Ernest Becker Burial Site
Ian Fyffe
Does anyone know where Ernest Becker is buried? Is it at a cemetery in Vancouver Canada? If so, which one?
I live in the area and would like to visit it.
I also think its a shame that nobody at Simon Fraser University knows who he is. If anything, a bronze head or something should be constructed on the campus since it was the last place where he taught.
I know he purposely said that he wanted to "fade into the background" and not be a "face" behind a theory as evidence by his final interview with Sam Keen; but this man needs some recognition and its sad that Simon Fraser University's greatest scholar is completely unknown to those who attend the campus. Terry Fox and Ghandi have statues on the campus, but not Ernest Becker...
Ian.
--
Ian A. Fyffe
Gerontology Masters Student & Researcher
Health and Aging Concentration
Simon Fraser University
Ph: (778-836-7535) Fax: (604-543-7535)
Email: i...@sfu.ca
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"He who always greets and constantly reveres the aged, four things will increase in him: life, beauty, happiness, power." - Buddha
“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” - Maslow
"All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual." - Einstein
"It is not realized that there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals." - Durkheim
“The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.” - Becker
"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven." - Milton
B Penner
Could the reason that Ernest Becker is not remembered at Simon Fraser
be related to the reason that Ernest Becker was not rehired at
Cal-Berkeley, even though the students at Cal-Berkeley themselves
volunteered to chip in and pay his salary???
It is an unusual situation, I would think, where students really
appreciate a professor, but the professor's own colleagues don't
appreciate him. Or, should I say---are jealous of him?? Or feel
somehow "threatened" by him??
Do we have any way of knowing if Ernest Becker would have "approved"
of this List??
/ Bill / Tue, Mar 31, 2009 2:53 PM PDT
Roger Albert
1981 in the Sociology and Anthropology Department. I never met Becker while
there because I was a "Marxist" at the time and we didn't talk to the other
rabble. They didn't talk much to us, either. Becker sort of fell between
the cracks at SFU. I know of a couple of his grad students still kicking
around but they have no connection at all with anything Becker these days.
I actually ran into Becker's work on my own. I was so impressed with Escape
From Evil that I bought 10 copies and handed them out to some of my
colleagues at SfU and at the University of British Columbia. No bites,
really. I got the odd remark about Becker not being 'scientific' or being
too speculative and loose with the facts. Apart from being confused about
the lack of serious response, I chalked up the poverty of response to the
'fact' (as I saw it) that everyone was busy buttressing up their individual
and collective immortality-projects and not interested in any analysis of
immortality projects themselves.
I don't know where Becker is buried, but I do know that his widow is still
alive and living in Vancouver. He second husband died last year I believe.
Her name is Marie Becker-Pos and she's an artist. Maybe we can talk off
list, Ian. I'm at North Island College on Vancouver Island (email:
roger....@nic.bc.ca) and have been teaching Becker since the mid-1980s.
Cheers,
Roger
