Sarah Brabant, professor emerita of sociology at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, passed away on August 30. She was 93 years old.
A native of La Grange, Georgia, Dr. Brabant earned her bachelor’s degree and her master’s degree in sociology from Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) in Tennessee. After completing her master’s degree, she was hired as an instructor at Memphis State. Dr. Brabant went on to receive her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1973.
At the University of Louisiana Lafayette, Dr. Brabant taught courses on marriage and family, social problems, introductory sociology, sexism, and racism. Dr. Brabant’s early research centered on gender studies. Later in life, she shifted her scholarship to studies of death and grief. In the 1980s, she developed the Death and Dying course; it was initially developed as a one-time seminar, but it ultimately became part of the regular curriculum due to student interest. In 1996, Dr. Brabant published Mending the Torn Fabric: For Those Who Grieve and Those Who Want to Help Them (Routledge).
Alongside her research and teaching endeavors, Dr. Brabant was heavily involved in community activism and volunteering in southwest Louisiana. She supported programs for people living with AIDS, unhoused women, as well as women who had been abused. She also co-founded The Grief Center of Southwest Louisiana (now known as Healing House), a local program for bereaved children and their caregivers.
Dr. Brabant retired from the University of Louisiana Lafayette as a professor emerita in 2001. She continued to teach her Death and Dying course as an adjunct professor until 2006.