University of New England

The Crosley Lecture

The Crosley Lecture in Ethics has been given since 1984. The purpose of the lecture series is to bring distinguished scholars to the University of New England to address ethical issues in contemporary life.

The UNE Crosley Lecture is an annual endowed lecture created to honor the Rev. Marion Crosley and his wife, Mehitable Adelia Swift Crosley. The Rev. Crosley was a Universalist minister who lived in Portland from 1885 to 1889 and served on the board of the Westbrook Seminary, which later became Westbrook College, which merged with the University of New England in 1996.

Over the past 20 years, the Crosley Lecture Series has stimulated students, faculty and other members of the Maine community to think about topics in ethics such as a world-wide ethical system, corporate conscience, genetic engineering, patients' rights and physician-assisted suicide.

Recent Lectures

Monday, March 24, 2008
Walter Glannon, Ph.D.
Canada Research Chair in Medical Bioethics and Ethical Theory at the University of Calgary
“Neuroethics: The Promises and Pitfalls of Intervening in the Brain”

Walter Glannon is Canada Research Chair in Medical Bioethics and Ethical Theory at the University of Calgary, where he is associate professor of philosophy and associate professor of community health sciences.  He is the author of Bioethics and the Brain and editor of Defining Right and Wrong in Brain Science: Essential Readings in Neuroethics. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University. More ...

Friday, March 30, 2007
William R. LaFleur, Ph.D.
Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Pennsylvania
"Bodies Owned, Disowned and Desired: Japan's Debates about Bioethics"

Author of The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan (1986) and Liquid Life (1992), a widely-cited book on the differing perspectives of Japan and the U.S. on abortion, Dr. LaFleur is an E. Dale Saunders Professor in Japanese Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His specialty lies in the study of Japan, particularly comparisons between Japan and the United States in the areas of religion, public philosophy and social ethics. He was the first non-Japanese to be awarded the Watsuji Tetsurô Culture Prize. Dr. LaFleur is also a Senior Fellow at Penn's Center for Bioethics.
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Friday, April 28, 2006
Carl Elliott, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.
“American Medicine Meets the American Dream”

Carl Elliott has written widely on ethical issues, including his most recent book Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream (2203) and for high-profile publications such as Atlantic Monthly. In 2004, he was co-editor of Prozac as a Way of Life.  He is professor in the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota. He also teaches in the school’s medical school and philosophy department.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H.
Edward R. Utley Professor and chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health
"Genetics, Bioethics and Human Rights: Privacy, Property and the Post Human"

Professor Annas is author of American Bioethics: Crossing Human Rights and Health Law. A philosopher, scholar and author, Professor Annas has written 13 books and a play, and since 1991, written a regular feature on legal issues in medicine for the New England Journal of Medicine. He is ranked as the nation's most cited law professor in the field of health law.
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