Lecture Series

These lectures address diverse topics within bioethics and the medical humanities. Speakers are MH&B faculty or special guests we've invited to present. The lectures run every Thursday from noon to 12:45pm in the Searle Seminar Room in the Lurie building, during The Graduate School's fall, winter, and spring quarters. Due to public interest, we've made these lectures open to all, inside and outside the Northwestern community. Please feel free to bring a lunch.

Ethics and Aging Series

by Mark Waymack, PhD

Geriatric Ethics: Is Ethics-and-Aging Unethical Ageism?
October 18

In contemporary society, we seem to dislike the idea of growing old; we dislike being labelled as old or elderly; and we argue against stereotyping the elderly. Are the disciplines of geriatrics, gerontology, and ethics-and-aging therefore examples of unethical discrimination and/or stereotyping?

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Moral Theory, Medical Ethics, and Dementia: Facing a Conceptual Failure
October 25 (PLEASE NOTE THERE IS A CHANGE OF ROOM FOR THIS ONE LECTURE:  TARRY 2-714, 715)

For centuries, moral philosophy has emphasized a certain conception of what makes a person a person. Moral theory becomes built around that conception. And bioethics borrows deeply from that conception. But what happens when individuals suffering from dementia no longer satisfy those criteria?

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Old Age as Disease: The Mis-Medicalization of Aging
November 1

Death is the enemy, and insofar as death often comes with old age, aging has become a "medical" problem. We seek, in a sense, to "cure" ourselves of age. But why? To what end? And with what chances of success?