Marc Keller

Just a quick update from the Twin Cities. (Please forgive the unsolicited message). THINGS ARE NOT BETTER IN MINNEAPOLIS. The media is mostly moving on, Trump is focused on other stuff, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED ON THE GROUND. More than 2,000 DHS thugs continue to roam the streets, abducting people 24/7, assaulting legal observers with impunity, and routinely denying 1st, 4th, and 5th amendment rights. Drones and helicopters are overhead every day. Hundreds and hundreds of terrified families have not left their homes since mid-December ... relying on the community to bring them food and help with rent and other necessities. (Those people are NOT violent drug cartel sex offending murderers, as DHS would tell you. Most are legal residents or citizens.) If anything, things have just become more stressful and intractable (think trench warfare as a suitable metaphor): The resistance is better organized and numerous, but DHS has become more clever and better at disguise... and the county sheriff's office is increasingly supporting them . Do not let anyone tell you that Homans (the new person in charge of the occupation) is making anything better. Do not let anyone tell you that 700 ICE agents leaving the city has made much of a difference; the remaining force (again, ~2,000) is still larger than the entire city's police force (which is legally unable to do anything). Please call your congressional reps ... especially if there is any chance the administration might listen to them.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

Screenshot BILD: Deutsche 4 Tage mehr krank als 2020 Kranke kosten deutsche Wirtschaft 200 Mrd. Euro

Das ist die Sprache der Euthanasie

'Cartas desde el infierno' by Ramón Sampedro A collection of letters, poems, and essays, Sampedro’s memoir constitutes a philosophical treatise on the ethics of euthanasia.

The story of Ramón Sampedro influenced the legalization of assisted dying in Spain and elsewhere.

But beyond Alejandro Amenábar's film Mar Adentro with Javier Bardem, there's also Sampedro’s own book 'Cartas desde el infierno'

Analysis by @pittella.bsky.social 👇

assistedlab.ch/textual/cart...

Elon Musk wird von Schriftstellerin eingesargt Über Unkultiviertheit im 21. Jahrhundert

Elon Musk wurde von einer 87-jährigen Schriftstellerin eingesargt.

Was das über Belesenheit und Habitus und über Unkultiviertheit im 21. Jahrhundert erzählt - darum geht es in der aktuellen Ausgabe meines Newsletters, die man hier lesen kann.

kulturundkontroverse859.substack.com/p/elon-musk-...

Anschlag in Magdeburg: Gutachten stellt Ermittlungsergebnisse zu Amokfahrer infrage - WELT Ein 40-seitiges Gutachten, das WELT exklusiv vorliegt, analysiert die Tat von Taleb al-Abdulmohsen und widerlegt die These vom wirren Einzelgänger. Der Psychiater plante seinen Anschlag jahrelang, kün...

Worüber ihr kein Wort von Merz, Spahn, Söder hören werdet: Ein Gutachten zum Weihnachtsmarkt-Anschlag in Magdeburg stuft diesen als rechtsextrem motiviert ein. Der Täter plante ihn jahrelang, kündigte ihn an und verortete sich selbst in einem rechtsextremen Netzwerk. #Stadtbild

Tolkien's Map and The Messed Up Mountains of Middle-earth - Reactor We’ve got to talk about Tolkien’s map of Middle-earth. The man might have made up some beautiful languages and written stories that generations of writers have responded to in ways ranging from homage...

hier übrigens noch kl nachschlag zum subduktionsrabbithole, liebs wenn wissenschaftler*innen sich qualifiziert über fantasy aufregen <3

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: 'The Sarco Question: Can Technology Replace Doctors in Assisted Dying?'. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar. About This webinar is jointly organised by the Forum for Global Health Ethics, Assisted Lab (University of St Gallen), and the Competence Center Medicine, Ethics, Law Helvetiae (MERH), University of ...

Event ‘The Sarco Question: Can Technology Replace Doctors in Assisted Dying?’ featuring @marcakeller.bsky.social & Anna Elsner on 22 Oct in Zurich. On tech, institutions & assisted dying.

Register to attend online 👇https://uzh.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bD8r9neUSLeqttLlJEVfWQ#/registration

Bis am 20. Oktober kann man sich Reid Davenports Dokumentarfilm "Life After" unter folgendem Link gratis ansehen: gathr.com/vod/4b1c9a0d.... Wer kann/mag, kann dafür gern eine Spende dalassen, die an den Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund geht. Ich kann den Film nur wärmstens empfehlen.

Mir wäre die Politik von Künstler:innen auch egal, solange sie sie nicht in alle Megaphone brüllen, sondern für sich behalten. In dem Moment, wo ein Künstler seinen Status nutzt, um außerkünstlerische Meinungen zu verbreiten, verstößt er gegen die Autonomie, nicht die Rezipient:innen.

Oh, sehr schön! Bin sehr dankbar für solche Hinweise.

Oh vielen lieben Dank, das hätte ich tatsächlich nicht mitbekommen.

Suizid und die Frage der Medienethik Der diese Woche medial publik gewordene assistierte Suizid des Autors, früheren Journalisten und Lehrers Nikolaus Glattauer hat einige ethische und auch medienethische Fragen aufgeworfen. Die Philosop...

#Sterbehilfe

Und ich dachte, ich sei mit meinem Unbehagen am so einhellig begrüßten Glattauer-Interview allein. religion.orf.at/stories/3231...

Ethik: Selbstbestimmt bis zuletzt – im Sterben wie im Leben In der Debatte um Sterbehilfe geht es meist um Autonomie und Freiheit. Doch was ist mit jenen, die im Leben nicht genug Unterstützung für ein lebenswertes Dasein erhalten?

Nicht zu sterben, muss man sich zuerst einmal leisten können: Wie die zunehmende Normalisierung der #Sterbehilfe gewisse Menschen in Gefahr bringt.

Von @marcakeller.bsky.social

Das freut mich wirklich sehr, vielen lieben Dank! Eines der zentralen Anliegen unseres Forschungsprojekts besteht tatsächlich darin, zur Differenzierung und Nuancierung eines zumeist sehr polarisierten Schwarz-Weiss-Diskurses beizutragen. Schön zu hören, dass der Artikel dies transportieren konnte!

Tausend Dank für das sehr schöne Feedback! 🫶🏻

Vielen herzlichen Dank, liebe Lin😊

Vielen lieben Dank euch dreien, das freut mich wirklich riesig!

Ethik: Selbstbestimmt bis zuletzt – im Sterben wie im Leben In der Debatte um Sterbehilfe geht es meist um Autonomie und Freiheit. Doch was ist mit jenen, die im Leben nicht genug Unterstützung für ein lebenswertes Dasein erhalten?

Unter dem Banner der Autonomie wächst die Forderung nach Sterbehilfe für Menschen, die nicht schwerkrank sind. Zwei Dokumentarfilme zeigen die Kehrseite: Für Menschen mit Behinderung ist sie mitunter kein Ausdruck von Wahlfreiheit, sondern Folge fehlender Unterstützung. Mein Text dazu in der @woz.ch

'Die Glückssucherin. Warum Margrit Schäppi einen Lebensratgeber schrieb und trotzdem den Freitod wählte' by Margrit Schäppi and Matthias Ackeret Before publication, Margrit Schäppi took her life with the aid of a Swiss assisted suicide organisation.

The assisted suicide regime in Switzerland is often seen as model. This book, 'Die Glückssucherin’, by Margrit Schäppi and Matthias Ackeret is at times sharply critical of Swiss assisted suicide practices.

Analysis by @marcakeller.bsky.social

assistedlab.ch/textual/die-...

wer eugenik sagt muss auch forschung therapien versorgung > sterbehilfe sagen

Interested in summer reading about assisted dying? See these books & new analyses by Assisted Lab 🧵

In Dutch 'Winter in Gloster Huis' by Vonne van der Meer, a novel in the Netherlands, discussing completed life & existential suffering. 1/4

By Wouter Schrover 👇

assistedlab.ch/textual/wint...

HSG: PhD Position in Medical / Legal Humanities / Cultural Studies (m/f/d) We welcome applicants with a strong academic background in law, legal humanities, socio-legal studies, film studies, media studies, cultural studies, sociology, comparative literature, or a related di...

Assisted Lab is hiring - please share widely!

We are inviting applications for a fully funded PhD position (100%) as part of the ERC/SERI Assisted Lab team at University of St. Gallen, starting September 2025.

More information here 👇

jobs.unisg.ch/offene-stell...

YouTube video by phoenix BPK: Studie zu zwei Jahren Bürgergeld aus Sicht der Betroffenen | 23.06.25

Dass alte Menschen aufgrund von Armut ihr Leben nicht mehr für lebenswürdig halten, passiert auch in Deutschland. Und Einsamkeit als Faktor? Allein die Studie von Betroffenen zeigt, dass jede zehnte Person mit Bürgergeld sich gesellschaftlich nicht zugehörig fühlt. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck_t...

Plan 75 - Film in voller Länge | ARTE Um der Überalterung der japanischen Gesellschaft entgegenzuwirken, wird der "Plan 75" eingeführt: Menschen ab 75 Jahren erhalten ein "Recht auf Sterbehilfe". Die 78-jährige Michi überlegt, an dem Prog...

Dieser Film ist traurig und kostenlos bei arte zu sehen.
CN Sterbehilfe. Menschen in Japan wird angeboten, Sterbehilfe in Anspruch zu nehmen, um einer Überalterung und den damit wirtschaftlichen Folgen entgegen zu wirken. #filmtipp
www.arte.tv/de/videos/12...

HSG: PhD Position in Medical / Legal Humanities / Cultural Studies (m/f/d) We welcome applicants with a strong academic background in law, legal humanities, socio-legal studies, film studies, media studies, cultural studies, sociology, comparative literature, or a related di...

How do stories shape legal debates and law-making on assisted dying? We’re hiring a PhD researcher to explore this question in an interdisciplinary project. Ideal candidates have a background in law, socio-legal studies, cultural/media studies, sociology, comparative literature, or related fields.

Poster for an international conference on "Medical Spaces in Cultural Studies, Architecture, Literature" (4th and 5th July, 2025), featuring event details and a grayscale architectural illustration.

A conference schedule for Friday, 4 July, listing sessions on medical spaces, psychiatry history, and modern hospital design, including speaker names, times, and breaks. Programme Friday 4th July 9:15-10:00 King: Welcome and Introduction 1. Section: Medical spaces across time 10-10:45 Sam Cohn: Pandemics and the re-shaping of cities 10:45-11:30 Astrid Köhler: The medicalization of the spa in the nineteenth century 11:30-12:00 Coffee 12:00-12:45 Monika Ankele: The concept of “humanization” in the context of architecture and reform in 19th and 20th century psychiatry 12:45-14:15 Lunch 2. Section: The history and future of the modern hospital 14:15-15:15 Keynote Annmarie Adams: Medicine by design: the architect and the modern hospital, 1893-1943 15:15-16:00 Victoria Bates: Feeling blue: colour and the modern British hospital 16:00-16:30 Coffee 16:30 – 17:30 Keynote Magnus Nickl: Healing Architecture – Next Generation 19:00 Conference Dinner

A conference schedule for Saturday, 5 July, listing sessions on medical spaces, psychiatry history, and modern hospital design, including speaker names, times, and breaks. Programme, Saturday 5th July 3. Section: The modern hospital and technicalization 9:30-10:15 Flurin Condrau: Patients, doctors and technology: towards a history of intensive care units in Switzerland and the UK 10:15-11:00 Gina Rauschtenberger: Computer architecture and new forms of organization. On the building history of Aachen University Hospital as a technical object 1960-1980 11:00-11:30 Coffee 4. Section: Literary representations of medical spaces 11:30-12:15 Alina Boy: Spa Culture. Spaces of Healing in 20th Century German Literature 12:15-13.45 Lunch 13.45-14:45 Keynote Katrin Dennerlein: Narrating medical space in literature: Thomas Mann, the Chicago ‘Billings Hospital’ and “The Genesis of Doctor Faustus” (1949) 14:45-15:30 Mona Baie: Beyond heterotopia: on the semantics of clinical spaces in autopathographical prose of the 20th and 21st centuries 15:30-16 Coffee 16:00-16:45 Marc Keller: Spaces of assisted dying in contemporary German- and French-language literature and film 16:45-17:30 Final discussion

Abstract Conference Medical Spaces in Cultural Studies, Architecture, Literature: Since its beginnings in the 1970s, the ‘spatial turn’ has attracted many contributions from a variety of disciplines, e.g. architecture and urban planning, sociology, history, literature, and media studies. Overall, it laid the groundwork for a new conception of space: no longer a fixed container, but a dynamic category that shapes phenomena and relationships while itself being constantly reconfigured by them. Considering the broad debate following this impulse, however, one puzzling absence makes itself felt. This is the multiplicity of medical spaces that have emerged over time: from the medieval lazaretto, the psychiatric asylum, and the sanatorium to the university hospital of the present, etc. The multidisciplinary conference explores the emergence and determinators of these spaces and processes, investigating the actors, power relations, objects, boundaries, and thresholds that constitute them. Inversely, it also examines how they shape codes and roles as well as how they are represented in media, literature, and art.

Join us next month in Fribourg for our conference Medical Spaces in Cultural Studies, Architecture, Literature: Transdisciplinary Perspectives, generously funded by the @snf-fns.ch. With presentations by @annmarieadams.bsky.social, @marcakeller.bsky.social, and many more!

Weltweit werden LGBTIQ+ Rechte eingeschränkt. Und auch in der Schweiz droht die Stimmung zu kippen. Setz mit den queeren Menschen in der Schweiz ein Zeichen: Unterschreibe jetzt den queeren Appell! #QueererAppell #QueerRights #LGBTIQA
queerer-appell.ch

Screenshot of a Dallas express article. There’s a man sitting in a hospital gown. Text reads Man With Disabilities Begs Hospital To Stop Pushing Suicide LOGAN WASHBURN - STAFF WRITER HEALTH & SCIENCE MAY 29, 2025 Roger Foley | Image by Roger Foley @rogerfoley/X Hospital staff have repeatedly pushed a Canadian man with disabilities to accept euthanasia. Now, he says, they are repeatedly asking him about suicide while cutting off basic needs like food and

Screenshot of a Dallas examiner article which reads Brother Of Disabled Man To Canadian Hospital: He Is 'Dying In Front Of You' LOGAN WASHBURN - STAFF WRITER HEALTH & SCIENCE JUN 11, 2025 Roger Foley | Image by Roger Foley @rogerfoley/X The brother of a disabled Canadian man is pleading with his hospital - which pushed euthanasia and cut off food and water nearly one month ago - to stop him from "dying in front of you." Instead of helping, The Dallas Express has learned, hospital officials told his brother to stop contacting them. There’s a photo of a man laying in a hospital bed

Whatever your personal beliefs on Assisted Dying, we should all be able to agree on 2 fundamentals:

No means no. If a patient doesn’t want it, end of discussion.

It should never be offered in lieu of care or social supports.

If it is, it’s not compassion.

It’s eugenics 🧵

Brother Of Disabled Man To Canadian Hospital: He Is ‘Dying In Front Of You’ The brother of a disabled Canadian man is pleading with his hospital – which pushed euthanasia and cut off food and water.

Roger Foley has been speaking out about coercion within Canada's MAiD (medical assistance in dying) program for years.

He's been pushed to access it, despite repeatedly telling hospital staff he doesn't want to die.

He's had his accommodation for special lighting removed. Food & water restricted: