Institute for Arts and Humanities Names Distinguished Visiting Fellow

March 21, 2006

University Park, Pa. --- Penn State's Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University has named Dr. Farhat Moazam an Institute for the Arts and Humanities Distinguished Visiting Fellow. She will be spending an entire week on the University Park campus, engaging students and faculty in a variety of venues.

On Wednesday, March 29, at 7 p.m., she will be giving a public lecture on "Negotiating Critical Life Decisions in Pakistan: The Role of Muslim Beliefs, Kinship Systems and Cultural Norms" in 110 Wartik Lab. The lecture is free to the public.

Marica Tacconi, executive director of the Institute of the Arts and Humanities, said "Her visit will contribute significantly to intellectual life on campus." The Institute established this fellowship to bring distinguished figures in the arts and/or humanities to campus whose residency will generate interest across multiple disciplines.

Jonathan Brockopp, associate professor of history and religious studies, notes: "Given the dearth of female physicians at this time – and even fewer female surgeons – this would already be a remarkable career, but it was only the first of several."

Dr. Farhat Moazam did her initial training at Dow Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan. She then came to the United States to complete her residency in Flushing and joined the staff of pediatric surgery at the University of Florida Medical College.

In 1985 she made clinical professor at the University of Florida and was also tapped by the new Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi to head up their department of surgery. For this second career, which included five years as associate dean of post-graduate education, she moved back to Pakistan helping to establish AKU as the leading medical college in Pakistan.

In 1997 Dr. Moazam embarked on yet another career, marked by her publication of "Ethics and the Pakistani Physician" in Infectious Diseases Journal. She became a visiting scholar in bioethics at the University of Virginia and later pursued an M.A. in bioethics, writing her thesis on the contexts of ethical decisions in the Third World. She completed a Ph.D. in religious studies there.

"To the study of bioethics Farhat Moazam brings a unique set of experiences as well as intimate knowledge of both U.S. and Pakistani cultures," Brockopp said. "In fact, Moazam’s whole approach to ethics is one that presumes that ethical judgments can only be reached on the basis of a rich knowledge of cultural norms.”

Moazam is now professor and chairperson of the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture in Karachi. She has been asked to serve as consultant for the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences and the World Health Organization, organizing a plenary session for the August 2006 International Association of Bioethics World Congress in Beijing. She has also been heavily involved with relief efforts to aid those devastated by the recent earthquake.

In addition to the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, co-sponsors of include the Department of History and Religious Studies, the Rock Ethics Institute, Women's Studies, Schreyer Honors College and the Department of Philosophy. For more information, please contact Sandi Moyer at 814-865-6204.