The Emotional Aspects of Resistance and Solidarity Conference

TEARS CONFERENCE, 8-10 June 2026

Philosophy Department, University of Bologna

Organizers: Laurencia Sáenz Benavides & Pia Campeggiani

I am happy to announce the conference entitled “The Emotional Aspects of Resistance and Solidarity”. This conference aims to bring in post-graduate students, early career academics and established scholars whose work on the socio-political aspects of narrative practices, affects and emotions can offer illuminating perspectives on some of the issues addressed by the TEARS project, such as:

• Affective dimensions of resistance to social oppression (race, class, gender, sexuality, neurodiversity…)
• Affective conditions for solidarity
• The role of narrative practices for resistance to oppression
• Ambivalence and resistance to oppression
• How can institutions (academic or other) be changed so that they do not reproduce oppressive relations?

The conference will take place on the 8th-10th June 2026, at the Philosophy Department of the University of Bologna, Via Azzo Gardino 23, Sala Rossa (June 8th & 9th); Via Zamboni 38, Sala Apollo (June 10th). 

This conference is supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement n°1011105929 Project TEARS

If you wish to attend this event, please register here: https://forms.gle/CQvzuoV7YSiautBs5 

For any inquiries, please email  [email protected] or [email protected] 

Conference Programme:

Keynote Speakers: Maria Pia Lara (UAM) & Mariana Ortega (Penn State University)

Day 1. Monday June 8th. 

Venue: Sala Rossa, Via Azzo Gardino 23. 

14: 30 Welcome

15:00-16:00 “From outlaw emotions to moral injury: Rethinking the affective disruptions of norms” Ditte Munch-Jurisic (Copenhagen) 

16:00-17:00 “Feelings and Epistemic Resistance” Caleb Ward (Hamburg)

17:00 Keynote address: Maria Pia Lara (UAM)

19:30 Social Dinner

Day 2 Tuesday June 9th. 

Venue: Sala Rossa, Via Azzo Gardino 23

8:00-9:00  “The emancipatory power of narrative practices” Laurencia Saenz Benavides (Bologna)

9:00-10:00 “Pedagogical perspectives on loneliness narratives in extremist and emancipatory movements” Ruth Rebecca Tietjen (Tilburg) 

Break

10:15-11:15  “The Unfinished ‘We’: Longing for Belonging, Loneliness, and the Affective Fault Lines of Political Communities” Marie Wuth (Erlangen-Nürnberg).

11:15-12:15: TBC Tris Hedges (Copenhagen)

12:30-14:30 Lunch

14:30-15:30 “Mass Masochism” Serena Gregorio (Justus-Liebig-University Giessen). 

15:30-16:30 “‘Something new must be created at all costs’. Affects of Societal Transformation” Henrike Kohpeiß (Lüneburg)

Break

17:00 Keynote lecture: Mariana Ortega (Penn State University)

19:30 Dinner 

Day 3. Wednesday June 10th. 

Venue: Sala Apollo, 38 Via Zamboni 

9:00-11:00 Concluding remarks

End of the conference