Deadline is Monday, September 1, 2010

Administrative Team: Teresia Hinga (Coordinator), Ron Mercier, Mari Rapela Heidt

Call for Papers:

The Bioethics/Healthcare Topic Session invites proposals that address the issue of “Holy Poverty? Bioethics, Sainthood, and the Ethical Scandal of Extreme Poverty.”

One of the most fundamental and enduring challenges in the contemporary globalized world is the escalating crisis and scandal of extreme poverty.  Millions of people, particularly in the global south, live without sustainable food, water, shelter, and clothing. In turn, this lack of life sustaining basics leaves the poor vulnerable to what have been described as “diseases of poverty” and allied complications. Thus, poverty itself is increasingly an urgent bioethicaland healthcare issue.  In a culture – and world – in which healthcare has become a technological commodity for sale, a commodity that is out of reach for millions who are impoverished and marginalized, the call to discipleship as “saintliness” in service to the poor has a very particular resonance.  If, as Sobrino says, the vulnerable and impoverished are “the crucified ones,” who exemplify a “saintliness of suffering,” then care for those too often excluded or marginalized certainly exemplifies Christian witness and saintliness.

Too often, however, bioethics is done with little reference to faith traditions, let alone to the notions of saintliness and paradigms of virtue embedded in these traditions.  Too often, contemporary bioethical debates focus narrowly on morality of the use or abuse of biotechnologies.  Such debates leave little room for concepts and ethical models like “saintliness.”  Yet, if saintliness is about a witness to and expression of Christian discipleship, the broader questions of bioethics, especially those associated with justice or the lack of it in the provision of care, call for reflection on saintly paradigms of Christian witness and discipleship through service to the poor.

Paper proposals might address the contemporary challenges to prophetic, saintly healthcare ministries for and with the poor and marginalized, and emerging paradigms of sainthood suggested by such ministries.  Paper proposals might explore what alternative models of sainthood as service to the poor are demanded when charitable institutions that serve the poor, like St. Vincent Hospital, close due to the “logic of the market”?  What new models of Christian virtue and saintliness are emerging from efforts to respond to the challenges of global health crises, including poverty itself? What notions of saintly charism might be emerging for our times that recognize the poor not merely as recipients of care but also moral agents, and even saints and martyrs themselves as they courageously and resiliently confront anti-life forces in their contexts?  How might the prophetic thought and practice of people like Paul Farmer constitute an example of saintliness in healthcare service?

Proposals should be between 200-500 words and include the author’s name, institution, and contact information.  The deadline for submission is September 1, 2010.  Notification of acceptance for presentation will be given by September 24, 2010.  A maximum of three papers will be selected for the session.  Please articulate in the proposal any audio-visual support required.  Authors of accepted papers must submit a 100 word précis by October 6.  Recall that CTSA policy limits presenters to one speaking role on the convention program.  Please send proposals to Teresia Hinga, Santa Clara University, at thinga@scu.edu.

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Download this call for papers (pdf format, word format)