The preservation of meaning within the human sciences necessitates a re-evaluation of the relationship between the utopian imagination and the weight of tradition. While tradition is often viewed as an impediment to progress and critique an inherently destructive enterprise, I argue in this presentation that enduring change requires the critical imagination to be held in a dialectical tension with tradition. I intend to demonstrate that this remains true for individual, methodological, and so...

Dr Darren Langdridge

Keynote speaker

In 2017, a television series that appeared initially unremarkable was released by the well-known American production company HBO: The Leftovers. The opening three minutes unfold like a conventional science-fiction scenario: 2% of the planet’s population vanishes without explanation. No one understands why, how, or—most fundamentally—where these thousands of individuals have gone. From the outset, the viewer encounters the radical opacity of loss, our finitude, and the necessary relation we ma...

Nathalie Plaat Goasdoué

Keynote speaker

Contemporary Western cultures are deeply shaped by ideals of choice, autonomy, and control. This orientation becomes particularly visible at the end of life, where medical technologies, advance care planning, and assisted dying practices promise manageability in the face of mortality. Yet real-life experiences of dying often resist such rational mastery. They are often equally marked by uncertainty, vulnerability, dependence, and profound emotional conflict. In this keynote I will argue that ...

Dr Els van Wijngaarden

Keynote speaker

For some clients, speech and words have lost their power as a means of communication. They no longer trust others. Modern society generally emphasizes efficiency and performance, leaving little room for the incomprehensible. From an administrative standpoint, whether in the public or community sector, efficiency is measured in numbers. How many clients and in how many sessions? However, a person in distress will not necessarily benefit from this type of...

Dr Pierre Plante

Keynote speaker