Konferenz

Col­lo­qui­um “Reject­ing the future: Affect and men­tal health”
6–8 May, 2026
Insti­tute for Advanced Study Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg
Del­men­horst, Germany

Orga­niz­ers: Annette Leib­ing & Mark Schweda

Wednes­day, 06 May 2026

1:00 Recep­tion and light lunch at the HWK

1:50 Short wel­come by Stef­fen Band­low-Raf­fal­s­ki, Mark Schwe­da, and Annette Leibing

2:00 – 3:00 Ste­fan Ecks (U Edin­burgh): Pre­dict­ing Unpredictability

3:00 – 4:30 Con­ver­sa­tion; Chair: Ulla Kriebernegg (U Graz)

Luiz Fer­nan­do Dias Duarte (UF Rio de Janeiro): Freez­ing time: Trans­gen­er­a­tionalopac­i­ty and men­tal disturbance

Mar­cos Freire de Andrade Neves (Freie U Berlin): The emp­ty cell next door: Sus­pend­ed futures and affec­tive life on death row

Mark Schwe­da (U Old­en­burg): ‘Tedi­um vitae‘ in the con­text of assist­ed dying

4:30 – 4:50 Cof­fee break („Kaf­fee und Kuchen“)

4:50 – 5:50 Leila Dawney (U Exeter): Chron­ic affects: on com­ing to terms with future­less­ness in a decom­mis­sion­ing nuclear town

Thurs­day, 07 May 2026

9:00 – 10:00 Anne Lovell (INSERM Paris): TBD

10:00 – 10:15 Cof­fee break

10:15 – 12:00 Con­ver­sa­tion; Chair: Isaac Yuen (Berlin)

Matthew Wolf-Mey­er (Rens­se­laer Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute): On anx­i­ety, com­pla­cen­cy, and bore­dom in the Anthropocene

Nolen Gertz (Twente U): War and Exile: On PTSD and mil­i­tary suicide

Clau­dia Boz­zaro (U Mün­ster): “Til death do us part”: the emerg­ing phe­nom­e­non of assist­ed dou­ble suicide.

12:15 –1:45 Lunch + walk

1:45 – 2:45 Ayo Wahlberg (U Copen­hagen): Fer­til­i­ty exhaus­tion in pro-natal­ist China

Fri­day, 08 May 2026

9:00 – 10:00 Stephen Katz (Trent U): The cri­sis of lone­li­ness and the future of aging

10:00 – 10:20 Cof­fee break

10:20 – 11:20 John Marlovits (San José State U): Can the asy­lum speak? Punk chal­lenges to psy­chi­atric con­tain­ment cul­ture in 1970s San Francisco

11:20 – 12:20 Con­ver­sa­tion; Chair: Mark Schweda

Matthew Wor­ley (U Read­ing): ‘Iden­ti­ty, it’s a cri­sis, can’t you see’: British punk and men­tal ill­ness, c.1970s-80s

Annette Leib­ing (U Mon­tre­al): Mud­dled affect: On uncom­mon futures 

12:20 – Final words (MS, AL)

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ACM Inter­ac­tive Health 2026
Ear­ly July, Por­to, Portugal
https://ih.acm.org/

 

 

About:

The ACM Inter­ac­tive Health Con­fer­ence (IH) is a new con­fer­ence that aims to be the lead­ing venue for pre­sent­ing work at the inter­sec­tion of Human-Com­put­er Inter­ac­tion (HCI) and Health. The con­fer­ence will wel­come all kinds of work in this space, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to: the study of health prac­tices; the devel­op­ment of meth­ods and the­o­ries for engag­ing users and cre­at­ing human-cen­tered health tech­nolo­gies; or the design, eval­u­a­tion, and imple­men­ta­tion of health tech­nolo­gies to sup­port health and well-being.
Participate:

IH 2026 offers var­i­ous ways to par­tic­i­pate. Authors can sub­mit an extend­ed abstract in the fol­low­ing categories:

Short Forms – Pre­sen­ta­tions for new, emerg­ing, and engag­ing con­tri­bu­tions at the con­fer­ence as a poster;
Demos and Exhi­bi­tions – Sub­mis­sions for on-site demon­stra­tions of inter­ac­tive technologies;
Work­shops – Pro­pos­als for a one-day event for focused dis­cus­sion and for­mu­la­tion of shared goals and agen­das with­in the IH com­mu­ni­ty about key topics;

Doc­tor­al Col­lo­qui­um – Appli­ca­tions for Ph.D. stu­dents to receive men­tor­ships and share research among a small group of peers;
Ear­ly Career Work­shop – Appli­ca­tions for ear­ly career researchers (up to 5 years post-Ph.D.) to attend a one-day event to explore their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties and goals, learn from one anoth­er, and dis­cuss top­ics most impor­tant to them.

We will also open a call for „Relat­ed Con­tri­bu­tions”, papers pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished in oth­er con­fer­ences or jour­nals with an impor­tant mes­sage for the com­mu­ni­ty, which will be pre­sent­ed at IH as a poster or short presentation.
More­over, the con­fer­ence will not have a full paper sub­mis­sion track. Paper ses­sions at the con­fer­ence will be most­ly com­posed of papers accept­ed at the ACM HEALTH jour­nal Spe­cial Issue on Human Cen­tered Com­put­ing in Health­care.

First sub­mis­sion deadlines:

Short forms: Feb­ru­ary 12th 2026
Demos and Exhi­bi­tions: Feb­ru­ary 26th 2026
Work­shops: Jan­u­ary 15th 2026
Doc­tor­al Col­lo­qui­um: Feb­ru­ary 5th 2026
Ear­ly Career Work­shop: April 1st 2026

Join us!
The organ­is­ing team is extreme­ly excit­ed to bring IH to life. The HCI com­mu­ni­ty has been dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing a con­fer­ence bridg­ing HCI and Health for many years at the Spe­cial Inter­est Group on Com­put­er-Human Inter­ac­tion (SIGCHI) of the ACM – the largest asso­ci­a­tion of com­put­ing researchers and professionals.
We hope you will sub­mit your work and join us at the inau­gur­al ACM Inter­ac­tive Health Con­fer­ence in Por­to, Por­tu­gal. You will be joined by researchers, design­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers, health­care pro­fes­sion­als, and patients to reflect and dis­cuss emerg­ing chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties across the social-tech­ni­cal ecosys­tems of health and well-being.
For fur­ther details about the sub­mis­sions, review, pub­li­ca­tion process, or gen­er­al infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence, please go to: https://ih.acm.org.

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Health­care Improve­ment Sum­mer School
8th-10th July, 2026
Leices­ter Tigers Rug­by Club­house in Leices­ter, UK

The SAPPHIRE (Social Sci­ence APPlied Health­care & Improve­ment Research) research group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter are pleased to announce our pop­u­lar Ethnog­ra­phy for Health­care Improve­ment Sum­mer School will be offered again in 2026, and will run 8th-10th July, 2026, at Leices­ter Tigers Rug­by Club­house in Leices­ter, UK. This short course is designed for Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tors, Researchers and Doc­tor­al Stu­dents to crit­i­cal­ly engage with the the­o­ry and prac­tice of ethnog­ra­phy in health­care set­tings. Over 3 days, you will learn more about the use of ethnog­ra­phy for health­care improve­ment, from design­ing research to man­ag­ing improve­ment and eval­u­a­tion ten­sions, nav­i­gat­ing dif­fer­ent con­texts, reach­ing audi­ences and influ­enc­ing pol­i­cy and prac­tice. Addi­tion­al­ly, you will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op a net­work of fel­low prac­ti­tion­ers and researchers with shared method­olog­i­cal inter­ests, work with expe­ri­enced ethno­g­ra­phers as men­tors, and join an inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty of prac­tice around ethnog­ra­phy for health­care improve­ment. The cost of the 3 day course, includ­ing all edu­ca­tion mate­ri­als and activ­i­ties, plus lunch and refresh­ments all days, is £1000 (inclu­sive of VAT). Trans­port to and from the venue and accom­mo­da­tion is not includ­ed, and should be arranged indi­vid­u­al­ly by delegates.

Reg­is­tra­tions are strict­ly lim­it­ed, and are now open at https://shop.le.ac.uk/product-catalogue/events-at-leicester/health-sciences/ethnography-for-healthcare-improvement-summer-school-2026; book­ings will close 31st May 2026. A wait­ing list will be main­tained in the event of the course being over-sub­scribed. Please for­ward any ques­tions to Jen­nifer Creese, course lead: jennifer.creese@leicester.ac.uk.

Best wish­es, Dr Jen­nifer Creese (BA, MIM, PhD, FHEA) (She/Her/Hers)
Lec­tur­er, School of Med­ical Sci­ences – Pub­lic Health and Epi­demi­ol­o­gy Divi­sion (SAPPHIRE Group)
Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter, George Davies Cen­tre, Uni­ver­si­ty Road, Leices­ter LE1 7RH UK

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Invi­ta­tion for open pan­el „ ‚Human­i­tar­i­an Reset,’ Tech­nop­o­l­i­tics and the Infra­struc­tures of Aid”
2026 4S Conference
Toron­to, Canada
Octo­ber 7–10, 2026

Dead­line for sub­mis­sion: April 30, 2026

4S Open Pan­el #111

Orga­niz­ers:
Roda Siad, McGill University
Alphonci­na Lya­muya, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern California

Abstract:
In 2025, the UN’s Office for the Coor­di­na­tion of Human­i­tar­i­an Affairs called for a ‘human­i­tar­i­an reset’ amid pro­lif­er­at­ing crises, ris­ing dis­place­ment, and shrink­ing donor fund­ing. Framed as a rad­i­cal reform moment, the ‘reset’ has emerged as a dom­i­nant term for grap­pling with pro­found sec­tor-wide insti­tu­tion­al stress. Ini­tia­tives such as UN80 and the ‘reset’ are posi­tioned as oppor­tu­ni­ties to reimag­ine how aid is orga­nized and deliv­ered by stream­lin­ing coor­di­na­tion, embrac­ing antic­i­pa­to­ry action, pri­or­i­tiz­ing assis­tance, devolv­ing author­i­ty to local actors, and mobi­liz­ing dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and pri­vate sec­tor part­ner­ships to do “more with less.” Yet these reforms are not mere­ly neu­tral or tech­ni­cal. They rep­re­sent a recon­fig­u­ra­tion of pow­er with­in human­i­tar­i­an sys­tems, enact­ed through the reset as a tech­no-polit­i­cal project.
We invite schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing at the inter­sec­tion of human­i­tar­i­an­ism and sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy stud­ies to exam­ine the reset, its promis­es, under­ly­ing assump­tions, and how it is shaped by, and pro­duc­tive of, technopow­er. We ask: how are aid infra­struc­tures, includ­ing data gov­er­nance sys­tems, cash deliv­ery plat­forms, fore­cast­ing tools, pri­or­i­tized aid mech­a­nisms, and account­abil­i­ty frame­works, being redesigned under con­di­tions of aus­ter­i­ty and urgency? What sociotech­ni­cal imag­i­nar­ies shape reforms pro­posed under the reset, and how are they entan­gled with ideas of effi­cien­cy, exper­tise, inno­va­tion, mar­ket log­ics, and new forms of pub­lic-pri­vate author­i­ty? How do calls to “shift pow­er clos­er to com­mu­ni­ties” inter­sect with expand­ing tech­no­log­i­cal medi­a­tion and data-inten­sive sys­tems that may simul­ta­ne­ous­ly enable and under­mine local agency?
This pan­el fore­grounds the reset as an ongo­ing, con­test­ed process rather than a set­tled reform agen­da. Con­tri­bu­tions may engage empir­i­cal­ly, the­o­ret­i­cal­ly, or con­cep­tu­al­ly with top­ics includ­ing local­iza­tion and account­abil­i­ty, antic­i­pa­to­ry action and ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems, pro­tec­tion issues, human­i­tar­i­an-cor­po­rate col­lab­o­ra­tion, activism, and advo­ca­cy under shrink­ing human­i­tar­i­an foot­prints. We wel­come sub­mis­sions explor­ing ten­sions between effi­cien­cy and care, inno­va­tion and jus­tice, decen­tral­iza­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty-shift­ing, and tech­no­crat­ic exper­tise and lived experiences.

Sub­mis­sion guide­lines and addi­tion­al pan­el details (pan­el #111) can be found here.

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CfP_Remaking Responsibility_7‑9 Octo­ber 2026

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