Call for Papers – International Conference ‘Social Pathologies: Developmental and Processual Perspectives on Contemporary Malaises’
**Deadline for abstract submission 15 May 2026**
Conference to be held 2-5 December 2026 in Cork, Ireland
Papers are invited for a major international conference in University College Cork, Ireland, taking place on 2nd – 5th December 2026. The conference theme is: Social Pathologies: Developmental and Processual Perspectives on Contemporary Malaises. This in-person conference is a joint endeavour between University College Cork, the Norbert Elias Foundation, RC56 Historical Sociology of the International Sociological Association, and the Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization Research Network.
The conference will address the historical dynamics of social pathologies. It is concerned with disease in a broad sense, of disorders of development, function and structure, expressed in symptoms that indicate an underlying condition. These result in a lack of ease, or pathos – suffering. History is marked by concrete socially driven diseases, from plagues, to social epidemics of chronic conditions, addiction and mental health problems. There are also the discontents of civilisation –disorders such as melancholy, anxiety and insatiability that seem to be baked into social development. Social pathology is not limited narrowly to health and well-being, but rather to a wider spectrum of social problems such as violence, mass incarceration, injustice, exclusion, and failures to provide for people’s needs, that are systemic and that produce social suffering. While social pathologies can be seen as concrete, where the suffering involved is all too real, its scale all too apparent, and the causal links to historically shaped political and social organisation all too clear, they can also be primarily symbolic. The social problems that are deemed pathological, are frequently political constructions, public dramas, or scapegoating exercises where behaviours and people once considered unremarkable become pathologised as sick, infectious, subversive, and to be corrected. Thus, civilising offensives, projects of normalisation, the construction of folk devils and the secondary harms caused by these processes, are an equal concern of the conference. The antonym of malaise is comfort and well-being. Our topic can be understood through its opposite, as much as through itself, so we welcome papers on health, flourishing and wholeness as well.
Crucially, the goal is to challenge a-social and a-historical biomedical and psychological perspectives that view conditions and syndromes as individual cases, reducing issues to the body, psyche or the self, conceptualised in disconnected professional discourses, with individual treatments and forms of self-help. Rather, they are seen as rooted in collectively experienced conditions of historical development and social transformation, and their shape can only be adequately drawn through delineating their origins and processual nature.
We welcome in particular papers that combine an empirical focus, methodological sophistication and theoretical analysis. All schools of historical sociology are welcome, and we hope for fruitful exchanges and innovations in these.
Suggested Themes / Sessions
- Health and illness: processes, trends, and interventions
- Flourishing, well being, health, wholeness
- Melancholy, mental health and the discontents of civilisation
- Neurodiversity and social processes: power, habitus, and interdependence
- Traumatisation in long term civilising offences: historical processes expressed in contemporary social pathologies
- Golden ages and renaissances
- Violence, aggression, and state formation: civilising & decivilising processes
- Imperialism, neo-imperialism
- Decolonial & postcolonial perspectives on historical sociology
- Political, social and institutional fragility
- Systemic injustice, exploitation, inequality and discrimination,
- Distortion of gender roles and relations
- Neglect, care failures, and disavowal of welfare needs
- Gender-based violence
- Crime and punishment
- Public dramas, scapegoating and moral panics
- Digital malaise: constructing and deconstructing human figurations in online spaces
- Environmental degradation and exploitation
Abstracts of no more that 300 words should be submitted via this link by 15th May 2026
Abstracts should be in the format: Title, Author, Keywords, Institutional Affiliation, Email, Abstract.
A workshop for PhD students will take place on the 2nd and 5th December, with participants in the workshop also participating as attendees or speakers at the conference in the two days in-between. Applicants to the workshop should apply via this link, including their name, affiliation, conference paper abstract should they be delivering a paper, PhD title and outline, and application for financial assistance should they be seeking this. We have a small number of bursaries available. You can pose questions and enquiries about the conference to: information@socialpathologies2026.com
Conference Organising Committee
- Dr John O’Brien, University College Cork
- Dr Gema Kloppe-Santamaria, University College Cork
- Professor Jason Hughes, University of Leicester
- Dr. Paddy Dolan, Technological University Dublin
- Dr. Domonkos Sik, Eötvös Loránd University
- Professor Kieran Keohane, University College Cork
- Professor Marta Bucholc, University of Warsaw
- Dr. Lucy Brown, Charles University Prague
- Prof Robert Van Krieken, University of Sydney
- Dr. John Connolly, Dublin City University
- Prof Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin
Find more information here: https://socialpathologies2026comdomainonly.wpcomstaging.com/call-for-papers/