Lynne Ann DeSpelder,
Cabrillo College Albert Lee Strickland
ISBN: 0073405469 Copyright year: 2009
About the Authors
Lynne Ann DeSpelder and Albert Lee Strickland have collaborated on various writing projects over a number of years. The eight editions of The Last Dance: Encountering Death and Dying could not have been created without the unique combination of their talents as a teacher and a writer working together. The result of this teamwork offers you opportunities to learn at the turn of every page. The first edition of The Last Dance took five years to write and illustrate, with more than ninety photos and works of art. The early decision to tape and transcribe actual classroom lectures gives the book a conversational tone. The book's interdisciplinary flavor reflects the goal of covering the subject as broadly as possible.
Both Lynne and Al are members of the International Work Group in Death, Dying, and Bereavement (IWG), which gives them opportunities to work closely with death-related professionals from twenty countries. Since IWG meetings are held in various member countries, it also provides opportunities to pursue one of their favorite aspects of the study of death and dying— cultural diversity in practice and belief.
Lynne is an educator, author, and counselor. As a faculty member at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, she developed and taught one of the first interdisciplinary courses on death and dying in California. Her first nationally published popular writing on death appeared in the November 1977 issue of New Age magazine. Certified by the Association for Death Education and Counseling as a death educator and as a grief counselor, Lynne was instrumental in developing that organization's Education for Certification program. In addition to producing audiovisual and print resources for death education, she lectures both in North America and internationally to professional, corporate, and community groups, and she conducts training programs and in-service education for hospices, school districts, and health care professionals.
Al is a professional writer whose interests have focused on death-related topics since the late 1970s. His published work includes articles on communication and death and children and death, as well as several books on family studies and family life education. He is a former editor of The Forum Newsletter, published by the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC). Recently, his professional interests have been combined with a lifelong involvement in music, resulting in invitations to perform musical concerts showcasing his voice and guitar and centering on themes of death, dying, and bereavement in Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States. A member of the Authors Guild, he is currently at work on a novel.
We have been asked many times how the inspiration to write a college textbook on death and dying came about. Lynne reports, "It really is as simple as the realization that students hated buying the number of books needed for studying all of the topics important to learning about death and dying. And I was taking flack because of assigning so many texts. In those early days, students had to read Ariès, Becker, Glasser and Strauss, Choron, Fulton, Jackson, Mitford, Weisman, Parkes, Kübler-Ross, Kastenbaum, and Feifel, among others. Many of these books were published only in hardcover, which made for an expensive course. One day at the start of a new semester, after getting "beat up" with complaints from students, I whined to Al, "Why isn't there just one book that a student could pick up and put under his or her arm that would cover all of these topics?" Al's response was, "Well, why don't we write one." So, The Last Dance was born, and each subsequent edition reflects the changes and transformations that have occurred, and continue to occur, in the field of death studies.
Here is a funny story from the early days. Lynne says, "As an entrée to the scholarly literature of the time, we made use of the collections at the University of California in Santa Cruz. As a graduate of this institution, Al had access to the library. One day, as he was in the elevator heading up to the stacks, a former collegemate entered the elevator, saw Al, and asked, "Hey, what are you up to?" Al mentioned his work on The Last Dance and some of the subjects he was researching, rattling off topics like war, murder, disaster, accidents, violence, genocide, and infectious diseases. By the time the elevator stopped at his floor, all of the people inside had subtly moved to the sides, and the only remark his former classmate made was "Oh."
The study of death, dying, and bereavement has been and surely will continue to be interesting.
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2009 McGraw-Hill Higher Education