When:

June 23, from 2.00 pm until 3.30 pm (CET)

Where:

Live in Antwerp: Antwerp University, room S.R.012 (Rodestraat 14), city campus
Attendance is free, no registration necessary.

Online: If you want to attend online, enroll by sending an email to emma.moormann@uantwerpen.be. You will receive the link to the event shortly before the lecture.

Abstract:
Melinda Hall will discuss the import of critical disability theory for bioethics. Specifically, much of what comes under that label focuses on disability as a product of power relations. While these are material matters, they are deeply contingent; disability is a direct expression of power, and therefore is social and political. Insights from critical disability theory, which in turn is rooted in continental philosophical traditions, are of import for both shifting the language of and notions of vulnerability within bioethics and for reexamining the value (and values) of bioethics as an enterprise of power.

Melinda C. Hall is an associate professor of philosophy at Stetson University. She specializes in bio-medical ethics, ethics, and Continental philosophy. Much of her published and ongoing work deals with questions in the philosophy of disability, and her research interests include emerging technologies, reproduction and human enhancement. She engages landmark figures in Continental philosophy, including Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger, both in her research and in the classroom. Dr. Hall received her PhD in philosophy from Vanderbilt University. Her work is published in the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, Philosophy Compass, Disability Studies Quarterly and other venues.

The talk will be followed by short responses from a few members of the NeuroEpigenEthics project who take an interdisciplinary approach to bioethical issues. There will be plenty of time for Q&A.