The Bioethics of Living and Dying: An 8-Week Course

How do we confront and think critically about difficult ethical questions we all encounter in our daily, personal and professional lives? As biomedical advances have extended the realm of possibilities, how do we grapple with the moral and ethical quandaries of living and dying?

Join us for an eight-week OlioCourse, exploring applied ethics and philosophy, as they relate to death and dying. We’ll draw on diverse media – poetry, philosophical inquiry, fiction, storytelling, and film to form our own ethical standards through collective research and public speaking.

Introducing OlioCourses

This OlioCourse will take place on Tuesday evenings from March 30th until May 18th. We will alternate each week between a recorded lecture from Jeanne Proust and then meet the following week via zoom for a live session where we dissect, question and build upon the previous lecture.

You will have an entire week to digest the recorded content and come up with your thoughts and questions for the live session. The questions of the participants will structure the meetings, instead of being reduced to the common 10-15min Q&As at the end of a lecture.

What to expect from the course:

• Upon signing up, you will be mailed an Olio coursebook via USPS that includes printouts of carefully selected texts by thinkers we will be studying throughout the curriculum.
• Four lectures recorded by professor Proust emailed to you every other Tuesday. 
• Four live Olios led by the professor to explore questions, discuss challenges to the theories presented to you, and dig deeper. 
• Four happy-hour virtual meetings with other participants. Jeanne will present leading questions about the lecture and readings for the group to discuss on their own. 

Participants will be able to engage on their own time with the pre-recorded lectures and curated materials (readings, podcast links, interviews, and film).  These will be used as the fuel for the live Zoom discussions with the professor.

Participants are encouraged to come up with thoughts and questions to bring forth in the live sessions. Think of this as your chance for extended q&a with the professor.

Our Curriculum: 

• WEEK I & II: WHAT IS DEATH? IS DEATH EVIL? UNDERSTANDING DEATH AS A SOCIOLOGICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
• WEEK III & IV: CULTURAL RELATIVISM / SUICIDE AND END OF LIFE DECISIONS /HOW DOES CULTURE SHAPE OUR ETHICS? 
  
• WEEK V & VI : KILLING AND LETTING DIE
  
• WEEK VII & VIII: POSTHUMOUS DONATING / ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
  

*A note on the format*

The live discussions will take a spontaneous shape - i.e the professor will not adhere to a preconceived strict plan, rather, she will allow space for the participants to direct what they would like to learn about. In other words, with the provided materials, and the clarifying guidance of the professor, each participant will make the best of online live meetings, now conceived as participative platforms to strengthen and deepen understanding while remaining conversation based. 

he questions of the participants will structure the meetings, instead of being reduced to the common 10-15min Q&As at the end of a lecture. The meetings will basically shape itself as the questions go, requiring improvisation, critical thinking and flexibility all based on the participant inquiries! 

*If funds are an issue for you at the moment, please feel free to reach out so we can do our best to accomodate*