Interdisciplinary Centers

Philosophy and religious studies at Rice represent much more than a simple convergence of two modestly sized but influential departments that deal with human thought. Within that convergence is a set of new programs that will grapple with the implications of genetic engineering, human enhancement, and cloning.

The capabilities and promises of such technologies are truly great, but they also present ethical thickets, challenging our entire notion of what is natural, and even what it means to be human. Much of the debate centers on the ways in which religious convictions affect moral judgments about biological advances and the ways those judgments subsequently influence—or should influence—public policy and the nature and utilization of scientific research itself.

For several years, Rice faculty in philosophy and religious studies have been collaborating on research into these issues with the Institute of Religion in the Texas Medical Center (TMC) and with Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Many of our philosophy and religious studies faculty members, in fact, hold joint appointments with Baylor and other TMC institutions. From these joint efforts has evolved the Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues, whose function is to develop teaching and research programs that address the moral, legal, and public policy questions raised by healthcare and the biomedical sciences.

Early on, center faculty instituted the Program on Biotechnology, Religion, and Ethics, which also includes members of Rice’s history department. This program examines the historical and contemporary significance of religious and ethical thought for emerging issues in biotechnology. One strong current of research has focused on appeals in religious and ethical debates to treat nature or natural conditions as a norm that should regulate biotechnological advances. Understanding the character of those appeals and the ways in which they affect public perception and, hence, policy is essential in helping shape biomedical research along lines that are not only productive but beneficial and socially acceptable.

More recently, Rice’s researchers in bioethics have become interested in ethical concerns involved in five specific areas of biotechnology: assisted reproduction, human enhancement, hybridization, biodiversity, and agricultural/human husbandry. This project, titled “Altering Nature: How Religious Traditions Assess the New Biotechnologies,” has attracted a $1-million award from the Ford Foundation. In making the award, the foundation’s Constance Buchanan said, “Until now, these questions have not been the subject of rigorous, comparative study. This undertaking promises to produce important new insights into the moral implications of biotechnology.”

Our expertise and exposure in bioethics are enhanced by two journals. One, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, is housed in our Department of Philosophy and edited by H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. The other is the New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, which is housed at Seattle University but co-edited by philosophy chair Steven Crowell.

The Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues is just the newest of the three interdisciplinary centers based in the School of Humanities. The oldest is the Center for the Study of Cultures, begun in 1984 by members of the anthropology department and now including faculty from philosophy, English, history, and sociology as well as anthropology. Humanities dean Gale Stokes calls this center “the intellectual backbone of the school,” and it has been so successful in uniting departments that it is easy to forget how strong the walls between them once were. The center has been equally successful in bridging the geographic gap between Rice and the rest of the world by bringing internationally renowned scholars to campus and by organizing more than 50 conferences, lecture series, symposia, and other events to examine issues of cultural importance.

These efforts have not gone unnoticed. Last summer, very generous donors helped the center complete the second of two matching grants, one from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the other from the Mellon Foundation, together totaling nearly $5 million. They will be used to support the center and fund two programs that will bring visiting scholars and teachers from elsewhere to enrich the intellectual life on campus.

While the Center for the Study of Cultures promotes a greater understanding of other cultures in our increasingly globalized society, the Center for the Study of Languages (CSL) was instituted to address the clear need for Rice graduates to be able to communicate within those cultures. All introductory language instruction through the third year takes place through the CSL. This has allowed us to consolidate our resources, which, in turn, has helped us become a national leader in language instruction through the development of two powerful tools for language acquisition.

The most obvious of these tools is our Language Resource Center, housed in up-to-date facilities in newly renovated Rayzor Hall. This facility is equipped with two computer classrooms featuring the latest foreign-language software to supplement the study of 13 languages—many of which, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese, use non-Roman characters or read right to left. Both classrooms are available for class use or in library mode for students.
But grammar, no matter how proficient, does not make a language come alive. For that, the student requires a measure of cultural immersion. Rice’s LRC is a leader here, too, with a library of more than 1,500 films and documentaries in 20 languages and with high-speed Internet access to foreign-language newspapers, television programs, and other cultural resources to give students a more authentic language-learning experience.

The second tool is language instruction software called ExTemplate. Developed by LRC staff, ExTemplate can produce exercises, tests, and evaluation instruments in any language. Using this software, students can take quizzes from their computers anywhere on campus in all modalities, including speech, which is recorded and replayed to the instructor for grading purposes.