Fall 2016 Academic Learning Communities

The CFDE is sponsoring two Academic Learning Communities in Fall 2016. One is titled “Blurred Boundaries: Prospects of Human/Humanoid Engagement” and is convened by Steve Kraftchick, Professor of New Testament Interpretation in the Candler School of Theology, and Mark Goldfeder, Senior Lecturer in the School of Law. The second, titled “The Humanities for Health,” is convened by Kylie Smith, Assistant Professor and Andrew Mellow Faculty Fellow for Nursing and the Humanities, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, and Andrew Furman, Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine.

Blurred Boundaries: Prospects of Human/Humanoid Engagement has been designed to “encourage a dialogue among anyone interested in how we construct a rigorously founded ethic for our present and coming technological age.” Readings may focus on such topics as dynamic artificial intelligence, human persons/robotic persons, volition and identity, bioethics, post-transhumanism, technological therapy or technological enhancement, robotics and disabilities, and the future of the human. Participants hail from the Laney Graduate School, the Goizueta Business School, the Emory Law School, Oxford College, and a wide variety of disciplines within Emory College.

We are also very excited about how this Academic Learning Community may connect to the work toward one of our Spring 2017 university courses titled Disability, Resilience, and the Mortal Self, co-convened by Bruce Greenfield, Associate Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and Senior Fellow, Center for Ethics, and Aaron Stutz, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Oxford College.

Our second Academic Learning Community, The Humanities for Health, aims to “bring together academics across Emory already working on diverse approaches to health and the humanities.” Topics may include critical theory, narrative, reflection, art, literature, history, and film. The group will also explore new ways of thinking about the role of the humanities for understanding the illness experience and the patient–professional relationship, and pose new questions for humanistic education and research in health. Participants include faculty from the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, Laney Graduate School, and a wide variety of disciplines in Emory College.

Here we are excited to uncover synergies between this ALC and the Center for the Study of Human Health in Emory College, as well as with several of the new Mellon faculty fellows in Humanistic Inquiry (HIP). With so many great groups of people doing work on the overlap between the humanities and health, we see this as an area of distinction for Emory University.