Suomalaisen Kuolemantutkimuksen Seura

CDAS Conference 2012: Dying in the Digital Age
09-10 June 2012
Bath, UK

The University of Bath’s Centre for Death & Society (CDAS) announces
its 2012 summer conference. Our conference last year, Death & Dying
in the Digital Age, was possibly the first ever to bring together
computer scientists and death studies researchers. Reflecting the
literature, the most coherent body of the 2011 papers concerned
post-death phenomena, specifically digital mourning and legacy, and a
selection of those papers will appear in a special issue of
Bereavement Care in Spring 2012.

By contrast, research into how digital technologies affect the
interactions and experiences of those near the end of life – the frail
elderly, the terminally ill – is much more limited and
fragmented.Considerable research has been done on technologies to
sustain people’s physical wellbeing toward the end of life, but very little on
technologies to sustain their social lives.

So for 2012 we invite papers that look at digital technologies that
enhance the social wellbeing of those nearing the end of life. Topics
can include, but are not limited to, the modelling, development or use
of technologies that promote social inclusion, blogs, social
networking, health & social care technologies, narrative analysis,
etc. Our aim is to bring together the fragmented research and
knowledge in this area.

Twenty-minute papers are invited from computer scientists, system
engineers, formal modellers, HCI specialists; social scientists and
death studies researchers; scholars of culture, media and literature;
health and care professionals; software developers & entrepreneurs;
and those themselves nearing the end of their life. Abstracts (up to
250 words) to be emailed to cdas(a)bath.ac.uk by 12 March 2012.

The conference will be held in the centre of the world heritage city
of Bath, in the amenable surroundings of the Bath Royal Literary &
Scientific Institute (car park nearby, Bath Spa station 10 minutes
walk, Bristol Airport 1 hour). The cost, £45 for a single day, £80 for
the weekend, includes lunch and refreshments. There will be
opportunities to socialise over a drink on Friday evening or meal on
Saturday evening (neither included in price). There is plentiful
accommodation nearby, which delegates need to arrange for themselves.

Conference updates, a booking form and accommodation links at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/cdas/news/conferences/index.html#cdas2012

Tony Walter
CDAS, University of Bath
jaw34(a)bath.ac.uk

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The 2012 International Conference on Sitllbirth,SIDS and Infant survival, October 5-7h 2012

Baltimore, Maryland, Usa

Call for Abstracts

First Candle is pleased to announce the call for abstracts. We recognize the value of a multidisciplinary collaborative meeting which serves as both a venue for scientific networking and for information sharing. Your support and participation through attendance and your submissions will be the key to the success of the conference. The following points are to help guide you as you prepare your abstracts for submission:

We encourage submission of only the highest quality abstracts that are on the cutting edge, or novel investigations, programs or approaches. Multiple abstracts may be submitted. We especially encourage junior faculty and trainees, as the Conference will be an outstanding forum for presentations by young investigators.

Abstracts presented at other national or regional meetings may also be submitted to this conference. The deadline for receipt of your abstract is 11:59 PM, March 31, 2012. Abstracts received after this date will not be considered. Abstracts must be submitted on-line. Click here to submit your abstract. Abstracts must be submitted in English.
Abstracts may be submitted without registration form and payment. Registration and payment must be completed once abstract is accepted.

The Program Committee expects to announce decisions by May 5, 2012.

All accepted abstracts will be published in the conference program.

http://www.firstcandle.org/internationalconference/

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CFP – “And now, the end is near”: geographies of dying and death – Edinburgh, 3-5 July 2012

“And now, the end is near”: geographies of dying and death
RGS –IBG Annual International Conference
Edinburgh, 3-5 July 2012

Session convenors: Charlotte Kenten, King’s College London, Olivia Stevenson, University of Glasgow and Sarah Deedat, King’s College London

One of life’s certainties is that everyone will die. When people die, beyond those who grieve, the event tends to become a statistic via the production of patterns of mortality and underlying explanatory factors. Less attention has been paid to the temporalities and spatialities of end of life practices and the circumstances in which people die, come close to death or contemplate death and the (in)securities around health care needs or provisions associated with these events.

The aim of this session is to bring together those working on issues connected with the end of life, dying and death. We encourage abstracts from post-grads, early career researchers as well as established researchers on issues including but not limited to:

§  Spaces where people die and circumstances surrounding their death

§  Service provision, policies, inequalities and access associated with the end of life (at home, palliative care, hospital, location of choice)

§  Dying in spaces not designed for dying

§  Sudden deaths (accidents, violence or health related) and the meanings of place

§  Contemplating suicide and moralities associated with taking one’s life

§  Migration and death e.g. returning ‘home’ to die

§   Influence of social identities age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, faith on dying and practices at the time of death

§   Design of spaces for end of life care

§   Emotional ties to spaces of dying and death (for individuals or their next of kin)

§   Cultural or corporeal practices associated with dying and death

§   Practices of euthanasia

The deadline for submitting abstracts is: Monday 5th December 2011. Please send abstracts up to a maximum of 250 words, proposed titles and 5 keywords (clearly stating name, institution, and contact details) to Charlotte Kenten and Olivia Stevenson.

For more information go to: http://medicalhumanities.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/cfp-and-now-the-end-is-near-geographies-of-dying-and-death-edinburgh-3-5-july-2012/

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Call for Participation - Memento Mori: Technology Design for the End of Life (CHI 2012, Austin, Texas, USA)

Interactive technologies increasingly play a role throughout our lives – and the end of life is no exception. Building on a successful workshop at CHI 2010, we invite participation in the CHI 2012 workshop “Memento Mori: Technology Design for the End of Life”. The workshop will be held in conjunction with ACM SIGCHI 2012, May 5-10, 2012 in Austin, Texas.

This one-day workshop will address technology use associated with the end of the human lifespan, in the processes of death, dying and bereavement. Example topics include (but are not limited to): health systems for the dying, interactive memorials, bereavement support systems, digital inheritance, and death-oriented perspectives on social media.

We invite 2-4 page submissions in CHI Extended Abstracts format that critically analyse authors’ experiences of designing, using, or evaluating technologies that engage with the End of Life. We encourage submissions from diverse backgrounds, including (but not limited to): medicine, sociology, law, social work, the arts, humanities, death studies, and thanatology. Industrial and community organizations are similarly encouraged, and will be joined by founders of prominent organizations including The Digital Beyond, Entrustet, and Legacy Locker. Submissions will be selected based on originality, quality, and ability to promote discussion. Both completed and in-progress work is welcome.

Submissions and questions should be directed to Michael Massimi (mikem@dgp.toronto.edu) by January 13, 2012. More information can be found at http://sites.google.com/site/chi2012eol/home . At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the workshop and at least one day of the ACM CHI 2012 conference.

Workshop Organizers

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“Death in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and Present“ at the
Center for Advanced Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany,
23th-24th April, 2012

Funerary customs, rites and practices related to death lie at the
intersection between the private and the public spheres. While
rites of passage in general are landmarks of an individual biography,
they are also public events, which often carry political meaning. The
conference  „Death in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and Present“
invites paper proposals from historians, anthropologists and
sociologists who study funerary rites in Eastern and Central Europe.
The conference focuses on the time period from the end of the 19th
century to the present.

The conference has a double aim: it invites researchers to
share their empirical work with each other in individual panels and,
equally importantly, it offers a venue for developing a comparative
analytical framework for understanding the commonalities and
differences in the development of funerary rites and practices in the
region.

Proposals for individual (20 minute) papers or panels consisting of
three presentations are invited.

Please submit a 300 word abstract per paper and a cv to
Helena.Toth(a)lrz.uni-muenchen.de.

The deadline for submissions is December 15th; notifications of the
acceptance of papers by the end of the calendar year.