Tagged: Suicide

Opinion

From mourning to reflection: considerations in the aftermath of a trajedy

Rutgers University has been my intellectual home for the last 8 years. Recently, one of our freshman, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. He took his own life after his roommate and another student posted a video of him engaging in sexual activity with another student on the internet. This horribly sad and disturbing event sparked an emotional reaction on our campus, as well as discussion of how to protect students from this kind of...

Opinion

Virtual Conference Report: Day Nine (29 Oct, 2009)

Today marked the penultimate day of Wiley-Blackwell’s first Virtual Conference. As I am sure you will all agree, thus far, each day has contained many gems, and today has been no different. Eileen Joy’s (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) keynote lecture: ‘Reading Beowulf in the Ruins of Grozny: Pre/modern, Post/human, and the Question of Being‐Together’ looks at the aftermath of the Russian bombing of Chechnya through the lens of Beowulf. The two final papers of the conference were provided by P....

Science & Technology / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

U.S. Military Suicide Rate: A Durkheimian, Rather Than Psychological, Perspective

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpFSyLHBdKg] by NickieWild Recently, various cable and national news outlets reported that U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend had “ordered” soldiers under his command at the base at Ft. Campbell, KY to not commit suicide. While this makes an attention-grabbing headline, it was more of an exhortation than a command. Nevertheless, the U.S. military has been criticized for years about the way it has been handling the skyrocketing military suicide rate, which, by some measures, has now surpassed the...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Down and Out

by socanonymous The unemployment rate in the United States has reached a 16-year high of 7.2%. Economists say that we are still far from the recovery period and until then, expect things to get worse. Effects are certainly being felt on a global scale. The recent suicide of German billionaire, Adolf Merckle raises the timeless question: what are the causes of suicide? What is particularly interesting is that even with significant losses Merckle was still worth about £6 billion. Merckle...

Science & Technology / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Soldiers and Suicide

by delawaregrad More than a century ago, French sociologist Emile Durkheim found that suicides were not simply the result of selfish individual action but were influenced by social forces such as age, gender and religion, and developed categories of suicide.  One of these categories is egoistic suicide, where individuals take their life because they are not well integrated into society due to a breakdown of social ties.  A recent article in the Washington Post found that suicide is on the...