Our Brains, Our Selves - Aarhus Mirror Workshop
Historical and Ethnographic Approaches to the New Brain Sciences
A European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN) event
held in conjunction with the Global Minds Conference, University of Aarhus
Global Minds Conference
November 28 - November 29
ENSN Workshop
November 30 - December 1, 2008
The European Neuroscience and Society Network is pleased to announce a two-day workshop to be held from November 30 - December 1 in Aarhus, Denmark. Held in conjunction with the 'Global Minds' conference at the University of Aarhus, the event builds on the recent success of our 'Our Brains, Our Selves' workshop at Harvard University. The Aarhus 'Our Brains, Our Selves' workshop mirrors the format and themes of the Harvard event for early-career European researchers. We particularly welcome proposals for individual papers employing historical and ethnographic approaches to the new brain sciences; however, we are also happy to consider other papers which engage with the social, ethical and legal implications of modern neuroscience research.
Workshop Focus
Recent years have seen increased conversation in the public sphere about the startling and profound effects that new neuroscientific technologies and capabilities are likely to have on society, as an array of innovative technoscience – from imaging techniques to new psychopharmaceuticals to dramatic laboratory findings – yields new ways of understanding and acting upon the personal and the social. On front pages and web pages, debates about topics such as willpower and addiction, and biological determinism and freedom, appear to acquire new significance in the face of novel neurotechnologies. Universities as well as private corporations are creating well-funded institutes for neuroscience research, and promote experimentation in a range of fields. We are constantly confronted with broad claims that this research will change our human ‘nature’, offer new ways of treating disease, and open up new (and possibly ‘post-human’) futures. Often in these public debates, either “ethics experts” pronounce truths from a particular moral stance, or journalists offer suggestive, but generally superficial, views. And yet there are alternatives to grand assertions and alarmist rhetoric, such as the close-study approaches favoured by many historians, sociologists, and anthropologists. This workshop is intended to bring together scholars whose work addresses ethical, legal and social dimensions of neuroscience, and may help us to better understand why it is so vigorously asserted that we are on the cusp of immense changes in human and social forms.
Full papers (6000 words) will be circulated prior to the event.
Location
Sunday: Meeting Room 1, Studenternes Hus, Building 1420
Monday: Meeting Room 2, Studenternes Hus, Building 1420
Map (both): http://www.au.dk/en/tilknyt/studhus/map.htm
EVENT PARTICIPANTS
INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPANTS
For further information email ensn@lse.ac.uk
