The cultural life of suicide : observing care and death at MIT
Author(s)
Ko, Allan, S.B. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Comparative Media Studies.
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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).
Date issued
2018Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/WritingPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Comparative Media Studies.