Poetics as Bioethics
VA+M+P@IR*E presents...
Poetics as Bioethics
Symposium 16-18 September 2026
Venue: JK Choi Cultural Center, Ito Campus, Kyushu University
The symposium “Poetics as Bioethics” takes place at Ito Campus, Kyushu University from 16 to 18 September 2026. The symposium brings together an interdisciplinary group of seventeen scholars and practitioners to explore how poetic and creative practices function as forms of ethical engagement with life, health, and relational care. Across diverse institutional contexts—including universities, hospitals, community programs, and arts initiatives from Australia, Belgium, South Korea, the United States and Japan—the contributions collectively argue that poetics is not merely aesthetic, but materially implicated in processes of wellbeing, healing, and ethical reflection.
Several presentations highlight applied arts and health contexts, showing how poetry writing, shared reading, and collaborative authorship support wellbeing in rehabilitation, defence, and community settings. These practices enable participants to articulate memory, process trauma, and rebuild identity, often extending care beyond clinical frameworks into collective, creative spaces.
A second strand rethinks authorship and narrative authority. Contributions emphasize distributed and assisted writing, as well as autobiographical and translanguaging practices that give voice to marginalized experiences. These approaches reveal how ethical understanding is shaped through embodied, affective, and socially situated narratives, particularly in contexts of illness, inequality, or legal struggle.
Further perspectives address aging, grief, crisis, and multispecies relations, demonstrating how creative engagement fosters cognitive health, resilience, and expanded ethical awareness. Intercultural studies underline the value of interpretive diversity as a resource for dialogue and learning.
Overall, the symposium positions poetics as a vital, practice-based bioethics—one that redefines care and ethical responsibility through creative, relational, and transformative acts.
16 September 2026
13:15 – 13:30 Opening remarks by Jan Lauwereyns, Paul Magee, and Jürgen Pieters
13:30 – 14:00 Jen Webb
“Creative Writing, Creative Aging, and Cognitive Health”
“Creative Writing, Creative Aging, and Cognitive Health”
14:00 – 14:30 Laura Wittman
“Creativity, Mystery, and Grief”
“Creativity, Mystery, and Grief”
14:30 – 14:45 Break
14:45 – 15:15 Irfan Master
“Poetics, Postmemory, and the Bioethics of Literary Practice”
“Poetics, Postmemory, and the Bioethics of Literary Practice”
15:15 – 15:45 Tony Eaton
“Writing Resilience: Poetics, Trauma, and Bioethical Care in Defence
Contexts”
“Writing Resilience: Poetics, Trauma, and Bioethical Care in Defence
Contexts”
15:45 – 16:00 Break
16:00 – 16:30 Jürgen Pieters
“Shared Reading as Bibliotherapy”
“Shared Reading as Bibliotherapy”
16:30 – 17:00 Owen Bullock
“The Path to Speaking: Poetry and Wellbeing at UC Hospital”
“The Path to Speaking: Poetry and Wellbeing at UC Hospital”
17 September 2026
9:00 – 9:30 Paul Magee
“Distributed Authorship in Arts/Health Settings as a Challenge to
Creative Writing Pedagogy”
“Distributed Authorship in Arts/Health Settings as a Challenge to
Creative Writing Pedagogy”
9:30 – 10:00 Haejoo Kim
“Negotiating Patient Authority in Korean First-Person Depression
Narratives: Reading I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki”
“Negotiating Patient Authority in Korean First-Person Depression
Narratives: Reading I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki”
10:00 – 10:15 Break
10:15 – 10:45 Tom Van Imschoot
“What Eurydice Saw. Practicing Receptivity in an Age of Distraction”
“What Eurydice Saw. Practicing Receptivity in an Age of Distraction”
10:45 – 11:15 Li Xiaoyan
“Creative Interpretation in Intercultural Art Education: Japanese
Students’ Responses to the Work of an Australian Artist"
“Creative Interpretation in Intercultural Art Education: Japanese
Students’ Responses to the Work of an Australian Artist"
11:15 – 11:30 Break
11:30 – 12:00 Soma Kudo
“Stop or Start Making Sense: The Voluntary Control of Semantic
Elaboration”
“Stop or Start Making Sense: The Voluntary Control of Semantic
Elaboration”
12:00 – 12:30 Dimitra Didangelou
“Writing in Times of Crisis”
“Writing in Times of Crisis”
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 – 14:00 Yaya Yao
“The Way You Hear It in Your Head: Evoking Multivoicedness of Gender
and Sexuality with Translanguaging Poetry”
“The Way You Hear It in Your Head: Evoking Multivoicedness of Gender
and Sexuality with Translanguaging Poetry”
14:00 – 14:30 Yosuke Tanaka
“The Bench Project: On the Dramaturgy of Regeneration”
“The Bench Project: On the Dramaturgy of Regeneration”
14:30 – 14:45 Break
14:45 – 15:15 Britton Brooks
“Multispecies Poetics: Polyvocal Explorations in an Entangled World”
“Multispecies Poetics: Polyvocal Explorations in an Entangled World”
15:15 – 15:45 Shaun O’Dwyer
“Poetic Imagination and Animal Ethics: Reading J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth
Costello”
“Poetic Imagination and Animal Ethics: Reading J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth
Costello”
15:45 – 16:15 Jan Lauwereyns
“Pro Mamma: Exploring the Ethics of Eating through Autoethnography”
“Pro Mamma: Exploring the Ethics of Eating through Autoethnography”
Satellite program at Artist Café Fukuoka
19:00 – 21:00
18 September 2026
9:00 – 10:30 Workshop, prompts, co-creative writing
Led by Owen Bullock
Led by Owen Bullock
10:30 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:30 Planning setting targets for collaboration
Led by Jan Lauwereyns, Paul Magee, and Jürgen Pieters
Led by Jan Lauwereyns, Paul Magee, and Jürgen Pieters
For any inquiries, please contact Jan Lauwereyns