Events

Saturday, December 20th

2:00 PM // Performance of A Christmas Carol
Post-Show Discussion in the Event Room – Second Floor

Immediately following the performance, join Emory Center for Ethics Director, John Lysaker, and community leaders as they discuss a special holiday themed topic from A Christmas Carol, The Spirit of Giving: What did Scrooge Learn?

This 30 minute conversation will engage the audience to discuss what the primary takeaways are from Scrooge’s journey and what comparisons we can make to giving and supporting our community in today’s world.

For tickets and more information.

John Lysaker, Director of Emory University Center for Ethics
John is the William R. Kenan University Professor at Emory University and Director of its Center for Ethics. Educated at Kenyon College and Vanderbilt University, he also has taught at the University of Oregon. His central interest remains the good life writ large and various phenomena that enable and/or frustrate its emergence, including the nature and import of art, serious mental illness, and friendship. Because ethical life courses through a wide field of usages and images, his work engages historical texts as well as contemporary philosophers alongside and in dialogue with poets, songwriters, musicians, and painters.

Jonathan Halitsky, Backpack Buddies of Metro Atlanta
Jonathan has always been around food and drink. As a kid, he’d “help” his wine salesman father at tasting events while expanding his taste buds by dining at his father’s upscale restaurant accounts. Meanwhile, his art teacher mother instilled a flair for the creative. At Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, Jonathan honed his communication skills, leading him to launch his career in Marketing and Advertising in New York City.

Developing expertise in Sports and Entertainment event marketing, Jonathan and his Atlanta-native wife Rachel made the move South to begin a family, which now includes 12-year-old daughter Hazel and puppy Griffin. For over a decade, Jonathan led events for major brands such as AT&T, Cupcake Vineyards, and ConAgra Foods at major events including NCAA Final Four, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Wrestlemania, and the Tribeca Film Festival.

After a mid-career sabbatical, Jonathan returned to his culinary roots to launch JRB’s BBQ, Atlanta’s personal BBQ chef, and BBQ coach. He serves Backpack Buddies with that same passion for the power that food has to impact lives.

When not at the smoker or the Backpack Buddies facility, Jonathan can be found playing tennis in one of several leagues, building legos with his daughter, traveling the world with his wife, or giving belly rubs to his pup.

SAVE THE DATE! 

Date/Time: Wed Jan 28, 2026, 6:30-8:00 pm

Location: Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, First Floor

One of our "character in the curriculum" initiatives, Creative Conscience partners with the Integrated Visual Arts Program to help students explore a virtue over the course of ARTVIS 103: Intro Drawing & Printmaking. This year, students will explore compassion, considering how it might be expressed, depicted, or enacted in their work. The works generated by the students in three sections of this class will be reviewed by the instructors as well as Laura Asherman and a subset will be selected for a show opening at the Center on Wednesday, January 28, 2026.

SAVE THE DATE: Feb 9, 2026, Time TBA

Watch here for more information.

Location: Emory Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Room 102

In partnership with Alliance Theatre, we organize events that draw conversations about ethics from storylines. The purpose of Ethics on the Stage is to create a space for deeper engagement through media, whether it's a performance, reading, or panel discussion. 

Join Center ethicists as they explore, through moderated public scholarship, the ethical and social implications of Fires, Ohio with the audience in this fascinating perspective on the play.

Inspired by the classic family drama Uncle Vanya, FIRES, OHIO brings an old story into our painfully absurd present, exploring how today’s most toxic forces impact our everyday lives.

Thurs, Feb 12, 2026; 2:30-4:30 pm

Emory Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322

Room 102

Much as certain words are prohibited because they are deemed dangerous or degrading, some images are also considered too threatening to produce, distribute, or view.

• Some think the Pernkopf Atlas, a book of anatomy drawn from Nazi victims, should continue to be used it Schools of Medicine, while others consider it verboten.
• Religions like Islam and Jainism, and indigenous communities like those at Etowah, consider images powerful, yet some images are deemed forbidden. Why?
• What is a museum’s responsibility to the truth? Should museums refrain from putting out objects that may be objectionable or sensitive, or should they in the interest of the truth be more inclined to do so?
• Cartographers often deliberately hide what’s in plain sight. Who decides what to obscure?

What is the nature of such illicit images? What fears or concerns justify forbidding them? Though beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, some images flirt with truth and justice, while deepfakes misconstrue and lead astray. Join us for a heartfelt conversation about controlling—even banning—what we might see.

Special Guests:

Laura Asherman, MFA, Dir, Ethics & the Arts Program

Ellen Gough, PhD, Assoc Prof, Dept of Religion

Jim Hoesterey, PhD, Chair, Dept of Religion

Henry Kim, MPhil, Dir, M. C. Carlos Museum

Adam King, PhD, Dir, SC Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology

Lance Waller, PhD, Chair, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, RSPH

Ali Zarrabi, MD, Assistant Prof, Emory School of Medicine

To Register and More Information

2026 Healthcare Ethics Consortium (HEC) Annual Conference

The Stories We Tell: Putting Ethics Into Practice in Caring For Our Patients, Our Colleagues, Ourselves

Date/Time: March 23 & 24, 2026

Location: Virtual and In-Person at the Emory Conference Center

In a healthcare environment punctuated by a lack of patient trust, increased burdens on providers, and the unprecedented incorporation of technology into care delivery, we are called to attend to the ethical questions that arise in stories in the patient-provider relationship.

While considering current tensions and values present in the delivery of care, we will explore ways in which listening to the stories of patients and healthcare professionals (narrative practice) can improve care for patients, restore the humanity of providers, and empower both to advocate for change.

Through hands-on skill-building, we will dive deeply into the power of sharing and understanding narratives to build trust and empathy, enhance effective patient care, better support vulnerable patients, & mitigate burnout in healthcare professionals.

Date/Time: Sep 4, 2025 - 7:00 pm

Location: Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Room 252

SPECIAL GUESTS

David Harrington, Violinist, Founding Member of the Kronos Quartet, Kluge Chair in Modern Culture, Library of Congress.

John Fenn, Head of Research and Programs at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

One of the Center's aims is to bring thoughtful people into conversation, so they talk through their efforts to be conscientious in a particular domain. This event arose from the thought that "appropriation" is a term to mark a failure of appropriately acknowledging one's creative sources, where "appropriate" might involve showing respect for, being generous with, even honoring the source, whether a person or a tradition.

The founding question for this event is thus: Beyond honest credits, how does one acknowledge, even honor the artists and cultural traditions that any artist inevitably relies upon in generating their own work?

Program Video

Date/Time: Sep 11, 2025 - 7:00 pm

Location: Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Room 102

SPECIAL GUESTS

Teresa Morgan, PhD, D. Litt, Yale Divinity School

Louis E. Newman, PhD, Carlton College

Wrongdoing, suffering, and repairing are part and parcel of the human condition. Yet these are variably understood across traditions. Some traditions speak of such experiences in terms of transgression and atonement, others use terms like sin, guilt, and repentance. Forgiveness and reconciliation, dignity and humility, vulnerability and trust mix and mingle in this eternal pursuit to mend profound wounds. Come and hear this conversation between scholars of religion, theology, and ethics.

 Program Video

Healthcare Ethics Diaglogue Series

Date/Time: Sep 24, 2025

Location: Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Room 162

SPECIAL GUEST

Renee McLeod-Sordjan, DNP, PhD, MBA, FNAP, FAAN, Founding Dean & Professor of Nursing, Morehouse School of Medicine

We explored how the shifting information ecosystem (social media, AI, intentional misinformation and fragmented expertise) reshapes patient and family willingness to trust clinical recommendations. Using case-based discussion, ethical principlism will be connected to practical communication tools (e.g., Ask–Tell–Ask, transparency about uncertainty, equity-minded framing) to navigate misinformation without eroding autonomy. Participants leave with a concise, measurable trust-building plan tailored to their own professional and clinical practice.

Learning Objectives (by the end of this session, participants will be able to…)

1. Analyze at least three drivers of patient/family trust and mistrust (e.g., historical harms, digital misinformation ecosystems, clinician communication behaviors) and then link them to core ethical principlism
2. Apply an ethically grounded culturally sensitive conversation framework (e.g., Ask–Tell–Ask with teach-back and transparency about uncertainty/evidence strength) to complex ethics scenarios to address prognostic uncertainty.
3. Design a brief trust-building ethical action plan including risk/benefit framing, transparency, and equity-minded/community-engagement strategy, along with practical consult metrics to evaluate impact.

October 27, 2025 - 2:30 pm

Location: Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Room 162

SPECIAL GUESTS

Aaron Gross, PhD, Assoc. Professor at Univ of San Diego,  Founder/CEO of Farm Forward

Ani Satz, PhD, JD, Founding Director of the Health Law, Policy & Ethics Project at Emory. Professor of Health, Policy & Management at the Rollins School of Public Health, a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Center for Ethics, and an Affiliated Professor at the Goizueta Business School.

Even in polarized times, most Americans agree that compassion for animals matters. Yet for decades our laws and institutions have failed to protect animals when it’s most consequential. Can we hope to change course in the Anthropocenic era when compassion itself seems under attack? Join us for a heartfelt conversation about legal and policy protections for the well-being of animals with scholars who see enormous scope for positive change.

November 5, 2025 - 7:00 pm

Location: Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Room 252

SPECIAL GUEST

Meghan O’Rourke, Poet, Author of NYTimes Bestseller The Invisible Kingdom: Reimaging Chronic Illness and Editor, The Yale Review

How should medicine and society respond to patients whose illnesses resist conventional diagnosis? Drawing on The Invisible Kingdom and her own experience, Meghan O’Rourke examines the harms of disbelief and neglect and reflects on the ethical responsibility to recognize and care for suffering even when its causes remain elusive or hard to "see."

Program Video

Date/Time: Dec 6 & 7, 2025

Location: Plaza Theatre and The Supermarket

Program Organizers: Emory Center for Ethics, Atlanta Film Society, Video Consortium

Do you wonder about what responsibility documentary filmmakers have to their participants throughout the filmmaking process and beyond? Should filmmakers compensate participants? When we use AI to create images, what could go wrong?

This interactive workshop invites filmmakers to grapple with the real-world ethical challenges of documentary filmmaking. Together, we will:

• Explore the nuances of ethical responsibility to film crews and participants (past and present) through disseminating multiple ethical frameworks
• Discuss and analyze dilemmas from contemporary documentary filmmakers
• Workshop participants’ own projects in facilitated small groups

While documentary ethics rarely offer simple answers, engaging with case studies and peer discussions can offer guidance as you wrestle with dilemmas from your own projects. This event is designed for filmmakers at all stages of their careers and offers concrete tools, resources, and community support to strengthen your filmmaking practice.