The panel advances a model of teaching that bridges scholarship and lived experience without collapsing one into the other. It argues that death and dying, far from being marginal topics, provide a generative lens for interreligious learning and ethical formation. By integrating comparative ritual study, practitioner insight, reflective practice, and critical theory, educators can transform how mortality is addressed in higher education, healthcare institutions and congregations.
This session will be of interest to scholars of religion, theology, pastoral care, medical humanities, and related fields seeking pedagogical approaches that are intellectually rigorous, interreligiously literate, and responsive to the existential realities shaping students’ lives.