Full Title: Reconsidering Suicide: A Morbid Approach

Speakers:

• C Dalrymple-Fraser (they/them), PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy and Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto, Canada.

About this Seminar:

Although quantitative research has not yet generated a clear consensus on how the coronavirus pandemic has influenced rates of death by suicide, the dominant public narrative in Canada is that suicide rates have declined during COVID-19, against initial expectations. However, even if we grant that this data and narrative are accurate, a decline in suicide fatalities does not entail that our suicide situation has by any means ‘improved’ or been ‘reduced’. This presentation argues that a preoccupation with mortality in discussions and studies of suicide serves to obscure the urgency and reach of suicide, while misrepresenting the extended temporal nature of the phenomenon. Taking up the case of COVID-19 suicides, this presentation offers a more global critique against contemporary metrics and norms of suicidological research, policy, and action. A more comprehensive response to the phenomenon of suicide, I argue, requires that we take a more morbid approach.

Additional Details:

This event is free and is open to the general public.

The direct link to the seminar will be sent out to registered participants 2 hours before the event. The JCB Bioethics Seminars are now being live-streamed to our YouTube channel. If you don't receive the link 2 hours before the event, please head over there and click on the live stream. Subscribe to our channel to receive notices of upcoming events.

Questions?

Please email Terry Yuen, jcb.ea@utoronto.ca.