The cultural life of suicide : observing care and death at MIT
Name
1108654813-MIT.pdf
Size
695.74 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
94df49b58c3a882d8d12b90d0a5102a6
Author(s)
Ko, Allan,
S.B.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Advisor(s)
T.L. Taylor.
Date Issued
2018
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Four undergraduate students died by suicide during my enrollment at MIT between 2013 and 2017. I document the ways in which suicide becomes more than the event of death itself, embedding itself back into everyday life. Suicide becomes what I describe as ambient and infrastructural, articulated through community traditions, announcement emails, Facebook posts, publicity posters, awareness flags, and all the other structures and artifacts of daily life in the MIT community. Drawing on field observations with the student-run texting help line Lean On Me, as well as interviews of students and administrators working in campus mental health organizations, I then explore how mental health organizations approach their work within an environment where suicide is ambient and infrastructural.
Description
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Thesis: S.B. in Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2018
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 56-61).
Subjects
Comparative Media Studies.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
Terms of Use
MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.
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