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| The Spirit Ambulance: Choreographing the End of Life in Thailand
DATE: February 23, 2022 (Wednesday)
The Spirit Ambulance (University of California Press 2020) is a journey into decision-making at the end of life in Thailand, where families attempt to craft good deaths for their elders in the face of clashing ethical frameworks generated by high-tech medical care, human-rights politics, and Buddhist metaphysics. Scott Stonington’s gripping ethnography documents how Thai families attempt to pay back a “debt of life” to their elders through intensive medical care, followed by a medically assisted rush from the hospital to home to ensure a spiritually advantageous last breath. The result is a powerful exploration of the nature of death and the complexities arising from the globalization of biomedical expertise and ethics around the world. Speaker: Scott Stonington MD & PhD (Assistant Professor of Anthropology & Internal Medicine, University of Michigan) Scott Stonington MD & PhD is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan, a hospitalist at the VA Medical Center, and a primary care physician at the Neighborhood Family Health Center in Ypsilanti, Michigan. In addition to his first book The Spirit Ambulance, Dr. Stonington has also published extensively in social medicine, most recently as lead editor of “Case Studies in Social Medicine” in the New England Journal of Medicine, the first series in a major medical journal devoted to social theory. Discussant: Jean Langford PhD (Professor Emerita of Cultural Anthropology, University of Minnesota) Jean M. Langford PhD is Professor Emerita of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Consoling Ghosts: Stories of Medicine and Mourning from Southeast Asians in Exile (Duke 2013) and Fluent Bodies: Ayurvedic Remedies for Postcolonial Imbalance (Duke 2002), and well as numerous articles. Her book manuscript in progress, Animal Becomings: Improvising Life in Captivity, explores the psychic creativity of sanctuary animals as it emerges through practices of care and self-care. Moderator: Priscilla Song PhD (Associate Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, HKU)
Co-hosted by: Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, HKU Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, HKU All are welcome. Please register and the Zoom link will be sent to you prior to the event. For enquiries, please contact Mr. Adrian Kam by email at adkam@hku.hk or by phone at +852 39172867. Visit our website: https://chm.hku.hk/
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