Using the Farber Collection of Gravestone Photography select at least two gravestones for their iconography. Record all information from each stone and, describe all images and decorations. The Farber Collection's introductory essays on funerary motifs and early American epigraphy should assist and complement your efforts, as will your assigned readings of Allan Ludwig's Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and Its Symbols, 1650-1815 (65-238) and Emily Wasserman's Gravestone Designs: Rubbings and Photographs From Early New York & New Jersey, both on reserve from the circulation desk in Rush Rhees Library.  If possible, provide a photo for each stone.

Next, apply the theories of Lifton, and Lakoff and Johnson to analyze these stones, paying particular attention to the images, their possible symbolic content, their relation to any inscriptions, and how they may help to mediate death, grief, and loss through associations with various forms of symbolic immortality.  Quote the full citations of any Biblical passages, and provide translations for inscription in Latin and other non-English languages. For foreign language inscriptions, you may want to contact either Dr. Kathryn Argetsinger or Dr. Curt Cadorette in the Department of Religion & Classics for Greek and Latin, or appropriate faculty in the Department of Modern Languages & Cultures for other languages.

All descriptions, comparisons, analyses, observations, and conclusions should be organized into a short essay for each stone/inscription.  Your essay should be double-spaced, with notes in the body of the text, e.g. (Lifton, 25); a bibliography listing all sources should be placed at the end of the essay.