Relational Learning: Withness, Play, and Experimental Ways of Becoming
Crafting & Performing Togetherness
Focus: How do play, experimentation, and collective learning practices shape who we can become? What forms of learning and development emerge when play, curiosity, and collaboration replace performance and evaluation?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• Fostering Collective Learning in Intergenerational Mentorships – Abbie VanMeter & Ilene Wasserman
• Crafting Peace – Susan Mossman Riva

Relational Care, Belonging & Radical Practices That Host Us
Social Practices of Aging & Dying
Focus: How do relational practices of care, presence, and mutual support help us create spaces of belonging? What becomes possible when we understand care not as a service, but as a co-constructed, courageous way of being with others?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• The Many Deaths Before Dying: Understanding Social Death – Sarah Hahn
• Supporting Maternal Identity-Practicing in the Absence of the Child – Rachael Toth
• The Relational Imperative for Healthy Aging – Ilana Reisz

Power, Visibility & Co-Creating Just Public Worlds
Art, Wordplay & Rituals
Focus: What — and who — becomes visible or invisible in our shared social worlds, and how do these patterns get constructed? How might we collectively re-imagine justice as ongoing relational practices — of doing and making — rather than an endpoint?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• Artistic Collaboration and Analysis of the Creative Process… –  Kristina Brajović Car & Aleksandra Đurić
• Forgiveness: Healing Invisible Narratives that Bond – Diana Whitney
• Understanding not Withstanding: Homonyms, Hymns and Names – Thomas Schleicher

Relational Learning: Withness, Play, and Experimental Ways of Becoming
Relating to the Other
Focus: How do play, experimentation, and collective learning practices shape who we can become? What forms of learning and development emerge when play, curiosity, and collaboration replace performance and evaluation?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• Title to be announced – Jaime Martinez
• Relational Risk and Radical Care in Fostering – Jamie McCreghan
• Co-creating the Social World of the Child: The Duality of the ‘Other’ – Helge Wasmuth & Elena Nitecki

Relational Care, Belonging & Radical Practices That Host Us
Holding Tension & Coherence
Focus: How do relational practices of care, presence, and mutual support help us create spaces of belonging? What becomes possible when we understand care not as a service, but as a co-constructed, courageous way of being with others?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• Title to be announced – Abbie VanMeter
• Speaking in the Wake of Silence – Sylvia London, Irma Rodriguez, & Tamara Richter
• Questioning the Utility of Religion as a Moral Arbiter – Jeremy Schumacher

Power, Visibility & Co-Creating Just Public Worlds
Socio-Cultural Forces & Analysis
Focus: What — and who — becomes visible or invisible in our shared social worlds, and how do these patterns get constructed? How might we collectively re-imagine justice as ongoing relational practices — of doing and making — rather than an endpoint?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• Transformation through Conversation – Helen Bohme
• Broadening Conceptions of Power – Timothy Reuter
• From Invisibility to Intervention: Understanding and Addressing Socio-Cultural Constraints to Making Meaningful Change – Emily Doyle

Relational Learning: Withness, Play, and Experimental Ways of Becoming
Transforming Power of Play, Rituals & Art
Focus: How do play, experimentation, and collective learning practices shape who we can become? What forms of learning and development emerge when play, curiosity, and collaboration replace performance and evaluation?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• From Commemoration to Collaboration: Relational Pathways for Youth Empowerment at U.S. 250th – KaRa Lyn Thrasher
• Awakening Community at the Washline: Exploring Metaphor to Generate Space for Therapeutic Conversation – Maria Seddio & Pia Tempestini
• Global Play Brigade: A Playful Experiment Crossing Borders and Cultures – Cathy Salit & Rita Ezenwa-Okoro

Relational Care, Belonging & Radical Practices That Host Us
Radical Presence & Engagement
Focus: How do relational practices of care, presence, and mutual support help us create spaces of belonging? What becomes possible when we understand care not as a service, but as a co-constructed, courageous way of being with others?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• The Impact of Sense of Belonging and Social Support on Student Engagement Among First-Year and First-Generation College Students – Julia Zavala & Nadia Ramjit
• Reimagining “Knowledge” Through Radical Presence – Anne Holen

Power, Visibility & Co-Creating Just Public Worlds
Care, Connection and Relational Labor
Focus: What — and who — becomes visible or invisible in our shared social worlds, and how do these patterns get constructed? How might we collectively re-imagine justice as ongoing relational practices — of doing and making — rather than an endpoint?

Paper Titles and Authors:

• Learning in Community: Notes on a Feminist-Collaborative Practice – Adriana del Muro
• If I Could Write, This Is What I’d Tell You – Kristin Bodiford
• Imagining Otherwise Places: The Yet-to-Be as Relational Practice – Danna Abraham