Event Detail

This panel will explore diverse cultural approaches and perspectives to honoring loved ones and coping with death, dying, and grief. Each speaker will share insights from a unique cultural tradition related to death and burial rituals, and/or addressing grief in response death. This will be followed by a discussion of how cultural diversity can help us process loss as individuals, support others within our diverse community, and advance mutual respect across cultures. Discussion will focus on why it’s important to share these perspectives and learn to deal with grief together, as well as acknowledge differences, including substantial differences in the rates of death in various communities.

The event is free and open to the public.

Panelists Include:


Greg Grallo, Open Way Sangha; Chaplain, Hospice of Missoula: “Buddhist Views on Death and Dying”
Rabbi Mark Kula, University of Montana Hillel / Congregation Beth Shalom, Bozeman: "Jewish Traditions of Death and Grief"
Dr. Shandin Pete, Faculty Member, Salish-Kootenai College, “Salish Traditions of Death and Grieving”
Dr. Bernadette Sweeney, UM Professor of Theater, “Performing Death on the Irish Stage”
Dr. Kimber McKay, UM Professor of Anthropology, “Grief and Mourning in Uganda”
Dr. Ruth Vanita, UM Professor of English, “Together in Life after Life: Death and Rebirth in Indic Religions”
Shalom Kristanugraha, graduate student in Environmental Philosophy, “Pancasila: Indonesian Pluralism, Civic Education, and Public Death Literacy”

Co-sponsered by: UM’s Graduate School, the Institute of Health and Humanities, and Missoula’s Festival of Remembrance