Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Anorexia Nervosa (IPAN)

Bologna, Italy

26-May-2023 - 26-May-2023


https://site.unibo.it/metaphan/en/agenda/ipan-interdisciplinary-perspectives-on-anorexia-nervosa


Call Deadline: 19-Mar-2023

Meeting Description:

We are pleased to announce the upcoming International Conference IPAN (“Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Anorexia Nervosa”), to be held at the University of Bologna (Italy) on May 26th, 2023, in hybrid (both in-person and online) format. The conference is centered on the study of AN in its various aspects, but it particularly focuses on its linguistic profile.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychopathological gendered disorder characterized by disturbance in eating behavior, which manifests in the form of dysfunctional routines, such as food deprivation, obsessive weight control, and compulsive physical exercise. Beyond the disordered eating behaviors, AN appears to be also characterized by inflexible thinking, rigid habits, disconnection from the bodily experience, strong sensitivity to praise, anxiety, and perfectionism. Interestingly, from a very linguistic point of view, evidence of the linguistic changes characterizing patients with eating disorders seems to be less clear and the overall picture more blurred.

Despite the fact that in the last decade a growing body of linguistic studies have been devoted to the investigation of linguistic changes in various clinical conditions, only a limited number of works have been specifically conducted on the linguistic profile of patients with eating disorders (ED), and an even smaller number has specifically focused on AN. This has meant that not only many issues are still unsolved, but also that several linguistic aspects of AN happen to be unexplored territory.

“Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Anorexia Nervosa” (IPAN) is a conference aimed at fostering multidisciplinary exchange about research on AN and, more in general, on eating disorders. It invites contributions from all fields related to the study of this subject, including (but not limited to) linguistics, psychology, and medicine.

The conference is open for research on various aspect of eating disorders. Topics of interest include the following:
- Linguistic profile of AN: morphosyntactic and lexical markers
- Conceptual representation of AN: abstraction deficits and concretism
- Relationship between altered body image and disordered eating
- NLP detection of online pro-ana and pro-mia communities
- NLP and altered linguistic patterns in AN
- Representation of eating disorders in social media
- Analysis of voice disturbance in patients with eating disorders

This conference aims to provide an excellent opportunity to present and discuss ongoing research on eating disorders, both from theoretical and experimental viewpoints. Since our main aim is to bring together experts on ED/AN from different backgrounds and provide an environment for dialogue, we invite researchers from all related fields to submit abstracts to the conference.

Call for Papers:

Invited Speakers:
Laura A. Cariola, The University of Edinburgh

Submissions:
Abstracts should be submitted, in word/rtf format, with your name, affiliation, and e-mail address directly to gloria.gagliardiunibo.it and paola.vernillounibo.it. Abstracts should not be longer than 400 words of text (excluding references) and should include up to 5 keywords.
Paper presentations will be allowed 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for discussion and will be in English.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at gloria.gagliardiunibo.it and paola.vernillounibo.it.

Abstract submission opens: February 6th 2023
Abstract submission deadline: March 19th 2023
Registration: Participation at the conference is free of charge, but registration is compulsory.

Scientific Committee:
Marianna Bolognesi
Vittoria Cuteri
Gloria Gagliardi
Caterina Mauri
Antonia Parmeggiani
Jacopo Pruccoli
Paola Vernillo

Local Organizers:
Gloria Gagliardi
Paola Vernillo