NEO Mini-Course Series
2021 AROHE Innovation Award winner for contributions to
university-community relations!
Since 2019, NEO has partnered with Evanston Public Library (EPL) to offer quarterly non-credit, no-charge mini-courses to the greater Evanston community—as well as to NEO’s own membership. Each mini-course typically consists of two 90-minute sessions, held on a weekday evening in consecutive weeks and taught by a Northwestern emerita or emeritus. Most courses are offered hybrid – both in-person (Community Meeting Room at Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., Downtown Evanston) and via Zoom. Registration is required. A library card is not required.
Photo by Al Telser
Upcoming Mini-Courses
Prof. Sheldon will be focusing on two specific areas in this mini-course. The first is end-of-life issues: the definition of death, the control of pain, and whether physician-facilitated death should be permitted, as well as euthanasia. A contrast will be drawn between what is currently permitted in the United States and what is permitted in the Netherlands and several other countries. The second session will be devoted to children and the decisions we tend to allow parents to make, and the limitations that the state places on those decisions. What are the rights or interests of children versus the prerogatives of parents, versus the protections that the state wants to impose? Discussion will focus on parental refusal on religious grounds of certain medical interventions, as well as vaccines.
Sheldon has published and presented widely on a variety of issues in medical ethics, including informed consent, confidentiality, the forced transfusion of children of Jehovah’s Witnesses, children as organ donors, disclosure, and the use of Nazi research. He has contributed book chapters and published in a variety of journals, including The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Hastings Center Report, The Philosophical Forum, The Journal of Value Inquiry, and The New England Journal of Medicine. He has served as guest editor of two journals, Theoretical Medicine and The Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He has served a three-year term as a member of the Committee on Philosophy and Medicine of the American Philosophical Association, and served as co-editor of the American Philosophical Association’s Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine from 2000
until 2019.
Past Mini-Courses
Academic Year 2024-2025
- Winter Qtr (Feb 5/12): Prof. Emer. Sarah H. Maza, Dept of History, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, Writing History: Of Whom, of What, and Why.
- Fall Qtr (Oct 10/17): Prof. Emer. Joseph L. Schofer, Civil and Environmental Engineering, McCormick School, Unlocking the Panama Canal.
Academic Year 2023-2024
- Spring Qtr (April 18/May 2): Peter Hayes, Prof. Emer. of History and German and Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor of Holocaust Studies Emeritus, Department of History, Misconceptions About the Holocaust.
- Winter Qtr (Feb 6/13): Prof. Emer. D. Soyini Madison, Department of Performance Studies, Black Abstract Art and The Black Imagination.
- Fall Qtr (Oct 25/Nov 1): Prof. Emer. Henry C. Binford, Department of History, The Emergence of Modern Chicago.
Academic Year 2022-2023
- Spring Qtr (Apr 20/May 4, 2023): Prof. Emer. Richard Kieckhefer, Departments of History and Religious Studies, Sacred Places: What Gave London, Paris, and Florence Their Allure.
- Winter Qtr (Jan 18/25, 2023): Prof. Emer. Dr. Barbara J. Deal with Dr. Stephen Devries, Director of the educational Gaples Institute for Integrative Cardiology. “Diet, Heart Health, and Living a Full Life.”
- Fall Qtr (Oct 11/18, 2022): Prof. Emer. Emile A. Okal, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, on 40 Years of Tsunami Research.
Visit NEO’s Archive for additional past mini-course lectures.