Call for abstracts – the 3rd PhenoLab Summer School in Umbria June 8 – 12 2026 – title: Phenomenology and Medicine. Exploring the Lived Experience of Illness and Care
3rd PhenoLab Summer School in Umbria – 3rd Phenolab Summer School in Umbria (Italy) – PhenoLab Academy |
Title: Phenomenology and Medicine. Exploring the Lived Experience of Illness and Care
When: June 8-12, 2026
Venue: Palazzo Mauri in Spoleto (PG)Keynote Speakers (in alphabetic order):
– Dr. Roxana Baiasu, University of Birmingham (UK)
– Dr. Francesca Brencio, University of Birmingham (UK)
– Prof. Dr. Matthew Broome, University of Birmingham (UK)
– Prof. Dr. Havi Carel, University of Bristol (UK)
– Dr. Lorna Collins, Expert by experience (UK)
– Dr. David Crepaz‑Keay, FRSPH, The Mental Health Foundation, London (UK)
– Prof. Dr. Magnus Englander, Malmö University (Sweden)
– Prof. Dr. Susi Ferrarello, California State University (East Bay) (USA)
– Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Fuchs, Heidelberg University Hospital (Germany)
– Prof. Dr. Ashok Handa, St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford (UK)
– Prof. Dr. Guilherme Messas, Santa Casa de São Paulo Hospital (Brasil)
– Prof. Dr. René Rosfort, University of Copenhagen (Denmark)We welcome contributions that engage with these themes and questions including, but not limited to:
• Lived experience of illness: the phenomenology of pain, suffering, and chronic illness; transformations of bodily experience and self-understanding through illness; temporal disruptions and biographical interruptions; the loss and recovery of agency and capacity.
• Embodiment and medical practice: the lived body versus the objective body in clinical encounters; intercorporeality in the therapeutic relationship; touch, presence, and attunement in caregiving; technologies and their effects on embodied experience.
• Clinical phenomenology: applications of phenomenological methods in psychiatry, nursing, and primary care; phenomenological psychopathology and its relevance to diagnosis and treatment; descriptive approaches to understanding mental illness and distress.
• Care and relationality: the phenomenology of caring and being cared for; vulnerability, dependency, and human dignity; home care, hospitalization, and institutional spaces; family caregiving and professional care relationships.
• Ethical and existential dimensions: meaning-making in the face of illness and mortality; dignity, autonomy, and quality of life from phenomenological perspectives; end-of-life care and the experience of dying; disability and alternative modes of being-in-the-world.
• Methodological contributions: phenomenological research methods in health sciences; qualitative approaches to studying patient experience; bridging phenomenology and empirical research; challenges and innovations in phenomenological informed methodology.We encourage contributions from philosophers, healthcare practitioners, sociologists, social workers, scholars from medical humanities, PhD scholars working at the intersection of phenomenology and medicine. We welcome both theoretical papers and empirically informed studies that draw on phenomenological frameworks.
We invite authors to submit two separate files:
· One file, with their short bio and affiliation;
· Another one with 1000 words abstractDEADLINE: February 15, 2026
Notification of acceptance will be communicated to the authors by email by April 15, 2026Contributions for oral presentations are requested to be sent by email to info@phenolab.academy specifying in the subject CALL FOR PAPERS – PHENOLAB SUMMER SCHOOL
Please note that registrations for non presenting participants (namely, only attendees) are available on the PhenoLab website until June 1st, 2026.
