Embodiment: An Introduction

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Complicity in Thought and Language: Toleration of Wrong

Complicity as “toleration of wrong” is deeply rooted in Western language and narratives. It is based on assumptions about the self, our relationship to the world and personal accountability that differ from the Common Law's and moral theology's standard doctrines. How we blame others for “tolerating wrong” depends upon the moral force of public discourse and upon the meaning of censure as exhortation. Censure as blame is usually retrospective, while censure as exhortation is forward-looking and stresses moral maturity and flourishing.     

The Dance: Essence of Embodiment

An analysis of movement, and particularly of dance,helps us to see in an extraordinarily effective way the meaningof embodiment. This paper then looks through the eyes ofdance theorists and at philosophers who consider dance andmovement and their meaning of embodiment. A study of movementand dance encompasses the fullest meaning of embodiment: that theembodied way of being-in-the-world is also an embedded way ofbeing in a world of others. Dance has critically importantsocial ramifications. In our own and other cultures, dance playsan important role in healing and in health enhancement.     

“Suspended Animation,” My Mother’s Wife and Cultural Discernment: Considerations for Genetic Research among Immigrants

One of the most difficult contemporary issues facing the bioethics of clinical research is balancing the maintaining of a universality of ethics standards with a sensitivity to cultural issues and differences. The concept of “vulnerability” for research subjects is especially apt for investigating the ethical and cultural issues surrounding the conduct of genetic research among new immigrants to the United States, using the Sudanese Nuer and Dinka tribes, recently settled in the Midwest, as an example. Issues of cultural vulnerability arise for some immigrants, related to relationship to the earth and to kinship issues, that threaten the narrative richness of a subject's life as well as the way she situates herself in the world.