We are pleased to announce that the 38th lecture of our online series will be given by Professor emerita Bonnie B. O’Connor (Brown University, Providence, RI, USA) on Friday, 7th of November, 2025 at 17:00 Central European Time (CET). Her talk is titled Dead and/or Alive: Professional and Vernacular Discourses on Brain Death and Their Implications for Family Experience and Health Care Ethics.
Please find the abstract, the speaker’s short bio and link (with password) to the zoom meeting below and on the attached poster.
Topic: BNN online lecture by Bonnie O’Connor
Time: Nov 7, 2025 05:00 PM Vienna
Join Zoom Meeting: https://usc.zoom.us/j/98414319528?pwd=stBbYxx0gabyH5A8IsPTsr4peucZzb.1
Meeting ID: 984 1431 9528
Passcode: 387821
We will open the Zoom session ten minutes in advance; do come in and say hello. Please keep in mind that it helps if you use your name as the Zoom handle (rather than an abbreviation or alias, etc). Thank you!
Please pay attention to the time-zone related time difference and that it is Central European Time (CET). For your local time please check: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/cet
We would like to thank Jessica A. Turner and the American Folklore Society for supporting the event. We are also very grateful to our colleague Tok Thompson and the Department of Anthropology of the University of South California for their technical support.
Abstract
In 1968 a committee of the Harvard Medical School published a definition of “Irreversible Coma” as a manner of human death, expanding the common-parlance definition of death to include new criteria now referred to as “Brain Death.”. This presentation addresses assumptions inherent in the committee’s definition as these have shaped ensuing decades of professional and public discourse on death, organ transplant medicine, law, public policy, and bioethics – contrasting these with vernacular responses to and experiences with family members on life support, and more recently, increasing numbers of family challenges to having a loved one declared “Brain Dead.”
Speaker’s bio
Bonnie B. O’Connor, PhD is Professor emerita in the Department of Pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. A folklorist by training and credential, she is an ethnographer and career medical educator whose research focuses on cultural and cross-cultural issues in health care, health belief and behavior, health care communication, and bioethics. She has served as a multicultural specialist on hospital ethics committees for 30 years, participating in policy formulation and in in clinical ethics consultation and mediation in safety-critical, high-consequence and emotionally charged situations.
Flyer_BNN online lecture_7 Nov 2025_OConnor
You can check the schedule of the BNN online lectures in the coming months of 2025 at the ISFNR BNN website here: https://isfnr.org/online-lectures/ You are welcome to share the invitation and the poster with your colleagues, students, and on social media.
