Is Henrietta Lacks Really Immortal?

Date & Time

Wed, 04/04/2012

5:30pm-7:00pm

Overview

The “Immortal Life” of Henrietta Lacks asks us to consider if a woman who has been dead for 60 years remains in some sense “alive” because descendants of her cells continue to exist and propagate. This claim captures the complex ethical and legal issues at the heart of the book: What does it mean to be “alive”? Are human beings just a complex collection of cells, or are we something more? And how does our answer to this question help us delineate our constitutionally protected rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?

These questions do not arise in a scientific or legal vacuum. Any discussion of the nature of life, personhood, and especially immortality must occur within the framework of philosophical and theological/religious assumptions, and such premises are not always fully clear or easily understood. At this forum, a panel of eminent religious scholars will explore the philosophical and theological roots of ethical and legal issues in the Lacks story, and in the process, they will look closely at views from major world religions of the East and West about what constitutes human life, human being, death and immortality.

Speaker

Mark Mann, Moderator

Point Loma Nazarene University

Dr. Mark H. Mann has served as Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Wesleyan Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Point Loma Nazarene University since 2008. Previous to this, Mark was a faculty member at Colgate University, where he also served as chaplain (he has been actively involved in church ministry since the early 1990s). Mark's chief area of scholarly interest is Christian theology in its engagement with contemporary culture, science, and world religions, as expressed in his 'Perfecting Grace: Christian Holiness and the Human Sciences' (Continuum, 2007).

Michael Lodahl

Professor of Theology and World Religions, Point Loma Nazarene University

Dr. Michael Lodahl is Professor of Theology and World Religions at Point Loma Nazarene University, where he has taught since 1999. As arguably the preeminent theologian of the Church of the Nazarene, Michael has published on a wide variety of theologically related topics. His popular 'Story of God: A Narrative Theology' is currently in its second edition with Beacon Hill Press (2008) and he is currently working on a follow-up to his critically acclaimed 'Claiming Abraham: Reading the Bible and the Qur'an Side by Side' (Brazos, 2010). Michael is a popular and engaging speaker who is frequently asked to speak on a variety of theological and ethical topics to audiences around the world.

Khaleel Mohammed

Associate Professor of Religion, San Diego State University

Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, an Islamic law specialist, is associate professor of Religion at San Diego State University (SDSU) and a core faculty member of SDSU's Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies. He is author of numerous publications in topics such as Islamic and Arabic studies, Islamic law (classical and modern), comparative religion, Jewish/Christian/Islamic encounter, Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, gender/sex issues and sexuality in Islam, terrorism, antisemitism in Islam, Arab-Israeli relations, and reform in Islam. Mohammed teaches courses on World Religions, The Qur'an, Religious Violence and Non-Violence, Sex and Gender in Islam. and Abrahamic Religions.

Karma Lekshe Tsomo

Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego

Dr. Karma Lekshe Tsomo is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. Her primary academic interests include women in Buddhism, Buddhism and bioethics, religion and cultural change, and Buddhism in the United States. In addition to her academic work, she is actively involved in interfaith dialogue and in grassroots initiatives for the empowerment of women. She is president of Sakyadhita: International Association of Buddhist Women (www.sakyadhita.org) and director of Jamyang Foundation (www.jamyang.org), an initiative to provide educational opportunities for women in the Indian Himalayas and Bangladesh. She is author of numerous books, including most recently, 'Into the Jaws of Yama: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death' (SUNY Press, 2006) and 'Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women, A Comparative Analysis of the Dharmagupta and Mulasarvastivada Bhiksuni Pratimoksa Sutras' (SUNY Press, 1996).