This year's CHAT symposium, "Being Human: Life, Death, and Discourse" to be held on March 23 from 1-4 PM will feature three speakers from different disciplines, addressing distinct yet overlapping questions related to human representations and conceptions of life and death. We live in an age of medical advancements that are constantly providing new means to prolong life and reduce deaths. This coincides with heightened attention to structural violences in society as technology simultaneously allows for greater awareness of police brutality and the festering exploitation of black bodies in the US and beyond. We are seemingly left with more questions than simple solutions on what it means to be human, whose humanity is given priority, and how we can use scientific advancements to promote social progress rather than to simply further new means of power and control.
The symposium begins at 1 PM with “Risk/Management: Reflections on the Death of Eric Garner and the Peril of Black Mobility” presented by Dr. Asha Best (Geography, Clark University). This will be followed at 2 PM with "Marching Toward Our Post-Human Future: Bodies as Shells", presented by Dr. Kimberly Mutcherson (Rutgers Law School). The final talk, "Is Death Bad for You? Two Puzzles About the Badness of Death", presented by Dr. Shelly Kagan, (Philosophy, Yale University) begins at 3 PM. Each talk will end with a 15 minute Q&A session, and a reception will follow the final talk at 4 PM.
Hope to see you there!