Bioethics, Storytelling and Sound: Immersing Ourselves in Bioethical Vignettes

Saturday, 9-10:15 a.m.

Performance/Exhibition

Presenters: Lauren Arora Hutchinson, Jeffrey Kahn

This exhibition will demonstrate how the affordances of new technologies and immersive storytelling (or ‘story living’) can help us re-think methodologies in case-based bioethics and bioethics communication. Whether this is teaching, influencing policymakers, communicating to patients or delivering findings to broad audiences.

For many years Bioethicists have utilized the tools of vignettes: brief evocative descriptions, accounts or episodes to communicate their work to peers, students and patients; but this work has been almost exclusively written. In this event, audience members will be invited to critically reflect on what happens given that we can now enable the recipient (collaborator, patient, research subject or audience) of these bioethical vignettes to immerse themselves in these vignettes, through sound or spatial storytelling. What futures of bioethics can they imagine? In what ways does this energize the future (without forgetting the past)? What space does this provide for inclusive public discourse?

This exhibition will showcase the work of the first year of a new creative lab based at a prominent Bioethics institution focused on innovative ways of communicating bioethics. This exhibition will demonstrate how storytellers, journalists, creators and bioethicists can work together to elevate the stories, and the role such work can have in bioethics scholarship and public communication about bioethics. It will have a particular focus on storytelling in sound and will share examples of projects coming out of the lab such as podcasts, documentaries, apps and immersive projects.

Moral Histories: Experience a Podcast and Oral History Archive to Engage with the Past and Inform the Future

Saturday, 1:15-2:30 p.m.

Performance/Exhibition

Presenters: Anna Mastroianni, Lauren Arora Hutchinson, Amelia Hood, Jeffrey Kahn

This innovative audio exhibition provides a guided introduction to two new publicly available resources—an oral history collection from the founding voices of bioethics, and a related multi-episode narrative podcast. The two freely available resources are designed to support scholarly research and teaching as well as public education and engagement in bioethics. We will introduce participants to these unique resources by offering shared listening opportunities. Several audio installations will be provided for listening and audience feedback. Attendees will be encouraged to think creatively about potential uses of the collection in scholarship and teaching, and will be asked for feedback on the project to date, and for suggestions for future oral history interviews and podcast topics. Feedback will be obtained through live polling during the session, additional Q&A and discussion, and live online exchange and feedback.

Moral Histories is a new oral history collection that captures the personal stories of founding figures in American bioethics. Conducted by a professional oral historian, the archived audio and transcribed long form interviews enlighten lay and professional audiences about bioethics history and the motivations of the founding generation of an increasingly influential area of study, policy analysis, and public influence.

Moral Histories supports and informs a new globally distributed bioethics podcast series, playing god?. Co-produced with a leading podcast production company, Pushkin Industries, the series examines bioethics issues through compelling real-life stories of the past and present, and imagines what bioethics issues we can expect in our futures.