On 8 and 9 May 2026, the Geneva Graduate Institute is hosting the conference “Love, Hate, and the Fate of International Organizations: The Psychological Life of Global Governance (1900–Present)”. This events constitutes the concluding conference of the Trans-Atlantic Platform project “Global Governance, Trust and Democratic Engagement in Past and Present” (whose Geneva-based activities are funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) and the Annual Conference of the Pierre du Bois Foundation. The programme features below and registration is possible via this link.
Wednesday 8 May 2026
8:30 – 9:00 WELCOME AND REGISTRATION
9:00 – 9:30 WELCOME NOTE
IRINA DU BOIS (Fondation Pierre du Bois) – A Welcome to the Conference
DANIEL LAQUA (Northumbria University, GLO Project Leader) – An Introduction to the GLO Project
AMALIA RIBI-FORCLAZ (Geneva Graduate Institute) and THOMAS GIDNEY (Geneva Graduate Institute) – An Introduction to the Conference
9:30 – 9:45 OPENING LECTURE
CAROLYN BILTOFT (Geneva Graduate Institute) – Worldly Projections: IOs as (Historical) Good and Bad Objects
9:45 – 11:15 PANEL I – LETTERS TO THE WORLD: IO’S AS RECIPIENTS OF IMPOSSIBLE DEMANDS (panel chair: Anne-Isabelle Richard)
NICOLE BOURBONNAIS (Geneva Graduate Institute) – Dear Dr. Mahler: The World Health Organization and the Moral Guardians of Breastfeeding
PETER GATRELL (University of Manchester) – Refugees’ Encounters with UNHCR, 1951–1975
DAN GORMAN (University of Waterloo) – An Affective History of United Nations Associations in the Anglo-Atlantic World, 1945–1960
11:15 – 11:40 COFFEE BREAK
11:40 – 13:10 PANEL II – LAW AS PSYCHIC THEATRE: REDEMPTION, BETRAYAL, AND THE LIMITS OF LEGAL FORM (panel chair: Ilaria Scaglia)
ALBERTO RINALDI (Lund University) – Trauma and Redemption in The Hague: The ICJ, Global South, and the Impossible Quest for Justice
EMANUELE MONACO (University of Bologna) – The Unattainable Dream of Equality: Gender, Law, and the Emotional Economies of the League of Nations
Nitzan LEBOVIC (Lehigh University) – Complicity and the Future of International Law
13:10 – 14:30 LUNCH BREAK
14:30 – 16:00 PANEL III – PROJECTION ONTO THE FORUM: FEAR, SOVEREIGNTY, AND THE DELIBERATIVE STAGE (panel chair: Thomas Gidney)
SAKIKO KAIGA (Hiroshima University) – Emotional Collective Security: Fears and Grievances at the International Studies Conference, 1934–1935
JENNIFER FORAY (Indiana University) – Of Promises, Projection, and Personal Conflict: Indonesian Decolonization in the Early United Nations Security Council
JAMES MARTELL (Lyon College) – America’s Foiled Reflections with the UN and NATO
16:00 – 16:30 COFFEE BREAK
16:30 – 17:30 METHODS ROUNDTABLE: THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
CAROLYN BILTOFT (Geneva Graduate Institute), AMALIA RIBI-FORCLAZ (Geneva Graduate Institute) and ILARIA SCAGLIA (Aston University)
18:15 – 19:45 KEYNOTE LECTURE
JOANNA BOURKE (Birkbeck, University of London) – Making and Unmaking of Life: The Politics and Psychology of Fear from the 1950s to the Present
Thursday 9 May 2026
9:30 – 11:00 PANEL IV – Good Object, Bad Object: Idealization, Ridicule and the Splitting of Institutional Attachment (panel chair: Bernard Keo)
JENNIFER BOND (University College London) – Getting ‘Closer to the World’s Family’ vs Exposing ‘Undercover Imperialists’: Cora Deng and the World’s YWCA
PAUL VAN TRIGT (Leiden University) – Dreaming for Others: The Emotional Relationship Between the Allies of People with Cognitive Disabilities and the United Nations, 1968–2006
DANIEL QUIROGA-VILLAMARIN (New York University) – All Quiet on the Geneva Front: Derso and Kelen’s Cartoons of the Psychic Lives of Early International Organizations
11:00 – 11:30 PANEL V – Inside the Institution: Performing Community, Sustaining Belief (panel chair: Jessica Reinisch)
ANASTASSIYA SCHACHT (Heidelberg University) – Before the New Day Dawns: Managing Emotions and Inter-Staff Conflicts in the League-UN Transition
MARINE PIERRE (University of Copenhagen) and HAAKON A. IKONOMOU (University of Copenhagen) – Staging Community, Managing Hierarchy: Sociability and Its Contradictions at the League of Nations
GORDON BARRETT (Northumbria University) – Institutional Attachments: UNESCO and the Scientific Internationalism(s) of Lu Gweidjen and Joseph Needham, 1943–1995
13:00 – 14:30 LUNCH BREAK
14:30 – 16:00 PANEL VI – The IO as a Vessel: Sanctuary, Moral Cosmology, and the Dream of Planetary Care (panel chair: Daniel Laqua)
SHEYDA JAHANBANI (University of Kansas) – ‘The Only Place I Can Go’: Garry Davis and the UN General Assembly as a Space of Sanctuary
LAURA CASSIS (Geneva Graduate Institute) – Space Technologies, Climate Adaptation, and the Psychic Life of International Organizations
FRANCESCO CORRADINI (Copenhagen Business School) – The Psychological Life of Legal Entanglements: The Alcohol Question at the League of Nations
16:00 – 16:30 COFFEE BREAK
16:30 – 17:15 CLOSING DISCUSSION AND REMARKS
