ISTP 2026 Conference
“Theorizing in Dark Times – Art, Narrative, Politics”
June 8 – June 12, 2026 | Brooklyn, NY, USA
Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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Daily Overview |
| 10:30am - 12:30pm |
Panel: Critical Theory and Critical Agency in Psychology Location: North Hall 106* link to join Chair: Swen Koerner Rethinking the Political Agency of Theoretical Psychology The Politics of Observation: How Psychological Theory Constructs Its Own Darkness The Political Epistemology of Isabelle Stengers: an interesting way to think psychology beyond the traditional epistemology (ONLINE) Theorizing Danger: The Officer Safety Paradox |
Panel: Articulation, Trauma and Ideology in Dark Times Location: North Hall 107* link to join Chair: Kris (Di) Wu Aesthetic Act as an Existential Confrontation to Trauma's Incurablity Beyond Words: Theorizing Intersubjective and Multimodal Articulations of Suffering and Resistance Socio-Economic Precariousness and Psychological Functions of Neoliberal Ideology: False Consciousness Among the Disadvantaged in Dark Times of Crisis (ONLINE) The Healing Power of a Fantastic Metaphor: A Call to Radically Reform How We Primarily Describe People Currently Described as Autistic |
Symposium: Situated Inequality – Institutional Processes of Inequality Across Education, Unemployment and Mental Health Location: North Hall 108 Chair: Maja Røn-Larsen Situated Inequality – institutional processes of inequality across education, unemployment and mental health. Presentations of the Symposium Situated inequality in children’s institutional everyday life Questioning your darlings: (em)power(ment) and (in)equality in user involvement Situated (in)dignity: exploring experiences of inequality from the margins |
Panel: The Politics of Recognition Location: North Hall 110* link to join Chair: Patric Plesa We Were Never Meant to Be Held: Black Girl/Femme Being in the Wake of School The strength of a constellation: vulnerability, autonomy, and recognition as political criticism of therapeutic cultures in universities (ONLINE) Psychedelics and neonihilism: Connectedness in a meaningless world Use of Custom Methodology to Shine New Light on Negotiation of “Activist” Roles, Community, and Identities Within Queer Individuals |
| Invited Symposium: “Hell Is Other People:” Theorizing the (Negative) Dialectics of Relationality Location: North Hall 111 Chair: Thomas Teo “Hell is other people:” Theorizing the (negative) dialectics of relationality Presentations of the Symposium Hell Is Us: Interrelational Ethics, Colonial Violence, and the Courage of Vulnerability in Dark Times Coping with My Nonrelational Relationality The Power of Negative Thinking: Metaphoric Modes of Knowing in Psychological Practice On the Conditions for People Becoming Hell to Other People |
Symposium: Conceptualizing Care in Times of Crisis: Politics, Emotions, and Transformative Practices Location: North Hall 112* link to join Chair: Dorte Kousholt Conceptualizing Care in Times of Crisis: Politics, Emotions, and Transformative Practices Presentations of the Symposium Care as Foundation: Toward a Culturally Rooted Practice of Development and Education Breaking the Neoliberal Cycle: Reconceptualizing care through activist agency Schoolchildren’s Emotions as Carriers of Knowledge and Mediators of Agency – Challenging the Rationalist Ethos of Emotion Regulation in Western Education Researching with Care? Transformative Research Collaboration in Times of Crisis |
Panel: Gender, Responsibility, and the Politics of Identity Location: North Hall 113* link to join Chair: Nurit Novis The Use of Gendered Narratives for Community Construction within Islamist and Far-Right Online Groups Studying Cis Identities: A qualitative study about the relevance of gender identity and sexuality in therapeutic practices (ONLINE) “I Had No Choice”: On the Surprising Absence of Free Will Among Perpetrators and Rescuers Dancing dialogism (ONLINE) |
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| 12:30pm - 2:00pm |
Lunch Location: Pratt Institute Cafeteria |
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| 2:00pm - 3:30pm |
Keynote Address: Robert Beshara - The Invention of the Unconscious in Egypt Location: Student Union The Invention of the Unconscious in Egypt: A History of Psychoanalysis |
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| 3:30pm - 4:00pm |
Coffee Break |
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| 4:00pm - 6:00pm |
Symposium: Engendering Embodiment with Research on Disability and Neurodiversiy Location: North Hall 106* link to join Chair: Tim Beck Engendering Embodiment with Research on Disability and Neurodiversity Presentations of the Symposium BODY AND BORDERS: What counts as pain and pleasure in chronic pain syndromes and physical disabilities Endurance for Life Projects: Competing narratives on resilience in the context of chronic pain (ONLINE) Participatory Research at the Intersection of Art, Performance, and Identity Reflections on doing participatory research as neurodivergent college students |
Panel: Youth, Grief, and Crisis Representation Location: North Hall 107 Chair: Trudy Meehan Depicting the unthinkable: Young people’s drawings of war The (In)visibility of Pre-death Grief in Youth Life Alone in the Dark - children's bereavement by suicide as a teacher of theory Troubles and Issues of Family Life |
Invited Symposium: Theorizing From and Within Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) Location: North Hall 108* link to join Chair: Nora Ruck Chair: Johanna Motzkau Theorizing from and within critical participatory action research (CPAR) Presentations of the Symposium Empowerment Beyond Individual Strength: Reflexivity, Politics and Narrativity in Participatory Action Research Dark Listening as participatory action research: Discussing pilot data The Triple Shift of intersectionally marginalized individuals: Theorizing the entanglement of wage labour, care labour, and administrative burdens from critical participatory action research with migrant women (ONLINE) Discussion of papers |
Panel: Art, Resistance, and Futurity Location: North Hall 110 Chair: Maayan Hilel Historiography as Resistance: Art and the Politics of Intercommunal Relations in Mandate Palestine Complex Futurity: Neuroqueer Sense-Making, Systems Thinking, and Media Art Art as a Medium of Theoretical Self- and World-Critique in Dark Times. A Morphological Analysis of Goya’s “Black Paintings” and Their Contemporary Relevance A Social Justice Art Exhibition as an Affective, Potentially Transformative Site |
| Symposium: Con-fronting the neoliberal agenda in psychology with a transformative activist approach in solidarity with the scholarship of resistance Location: North Hall 111 Chair: Eduardo Vianna Con-fronting the neoliberal agenda in psychology with a transformative activist approach in solidarity with the scholarship of resistance Presentations of the Symposium Transformative Activist Stance: Theory and Research as Sociopolitical Projects of Social Change Disrupting the Status Quo in the Community College: A critical-theoretical approach to psychology teaching Theorising wellbeing in dark times: Reflections on the struggle to save jobs Encountering the Pano People: Activism and Transformation in an Amazonian Cosmo Praxis |
Panel: Shaping the Relational Self Location: North Hall 112* link to join Chair: Johanna L Degen Exploring young childrens (learning) engagements with each other and with things in and across nursery and familylife The Shaping of the Parasocial Self: Digitizing Social Mechanisms and Their Meanings for Subjects and Society in Times of Increasing Individualization and Loneliness Creating Open Community Spaces for Innovative Child Support: Insights from a Character Design Competition in Japan Hybrid scenarios of activity: building bridges of humanity in dark times (ONLINE) |
Symposium: Art is no Tool Location: North Hall 113* link to join Chair: Lia Lordelo Art is no tool (ONLINE) Presentations of the Symposium Relearning the meaning of Art: in day's where we tend to believe to know all about Art (ONLINE) Can Art Save Psychology? Or Is That the Wrong Question? (ONLINE) Social coreographies in contemporary Brazil: transforming social and political order (ONLINE) |
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