Hildreth-Mirza Hall, 101/102 - Great Room

Health Humanities Event - Reading Group / Speaker Thursday, March 6, 2025 4:30p-6:00p Hildreth-Mirza Hall, Great Room 101 Speaker: Ashley Shew is an associate professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. Bio: Her work is in philosophy of technology at its intersection with animal studies, disability studies, bioethics, and emerging technologies. She is author of Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge (2017) and Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (2023). Shew loved her medical humanities minor in undergrad, and is excited to hang out with Health Humanities people at Bucknell! Talk Title: Cyborgs in Corporate Care Abstract: Being a cyborg can be dangerous - with parts of your body owned, managed, maintained by companies. To be cyborg is to be tracked and surveilled, and to be misunderstood and misread. This talk centers disabled experiences of technology and care, looking at important real cases of cyborgs made more vulnerable by their participation in the "proper" systems of technology research and design, development, maintenance, health, and infrastructure. Technologies for disability are nearly always cast as life-changing (and sometimes they are), but there's a lot that is obscured by our typical narratives about technology and disability. We need more context of understanding to see the structural factors that guide disabled technology use, and shape our lives. Specific cases include a bionic-eye company gone belly-up, a life-changing brain-implant forcibly removed, state systems for attendant care, and more. We need this context and these cases to reimagine our systems of technology and care, and to arrive at a better understanding of disability and healthcare. Shew will mention AI at some point, if you are working up a bingo sheet of academic hot topics.

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