[Forum] Nov 2, 2026: International Expert Forum on ‘Childhood Adversity, Incarceration, and Maternal-Child Health’
The Center for Humanities Innovation and Social Engagement (CHISE) and Seminar in Mind-Body-Society in TMU’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS), with additional support from the College of Public Health at TMU and the Academy of Medical Sciences (U.K.), present a transdisciplinary speakers’ panel that critically examines childhood adversity, incarceration, and maternal–child health through an intersectional lens. The event brings policy-change leaders from Atlanta-based social justice organizations into dialogue with diverse Taiwan-based scholars to interrogate how early-life adversity, punitive carceral regimes, environments, and gendered power structures shape health outcomes and social inequality across generations. Situated at the intersection of critical medical humanities, public health, legal studies, and social policy, the panel examines through concrete cases, how incarceration impacts maternal-child well-being and argues for rethinking systems of justice and care.
Our featured international speakers are Amy Ard, Director of Motherhood Beyond Bars and Michael Waller, Director of the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. Their talks will be preceded by opening remarks by TMU-CHSS associate professors Dana E. Powell, Graduate Institute of Medical Humanities, and Niall Duncan, Graduate Institute of Mind-Brain Consciousness, who are also co-leaders of the seminar in Mind-Body-Society. The event will close with commentary by our invited discussant, Wu Jia-Ling, Professor of Sociology at National Taiwan University and feminist scholar of reproductive justice. This public-facing, critical humanities event highlights the need for greater transnational dialogue on issues of gendered well-being in relation to the environment and the value of socially-engaged research.
Among us:
please note that on November 2, we will begin at 1:30pm with a pre-event coffee reception for CHSS and CPH guests, so you can arrive early and meet the speakers.
The talks will begin at 2pm, and run as follows:
Dana Powell: 10 minutes
Niall Duncan: 15 minutes
Amy Ard / Michael Waller: 60 minutes
Wu Jia-Ling: 15 minutes
Q&A: 30 minutes (moderated by Dana, with interpretation/translation as needed by Hou Yang-Hsun)
- Location: Room 9704, 7th Floor, Biomedical Technology Building, Shuang-Ho Campus
- Registration Link: https://reurl.cc/NO8x1e
Film: If anyone on this list has free access to the recent Taiwanese film directed by Gavin Lin, “Sunshine Women’s Choir,” please let George know.
We hope to offer this as an optional, pre-event screening to better enable a dialogue with Taiwan’s legal landscape around the public health and of gender and incarceration.
But we have thus far not been able to secure access to the film.
We anticipate an intellectually rich and socially-relevant exchange!
Very best,
