Japanese college students study the meaning of death

Known as thanatology, this study has received more attention since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, which brought the concept of death strongly to the forefront of many young people’s minds.
Changes in family structure and other societal shifts mean people today encounter death less often. Studying death academically can help students discover benchmarks for their lives.
“Seeing footage of the Tohoku 
disaster made me think about my own family dying,” said Ayaka Shiromoto, a 20-year-old student at Konan University in Higashinada Ward, Kobe, explaining her reason for taking a thanatology class.
Shiromoto is from Awajishima island in Hyogo Prefecture, so during elementary school classes and on other occasions she heard the stories of people who lost family members in the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995. The Tohoku disaster occurred when she was in junior high school, and quickly made the stories of her childhood seem all the more real.
Thanatology covers the study of death through the humanities, such as its philosophy and history, as well as from a scientific or clinical perspective, such as considering how to provide end-of-life care. This field of study gained popularity in the United States in the 1960s. 
It began to receive attention in Japan in 1982, as Alfons Deeken, then a professor at Sophia University, argued for the need for education to prepare people for death.
Konan University started these classes two years after the Tohoku disaster. Classroom materials include the manga “Hadashi no Gen” (Barefoot Gen), the movie “Okuribito” (Departures) and footage of areas hit by the disaster in Tohoku. The idea is to give students a concrete image of death.
“Having a brush with death or seeing someone close to you die would make anyone bewildered or distressed,” said Miyuki Ito, who teaches the class. “Thinking about this in advance not only gives people methods for coping when it actually happens, but helps them consider how they want to live.”
The final lecture of the school year, on January 13, was attended by about 150 students. Ito told them, “When you come to feel that you don’t know what to do in life, remember the things you heard in these classes.” 
The Japanese Society for Clinical Thanatology, which has its secretariat at Waseda University, surveyed domestic universities and junior colleges in 2014.

Student demand on slow climb
Of the 252 schools that responded, 14 said they provided lectures on thanatology. Another 154 schools said they provided education on related concepts within subjects such as bioethics and grief studies, making 
168, or almost 70 per cent, that 
included such study somewhere in 
their curriculum.
Sophia University established a thanatology course in the 2016 
academic year, reflecting requests 
from students who wished to study it in regular classes. The university also houses the Institute of Grief Care, 
which nurtures specialists in grief care, an area that drew attention after the 2011 disaster.
“Before the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was mostly older generations who thought about their views on death and life,” said Susumu Shimazono, director of the institute.
“However, there have always been many novels, comics and movies about people’s separation by death. I believe the disaster has become a catalyst to inspire young people who have read or watched such things to seriously 
consider death, and reflect on their 
way of living,” Shimazono said.