We are a multidisciplinary community of pain scholars representing anthropology, art, gender studies, history, literary studies, medicine, philosophy, physiotherapy, psychology, and other related fields. We come together to read and discuss both new research and foundational texts that shape the study of pain. In addition to our reading group, we host an ongoing webinar series that brings together researchers, clinicians, and thinkers from around the world.
Here you can find our previous program and reading list (2023-2025). In spring 2026, we are hosting a webinar series in collaboration with the CAPS Network. The recordings will be available on this website shortly after the meetings.
Webinar series (Spring 2026)
Upcoming webinars:
Webinar 4: Wednesday, May 27th 2026, 14:00-15:30 (Eastern European Time, EET)
Rob Boddice: Can they suffer? Pain, medical ethics and the politics of facial expression, c. 1700-1830
Rob Boddice (PhD, FRHistS) is a core fellow at Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. He has previously held positions at Tampere University, Harvard University, McGill University, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Freie Universität Berlin. Boddice has published extensively in the history of medicine, the history of science and the history of emotions. His recent books include Emotion, Sense, Experience, with Mark Smith (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Humane Professions: The Defence of Experimental Medicine, 1876-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Feeling Dis-Ease in Modern History: Experiencing Medicine and Illness (Bloomsbury, 2022), edited with Bettina Hitzer, and Knowing Pain: A History of Sensation, Emotion and Experience (Polity, 2023). He is currently writing The Power of Belief: a book about the history of the placebo effect (Reaktion, 2026).
Past webinars and recordings:
Webinar 1: Wednesday, January 14th 2026
Tiina Rosenqvist: Women’s Pain and Psychogenic Diagnoses
Tiina Rosenqvist is a philosopher who currently works as a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College. She holds wide-ranging interests in the philosophy of pain. Her recent publications include the articles “Women’s pain and psychogenic diagnoses” (with Sara Purinton, 2026) and “The pain system is not a bodily disturbance detector” (2024).
Webinar 2: Wednesday, April 8th 2026
Sabrina Coninx and Peter Stilwell: The limits of pain education: The evolution from passive to active to enactive learning
Sabrina Coninx is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specializing in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science. Her research lies at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, medicine, and technology, with a particular focus on the complex nature of pain and suffering. She has worked extensively on questions concerning both acute and chronic pain, such as developing tools to systematically model the phenomenal experiences of people living with pain or to understand these experiences from an enactive perspective.
Peter Stilwell is a Canadian health researcher who currently holds a Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Southern Denmark. He is also an Affiliate Member at McGill University in the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences – School of Physical & Occupational Therapy. He conducts theoretical, methodological, and empirical research on pain and suffering.
Coninx and Stilwell are PIs of the project “From Pain Theory to Practice: A Community-Initiated Knowledge Translation Project” funded by the Canadian Chiropractic Research Foundation (2023-2026), which involves researchers, clinicians, and patient partners. The presentation is based on the results of this collaborative project.
Webinar 3: Wednesday, May 6th 2026
Josie Billington: Literary Reading and Chronic Pain
Josie Billington is Professor in English Literature at the University of Liverpool, specialising in Victorian literature and reading and health. She has edited and published extensively on fiction and poetry by nineteenth-century women writers and led multiple inter¬disciplinary studies on the value of literary reading in relation to depression, dementia, chronic pain, prisoner health and community mental health. Her publications in this field include Is Literature Healthy? (Oxford University Press, 2016), Reading and Mental Health (Palgrave, 2019), and Reading Literature and Chronic Pain (Bloomsbury, 2025). At Liverpool, she leads the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Doctoral Focal College, Crafting Care for Healthy People, Place and Planet, co-leads the Arts, Mental Health and Wellbeing theme of the Centre for Health, Arts, Society and Environment (CHASE), and co-directs the MA in Health, Cultures and Societies. She is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, a UK Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellow, and former Vice President of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL).
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/english/staff/josie-billington/
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If you would like to participate, please feel free to send us an email at henni.alava[at]tuni.fi or anna.ovaska[at]tuni.fi.