Skip to content

Alberto Giubilini

Equity in Global Health: reflections from the Humanities

Authors: Alberto Giubilini (philosophy), Caesar Atuire (philosophy), Sloan Mahone (history), Ann Kelly (anthropology), Tolulope Osayomi (medical geography) Report of the Medical Humanities workshop held on 7th November 2025 at the University of Oxford This interdisciplinary workshop wanted to explore the contribution that the humanities can make to global health, and indeed emphasize their necessary role… Read More »Equity in Global Health: reflections from the Humanities

(Bio)technology and what makes us human

Andrew Moeller, Faculty of History Alberto Giubilini, Uehiro Oxford Institute Themes from the conference “Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Identity” (Medical Humanities Programme) Crossposted from TORCH Medical Humanities The conference “Biotechnologies, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Identity” brought together a crowded room to hear 12 speakers engage in lively discussion on whether and how technologies such… Read More »(Bio)technology and what makes us human

Image credit: Health care workers at an mpox treatment center near Goma, Congo, on Aug. 17, 2024. Photo by Guerchom Ndebo / AFP via Getty Images.

Humanising the Global Response to MPox: Lessons from COVID-19 and the Humanities?

Utsa Bose (Faculty of History, University of Oxford); Alberto Giubilini (Uehiro Oxford Institute, University of Oxford) Tolulope Osayomi (Department of Geography, University of Ibadan; AfOx-TORCH Visiting Fellow, University of Oxford) Crossposted from TORCH Medical Humanities Blog. This post is also the basis of a workshop on 21 November 2024, to be held at the University of… Read More »Humanising the Global Response to MPox: Lessons from COVID-19 and the Humanities?

The Fruits of Moral Disagreement: Conversations and Questions from the Inaugural Ethox-Uehiro Workshop on Moral Disagreement

By Tess Johnson (Ethox Centre) and Alberto Giubilini (Uehiro Oxford Institute) On the 11th of June, 2024, members of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics (soon to become Uehiro Oxford Institute) and the Ethox gathered at St. Anne’s College for an afternoon discussion on the nature, value, and disvalue of moral disagreement, as part… Read More »The Fruits of Moral Disagreement: Conversations and Questions from the Inaugural Ethox-Uehiro Workshop on Moral Disagreement

(artwork and pictures by Anna Dumitriu)

Communication, Narratives and Antimicrobial Resistance

by Alberto Giubilini,  Sally Frampton,  Tess Johnson,  Will Matlock  Originally published one the TORCH Medical Humanities website The conference Communication, Narratives and Antimicrobial Resistance took place on the 16th of May at Merton College, Oxford, as part of the TORCH Medical Humanities programme and with the generous contribution of the John Fell Fund and the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical… Read More »Communication, Narratives and Antimicrobial Resistance

(Bio)technologies, human identity, and the Medical Humanities

Introducing two journal special issues and a conference Written by Alberto Giubilini Two special issues of the journals Bioethics and Monash Bioethics Review will be devoted to, respectively, “New (Bio)technology and Human Identity” and “Medical Humanities in the 21st Century” (academic readers, please consider submitting an article). Here I would like to briefly explain why… Read More »(Bio)technologies, human identity, and the Medical Humanities

Medical assistance in dying: what are we talking about?

Alberto Giubilini

Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Medical assistance in dying  – or “MAiD”,  to use the somehow infelicitous acronym – is likely to be a central topic in bioethics this year. That might not be true of bioethics as an academic field, where MAiD has been widely discussed over the past 40 years. But it is likely true of bioethics as a wider societal and political area of discussion. There are two reasons to think this.  First, the topic has attracted a lot of attention the last year, especially with “slippery slope” concerns around Canada’s policies. Second, MAiD has recently been in the news in the UK, where national elections will take place in 2024.  It is not hard to imagine it will feature in the heated political polarization that always accompanies election campaigns.

Little can be done to prevent that kind of polarization. However, some clarity about the different issues at stake might help to steer clear of unnecessary quarrels and focus on the relevant points of disagreement. Without claiming to be exhaustive, here I want to try to take some step in that direction.Read More »Medical assistance in dying: what are we talking about?