This international conference asks whether the biomedical humanities can intervene in the very constitution of the phenomena they study. We propose to rethink the body as a relational entity shaped by biological, social, environmental, and existential assemblages—moving beyond traditional partitions (body/mind, nature/culture, biological/social) that structure contemporary medicine.

Program

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

• 1:30 – 2:00 Welcome and Registration
• 2:00 – 2:15 Katrin Solhdju (Université de Mons) Introduction to the Conference

Panel 1 : Challenging Dualisms

Chair: Julie D’Haussy (Université de Mons)

• 2:15 – 3:15 Estelle Carde (Université de Montréal) Cartesian Dualism and Hermeneutical Injustice in the Denial of Chronic Pain
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min
• 3:15 – 4:15  Stéphanie Pache (Université du Québec à Montréal) Psychologizing pain: dichotomic ontologies and feminist politics of embodiment
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min

4:15 – 4:30 Coffee Break

• 4:30 – 5:30 Shannon Sullivan (University of North Carolina, Charlotte) Becoming Unstuck: Wilhelm Reich on Embodied Trauma and Healing
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min

5:30 – 5:45 Closing Remarks

Thursday, June 18, 2026

Panel 2 : Unstable Object and Medical Complexity

Chair: Charline Marbaix (Université de Mons)

• 9:00 – 10:00 Aude Bandini (Université de Montréal) Acute, Chronic, Degenerative: the Shifting Identities of Type 1 Diabetes
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min
• 10:00 – 11:00 Monica Greco (University of Bath)Complexity as multiplicity: the case of "symptom disorders"
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min
• 11:00 – 12:00 Urte Laukaityte (Aarhus University) Gentle medicine revisited
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min

12:00 – 1:30 Lunch Break

Panel 3: Technologies, Materialities, and Bodily Mediation

Chair: Laurence Dufour-Villeneuve (Université de Montréal, Université de Mons)

• 1:30 – 2:30 Giulio Galimberti (State University of Milan) Re-Entangling Diagnostics: Bodies, Images, and Agency in Biomedical Imaging
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min
• 2:30 – 3:30 Inna Häkkinen (University of Helsinki)"Fight for Every Cell of Your Body": Radiation Therapy and Objectified Bodies in Cancer Narratives
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min

3:30 PM – 3:45 PM Coffee Break

• 3:45 – 4:45 Charline Marbaix (Université de Mons) and Hugo Mantion (Université Libre de Bruxelles) Entangled Bodies, Fractured Evidence: How Biocultural Complexity Challenges Medical Knowledge
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min

4:45 PM – 5:00 PM  Closing Remarks

Friday, June 19, 2026

Panel 4: Resistant Objects and Body Ontologies

Chair: Katrin Solhdju (Université de Mons)

• 9:00 – 10:00  Peper Rivers (Indiana University Bloomington) Only a stab in the dark: Onto-possibilities of Addiction and the Receding Edge of the Will
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min
• 10:00 – 11:00 Jason Pribilsky (Whitman College) Retained Bullets as Bad Objects: Body Ontologies and Activisms of Gunshot Survivorship
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min
• 11:00 – 12:00 Laurence Dufour-Villeneuve (Université de Montréal, Université de Mons) Hormonal BodyCultures and Endometriosis: Beyond Suppression
• Presentation: 40 min | Discussion: 20 min

12:00 PM – 12:15 PM Conference Closing

Practical information/Venue

University of Mons 
Rosa Parks site
Avenue Frère Orban 9
Room 2.09 (2nd floor)
Google Maps link from Mons Station

Possibility to attend online -> see QR code on the poster