14.09.2006
The University of Brighton's new Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE) is launched next week with a major international conference which investigates the troubled relationship between medicine and politics.
On Thursday 21 and Friday 22 of September 60 delegates from around the world, including New Zealand, Canada, the USA, gather to debate the tangled webs of state and corporate power, medical and ethical dilemmas concerning life and death, the gradual privatisation of the NHS, and the difficult questions concerning personal health that all individuals face.
The conference titled 'Medicine and the Body Politic' will be opened by Vice-Chancellor Professor Julian Crampton. Highlights include keynote addresses by Professor of Human Rights at LSE, Conor Gearty, and an address by Professor of Medical Ethics and Humanities at Birkbeck, Donna Dickenson. Professor Dickenson will explore the commodification of bodies and body parts, critically assessing the development of property rights in the body.
The conference is particularly timely given the various arguments about the NHS in Britain, and the different ways in which public-private partnerships have delivered control over health to an alliance of government and private organisations. Professor Colin Leys will address this issue directly in his keynote address 'What's Wrong with the NHS.'
The new centre (CAPPE) continues a long history at the university of developing academic work not only with colleagues across the university, but also with other institutions and individuals across the public and private sector. The centre regards philosophy as a critical tool which helps to illuminate the failures of contemporary societies, and engages practically with their resolution.
The intention is that it should function in an inter-disciplinary way and adopt a public role, supported by the delivery of teaching and research. During the following academic year the centre will develop an MA in Ethics, organise a second conference on 'The Politics of Terror', and participate in establishing a research network investigating radical alternatives to the current consensus on public policy and politics. This will include a number of other universities and organisations in local communities.
Anyone interested in the centre can visit the website www.brighton.ac.uk/cappe or contact Mark Devenney or Bob Brecher.
Contact: Marketing and Communications, University of Brighton, 01273 643022
