My general research interests concern the question “what’s missing?” broadly construed. What is absent, obscured, hidden, displaced, disappeared, excluded, or withdrawn, and what processes and practices cause these to occur? I am particularly interested in how healthcare’s dominant ways of knowing and researching can exclude or obscure parts of the world, and how all this impacts our abilities to ask different questions, tell better stories, and make better decisions.
For example, I recently defended a dissertation about “silences” in health and healthcare. You can learn more about that work on silence by clicking here. I am also developing some research projects concerning the use of death data in public health and bioethics. You can read two examples concerning death data by clicking here.
Besides these projects, I am currently working on some arguments concerning resistant forms of grief and mourning, forgiveness interventions in public health and psychology, disability and public health architecture, and various teaching strategies.
In Print:
If you don’t have access to the below, but want to read them, feel invited to contact me for a copy. All links open in new tabs.
- “Expanding Narrative Medicine: Four Notes” (2024) is part of a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Bioethics asking what the future of bioethics could look like. The four notes I offer concern the scope of narrative medicine, the narrative archives that are consulted, the theoretical frameworks that are used, and inadequate support for research and practice.
- “Disabling Bioethics Futures“ (2024) is also part of a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Bioethics asking what the future of bioethics could look like. I identify a few areas for change, including terminology, argumentative focuses, research practices, and professional activities.
- “Whose Mental Data? Privacy Inequities and Extended Minds” (2023) suggests that researchers concerned about accessing mental data (our thoughts?!) should attend to how existing privacy inequities might inform and impact whose mental data is at risk. This is an open peer commentary, a short piece responding to a paper by Spyridon Orestis Palermos.
- “Buddhism and Neuroethics Research: On Catching a Snake” (2022) suggests that the Alagaddūpama Sutta might tell us a few things about how to integrate Buddhist teachings into neuroethics research. If I could go back, I’d probably change the subtitle to “On Holding and Letting Go.” This is an open peer commentary, a short piece responding to a paper by Laura Specker Sullivan.
- “Bioethics, Philosophy, and Philosophy of Disability” (2022) suggests that conversations about what philosophy could contribute to bioethics should pay attention to the philosophy of disability. This is an open peer commentary, a short piece responding to a paper by Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby and others.
- “Dialogues on Disability: Shelley Tremain Interviews C Dalrymple-Fraser” (2023) is a followup conversation from the 2018 interview (below). We discuss matters in studying as a PhD student, teaching bioethics, and the roles of evidence in philosophical bioethics.
- “Dialogues on Disability: Shelley Tremain interviews C Dalrymple-Fraser” (2018) shares some of my research interests in an interview format. The blog it was hosted on in 2018 no longer exists, so the link above is to an archived page (it might take a moment to load). Shelley Tremain continues to run the monthly “Dialogues on Disability” interview series with disabled philosophers, which is now hosted over at Biopolitical Philosophy blog. Go check it out!
C Dalrymple-Fraser 