Email:
lwahlert@sas.upenn.edu

Education:
B.A., English literature;
The Johns Hopkins University
M.A., Humanities;
The Johns Hopkins University
M.Sc., History of Science and Medicine;
The Imperial College of Medicine (London)
Ph.D., English;
The University of Pennsylvania

Description of BIOETHICS Expertise

RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Sexuality and gender identity, history of medicine, queer theory, disability studies, 19th- and 20th-century literature, cinema studies.

ABOUT:
Lance Wahlert is a Fellow in the Center for Bioethics and an affiliated faculty member in the Departments of English, Cinema Studies, and the History of Science and Medicine in the School of Arts and Sciences. In addition to teaching classes on narrative theory, medical history, and clinical ethics mediation in the Master of Bioethics Program, he also serves (with Autumn Fiester) as the founding Co-Director of the Project on Bioethics, Sexuality, and Gender Identity, which has demarcated a sub-field within bioethics that focuses on the intersection of LGBTQ issues and medical ethics (http://www.queerbioethics.org/).

In addition to earning his Ph.D. in English at Penn, Lance is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in English literature and an M.A. in Humanities specializing in Irish poetry and medical history. He also earned a First Class Honors M.Sc. in History of Science and Medicine from The Imperial College of Medicine (London), as well as the dissertation prize for his thesis on the cultural history of homosexuality in German, British, and North American cinemas. He has held residential fellowships in medieval Nordic literature at the University of Oslo, Irish literature at Trinity College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast, English literature at King's College London, and media studies at the British Film Institute.

Lance's scholarly interests include the historiographical legacy of the health concerns of LGBTQ persons, the impact of cinematic genres on cultural histories, the authority of medical iconography in art and media, and the relationship between literary narratives and visual forms of storytelling. Having been funded by the Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, and the Pew Foundation, Lance's work has been featured in publications including The American Journal of Bioethics, The Journal of Medical Humanities, The Journal of Homosexuality, and The Journal of Bioethical Inquiry.

selected publications

Wahlert, L. and Fiester, A. "Queer Bioethics: Why Its Time Has Come," Bioethics, forthcoming.

Wahlert, L. and Fiester, A. "IVF Treatment for an HIV-Discordant, Transgender Couple: The Questions We Should Not Ask," Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Volume 20, No. 4, Fall 2011, forthcoming.

Wahlert, L. and Fiester, A., "Failing Those at Ground Zero... Again: American Public Health Responses to AIDS and 9/11," American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, No. 9, September 2011: 1-2.

Wahlert, L. and Fiester, A. "The Re-Queering of HIV Testing Practices and the Reinforcement of Stigma," American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, No. 4, April 2011, 41-43.