Aiming to Integrate bell hooks' <i>Teaching to Transgress</i> in a Bio/Tech Ethics Curriculum With a “Religion &amp; Spirituality” Exercise Focused on Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking

ABSTRACT A graduate course within a Master of Bio/Tech Ethics and Science Policy was revamped, aiming for liberatory and engaged pedagogy as inspired by bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress (1994). The curriculum included generative assignments, shared leadership, small group work, and critical reflection; a new class session on “Religion &amp; Spirituality” (R&amp;S) was also incorporated. The R&amp;S class activity assigned students to one of five faith perspectives and invited them to consider a little known and understudied end‐of‐life option called Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED). Employing this exercise sought to employ liberatory pedagogy by engaging students as active colaborers in knowledge production, usurping traditional methods of learning in which a credentialed expert delivers a “right” answer to novice bio/tech ethicists. Students were invited to mindfully imagine varying faith perspectives' vantage points, both for and against a choice to hasten death through VSED.