Attributed to Dasavanta. Amr, Disguised as Mazmahil the Surgeon, Practices Quackery on the Sorcerers of Antali, ca. 1570. Opaque watercolor and gold on cotton,
mounted on paper, 31 x 25 in. (78.7 x 63.5cm). Brooklyn Museum, Caroline H. Polhemus Fund, 24.49 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 24.49_detail_IMLS_SL2.jpg)
Issues of Language and Culture in Bioethics Teaching
Farid Bin Masood
Part-time Faculty Member, CBEC-SIUT
This video is an extension of the article “Language and Bioethics” written by CBEC faculty member, Farid bin Masood. In the video, Farid discusses how our perceptions of the world are influenced by the languages we speak which are reciprocally shaped by our lived realities. He comments on the difficulties in translating a text from one language to another and points out that the evolution of bioethics is imbued with the cultural and social context of the time and space in which it originated.
In the context of bioethics, he points out the difficulties in teaching the notions often regarded as universal principles of bioethics in different cultures and languages. Issues of language and difficulties in translating some bioethics concepts are highlighted by excerpts from interviews with two other faculty members, (Ali Asghar Lanewala and Nida Wahid Bashir), who talk about their experience of teaching bioethics and discuss the importance of incorporating local language and culture into their teaching.