice. She served on the MCW Kern Institute Faculty Pillar and as well as the editorial board of the Kern Transformational Times, a publication focused on the mission of the Kern Institute to enhance medical education through caring, character and practical wisdom. Dr. Peltier was the recipient of the MCW Leonard Tow Humanism Award in 2021, which recognizes graduating medical students and faculty members who are exemplars of humanism in the care of patients.

 

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