1. Art 110 Fall 2011: Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Assignment—NOVEMBER 2
The Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is perhaps Mexico’s most identifiable holiday,
but it is also a celebration that has ties to a long-standing Christian tradition of venerating
the dead on November 2. It can also be compared to pagan ancestor worship rites from
which the Christian practice probably derived, and likewise has parallels in many other
cultures which are practiced to this day. Because our class this year is scheduled to meet
on November 2, I have decided to cancel our classroom meeting for that day, and instead
give you an assignment based on the Dia de los Muertos.
Before I explain the assignment, let me please make clear that I do not want this to be
some boring and painful task—my intentions are to use the Dia de los Muertos as an
opportunity to expand our cultural awareness and see the many ties that exist between
different societies, so I want this to be, if not fun, at least interesting. I am asking you to
turn in a paper, but you don’t have to treat it as an extra term paper. A couple of pages
will suffice; what I want is for you to simply understand and interpret this holiday.
The assignment: First, I would like you to read an essay which I have put online—you
can find it on Blackboard under “Day of the Dead Essay.” Second, I would ideally like
for you to attend some kind of Dia de los Muertos event. This is why I have canceled our
regular classroom meeting for November 2. Obviously, we do not have the facilities or
the organizational capacity to go to an event as a group field trip, but I am hoping you
will go on your own. Olvera St. in Downtown LA will definitely have an event, but many
other places will as well—in the past I believe they have even had them sometimes here
at the school. I will put together some kind of list which I will pass out to the class before
November 2. Third, I would like you turn in to me a paper—as I previously said, it does
not have to be long, maybe two or three pages. In this paper, I simply want you to give
some kind of synopsis from the online essay about the history and traditions of the Dia de
los Muertos, talk about the event you went to and what you saw that carries on these
traditions (or did you also see things which you think are unique or new?), and make
some kind of comparison between the Dia de los Muertos and the veneration of the dead
in certain ancient cultures—in our class lecture the meeting beforehand (October 31), I
will give specific examples of rites for venerating the dead in Rome and other cultures,
and you can use these as examples.
Due date: Our next scheduled class is in fact our take home exam (Exam 2), so just turn
this in when you turn in your take home exam—this would be on November 9.
Credit: I will give you up to 20 points (that is two letter grades on an exam, by the way)
for doing this.
Two inevitable questions:
I do not have the time or transportation to be able to go to a Dia de los Muertos event on
that day, what should I do? Obviously I must be understanding of that kind of issue. I do
sincerely want you to go to an event, that is why I canceled our class meeting, but I
certainly would never demand you do anything that is outside of your ability. If you

2. cannot go on November 2, there are other events you might be able to attend on different
dates—the largest Dia de los Muertos event in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Forever
Cemetery, and they do not hold it on Nov. 2 (I believe that this year it will be on October
22, but I will double check that date and others that are occurring before November 2). If
you cannot attend an event on an alternate date, you could try looking at websites about
the Dia de los Muertos, you will find many photographs and probably also videos. But
really, I hope you can make it to some kind of event, because I would prefer this be
something you experience—but I won’t certainly won’t penalize you if you can’t.
You said that you are going to talk about some related practices in Ancient Rome and
other cultures in the class meeting before November 2 (which would be our October 31
class). I couldn’t make it to that class—what should I do? Missing class is always an
unfortunate thing. If you cannot make it to the class on October 31, I suggest you ask
someone else in the class if you can borrow their notes. Some of what we talk about will
also be posted online in the ppt review, but of course there is no complete substitute for
missing a class. In this case, since you might be missing information which would help
you with this paper, if you cannot come to class I would suggest that you do some of your
own research on ancestor worship practices in other cultures—it won’t be hard, cross
reference ancestor worship with Ancient Rome, Egypt, or any other culture, and I am
sure you will come up with some of the same information which I will present in the
lecture.