The Interdisciplinary Ageing Research working group (IAW) at the faculty of education at Goethe University in Frankfurt is currently developing a new research agenda on grief and artificial intelligence (AI), situated at the intersection of environmental gerontology, cultural theory, digital sociology and media studies. Within this planned project, we aim to explore how AI technologies (e.g., griefbots, grieftech) may transform mourning practices, concepts of authenticity, and social relationships around death and memory. As a first step towards the project, we are organizing a series of workshops. The first online workshop is entitled: “Grief Practices and Artificial Intelligence: Transformations of the (Im)Perishable”.
We would like to invite you to join our workshop and to contribute your perspectives to the discussion. The workshop aims to provide a forum to share reflections and explore critical perspectives on how AI is transforming mourning practices, memory, and the meaning of loss.
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Ignacio Brescó de Luna and Dr. Belén Jiménez
(Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) and Dr. Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom) as our invited speakers, who will contribute their expertise and engage in discussion on the following topics:
- “Continuing Bonds in the Digital Age: Distributed Agency and Cultural Mediation in Griefbots” (Dr. Ignacio Brescó de Luna and Dr. Belén Jiménez)
- “Deadbots: Exploring Grief Practices and Digital Immortality Across Cultures” (Dr. Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska)
The workshop will take place on 26th of November 2025, 15:00 – 18:00 (CET) via Zoom.
Zoom-Link: https://uni-frankfurt.zoom-x.de/j/4681534866?pwd=TmVyUUU4bVNDOStmbktiVmRyVzdndz09
If you are interested in participating, we kindly ask you to send a short confirmation by email to Klara Kümpfel (Kuempfel@em.uni-frankfurt.de).
We look forward to your response and to an inspiring discussion!
Klara Kümpfel on behalf of the team with
Prof. Dr. Frank Oswald, Dr. Anna Wanka, Dr. Anamaria Depner, Dr. des. Luisa Bischoff, Janina Ewert, Fiona Schrading, Dr. Friedrich Wolf and Natalie Merkel
