3rd Global Conference

Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers

Thursday 2nd December - Saturday 4th December 2004
Vienna, Austria

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research and publications project aims to create a forum for examining the links between living and dying, and some of the contradictions and paradoxes which arise that we appear to accept without question.

For 2004, special preference will be given to papers dealing with issues surrounding the death of the unborn (e.g., stillbirth, miscarriage, pre-natal death, death in utero) and death by violence (to self as well as others). These issues – and the links between them - have so far been largely neglected in interdisciplinary conferences and publications. Yet it is only in such settings that the arbitrary curtailment of human life can be fully explored in all its forms and implications. The Steering Committee wish to encourage a forum which offers the possibility of bringing to the fore much of the full significance of these matters for the human condition today.

Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are also warmly invited on any of the following indicative themes (or their combinations):

1. Kinds of Deaths: for instance, euthanasia, abortion, suicide, homicide, neonatal and infant death, accidents, natural disasters, sudden death, terminal illness/death, capital punishment, acts of terrorism; death of a child, parent, spouse.

2. Philosophical, Ethical and Religious Issues in Dying and Death ; the nature of dying and death (e.g. does an aborted foetus die?); philosophies of dying and death; grounds for justifying and/or condoning death (e.g., suicide, euthanasia); the difference between seeking death and facing death bravely. When is living to be feared more than death - or vice versa? Facing, or even choosing, death in order to kill others. Concepts of afterlife and their influence on the dying, theologies of death, near death experiences; faith and secularism in death rituals; the role of hope, expiation and forgiveness.

3. Bereavement; Grief, loss and anger; ‘models' and theories of grief and their adequacy with respect to different kinds of deaths; can grief be shared? Grief counselling and grief therapy; forms of remembrance, sites of remembrance, what do they reveal and what might they conceal?

4. The Representation of Dying and Death - art, all forms of literature, cinema, music, radio and television; death and dying in children's literature; children's concepts of mortality, violence and death.

5. Contradictions and Paradoxes: examples may include sudden death Vs our ability or desire to postpone death; horror at genocide Vs our appetite for films about ending lives in violent ways; respect for horror and grief Vs the tendency to wallow in their “mediatised” forms; terrorism Vs warfare; being informed Vs being de-sensitised by the media.

6. Technology, Dying and Death; the impact of advances in medical technology; social expectations of medical possibilities; the double-edged sword - technology as helper Vs technology as killer (e.g., lethal injection, vaginal aspiration, gas chambers).

7. The Management of Dying and Death. Hospitals and the limits of responsibility, e.g. (the imposition of) intensive care and aggressive treatment for dying patients; unacknowledged euthanasia; ageing and dying; care homes or waiting rooms for death; the hospice movement; limits to the humanising of death; whose decisions?

8. Legal Issues in Dying and Death; legal definitions of death, court rulings and decisions, the right to die, natural death and brain death statutes, advance directives and living wills; organ donation, organ transplantation; who ‘owns’ the corpse?

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 3rd September 2004. If accepted for presentation, 8 page draft conference papers should be submitted by Friday 19th November 2004. Abstracts should be submitted to Dr Rob Fisher and will be reviewed by the Organising Committee;

Abstracts should be submitted by email in Word, WordPerfect, PDF or RTF formats; alternatively the abstract may be placed in the body of the email.

The conference is the third in an annual series of research projects, run under the banner ‘Making Sense Of:' Other 'Making Sense Of:' projects include Making Sense of: Issues at the Beginning of Life and Making Sense of Health, Illness and Disease; in 2005, three new projects will launch - Making Sense Of: Stress and Depression, and Making Sense Of: Humour and Healing, and Making Sense of: Persons. It aims to create working encounter groups between people of differing perspectives, disciplines, professions, and contexts.

A themed hard copy volume has been published from the first meeting of this project; an ISBN eBook has been published and a hard copy themed volumed is in preparation from the second conference. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be published in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be published in a hard copy themed volume(s).