From medieval medical tools and methodologies to modern analyses of health care access for women and marginalized groups, our scholars bring context and new connections to a topic that is both contentious yet necessary to daily life and humanity's existence.

The right-to-die debate has gone on for centuries, playing out most recently as a spectacle of protest surrounding figures such as Terry Schiavo. Focusing on the concepts of human dignity and the sanctity of life, Scott Cutler Shershow employs Derridean deconstruction to uncover self-contradictory and damaging assumptions that underlie both sides of the debate.