We read a bit about suicide last week in the Faces of Death course.

(and it’s Homicide this week—one of the cheerier parts of the course…)

As a sociologist, the go-to source on this topic is an easy pick, made still easier by my own intellectual trajectory.  Durkeim’s study Suicide remains, more than 125 years from its publication, a formidable and foundational work in social science theorizing and empirical research. 

The book had its start in Durkheim’s concern that the suicide rate in hi…