Bioethics, Biopower, Biopolitics

Catalog description

This course will examine in a bioethical context a variety of ways relations of power and values intersect. Bioethics, Biopower, and Biopolitics will develop an understanding of bioethics by considering the ways people's lives interconnect and the relations of power that infuse and often control these interconnections. The goal is to expand the use of the term "bioethics" beyond the scope of medical practice and institutions and to bring it to bear on a much wider scope of life. We will consider options for understanding the meaning of "bioethics" by reference to the interplay of values and relations of power that more or less enhance human lives by the practices and policies that form, control, or liberate them.