What did Ernest Becker win the Pulitzer Prize for?
Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for The Denial of Death, published in 1973. The prize was awarded two months after his death on the 6th of March 1974, making it a posthumous honor.
Questions about Ernest Becker
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What is the main argument of Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death?
Becker argued that an individual's character forms essentially around the process of denying one's own mortality, and that this denial is a necessary component of functioning in the world. He believed that much of the evil in the world was a direct consequence of this need to avoid confronting death.
When and where did Ernest Becker die?
Ernest Becker died on the 6th of March 1974, in Burnaby, British Columbia, at age 49. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer in November 1972.
Why was Ernest Becker fired from Upstate Medical College?
Becker was fired from Upstate Medical College in Syracuse, New York, along with other non-tenured professors, because he supported tenured Professor Thomas Szasz in a dispute with the administration over academic freedom. His support was specifically limited to the question of whether Szasz had the right to teach his views to psychiatry students.
What is terror management theory and how does it relate to Ernest Becker?
Terror management theory is a research program in social psychology that grew directly out of Becker's ideas about death anxiety and its cultural influence. It translated Becker's claims into a scientific framework used to study diverse phenomena including self-esteem, prejudice, and religion, and had produced over 200 published studies.
What happened to Ernest Becker's unfinished book Escape from Evil?
Escape from Evil was unfinished at the time of Becker's death in 1974, with the manuscript's second half incomplete. It was assembled from the existing pages and notes on the unfinished chapter and published posthumously in 1975 by Free Press.