This virtual symposium invites papers that explore how mental disability and technology intersect in
literature, film, and media.
By mental disability, we include conditions such as mental illness, neurodivergence, emotional
distress, and psychological differences as represented across cultures.
By technology, we refer broadly to scientific, digital, or mechanical systems (such as medical
instruments, typewriters, social media, surveillance systems, and artificial intelligence).
We invite submissions that consider questions: How do technologies shape the way we think about
madness, desire, emotion, and care? How do literature and media represent the mind as a kind of machine,
or the machine as human-like? How can disability studies, queer and feminist theory, or decolonial
approaches help reimagine technologies and human psyche?

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
● Mental illness, neurodivergence, and machines in literature or film
● Assistive or accessible technologies in art and performance
● Algorithms, surveillance, and mental health classification
● Social media and self-representation
● Disability aesthetics: repetition, silence, free association, flashback as creative forms
● Environmental and technological effects on mental health
● AI companions, speculative fiction, and posthumanism
● Pedagogy, accessibility, and digital humanities
● Community-based or abolitionist models of technological care
Submission Details
Please submit 300–500 word abstracts for fifteen-minute presentations to be shared virtually. All
submissions must include the title of the proposed paper and a short bio (100 words). Please submit these
by email to gwegsa@gmail.com with the subject line “2026 EGSA Symposium Submission.”