Bioethics and Religion Unit

The Bioethics and Religion Unit welcomes paper and/or panel proposals that examine how religious and spiritual traditions and practices affect the field of bioethics. We are particularly interested in the following themes, but we also welcome any proposals that address issues in bioethics and religions:

• In consideration of the AAR Presidential Theme for the 2024 Annual Meeting regarding the role of religious and spiritual interpretations of violence, nonviolence, and marginality, the Bioethics and Religion Unit welcomes proposals that examine bioethics and healthcare in light of any of the following: the sixtieth anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; bioethics and religious concepts within political theology; the exploitation of marginalized bodies; violence against healthcare workers; and Artificial Intelligence and marginality.
• The Bioethics and Religion Unit also welcomes proposals that interpret the theme as relates to violence against healthcare professionals in the pandemic or post-pandemic era. Healthcare providers and caregivers have expressed their physical, emotional, psychological, moral, and spiritual exhaustion during the pandemic and the post-pandemic phase of Covid. We welcome proposals that address issues of burnout, exhaustion, and revival among healthcare providers and caregivers in the context of the pandemic. We are interested in various narratives, analyses, and/or other presentations that address violence, nonviolence, and healing as they add to bioethical considerations.
• We welcome proposals that address any aspect of the relationship between bioethics and religion.

Co-sponsored session with Science, Technology, and Religion Unit

The Science, Technology and Religion Unit and the Bioethics and Religion Unit invite papers that interrogate matters of religion, spirituality, or the philosophy of religion as they intersect with brain-machine interfaces, neuroprosthetics, and neuroenhancement and related technologies and enhancement processes through discursive or somatic modes. We especially welcome proposals that address these matters in light of the 2024 AAR Presidential Theme which considers violence, nonviolence, and marginality. President Jin Y. Park writes: “Nonviolence has long been a vital teaching of many religious traditions, but has the study of religion sufficiently engaged with this topic? This year, I invite the AAR to take up the issues of violence and nonviolence and explore the meanings and value of nonviolence and how the study of religion envisions practicing it in our times.”