Back in October I wrote about the upcoming conference on “Cultures of the Internet,” which will be held as part of the Advanced Study Institute in Cultural Psychiatry in Montreal on April 28 and 29, 2011.  Now the final program is available and registration is open.

As you’ll see below, there have been a few changes made to the line-up of speakers, which now includes a substantial number of social scientists working on the internet and virtual worlds, including Naomi Adelson, Stéphane Bouchard, Gabriella Coleman, Ilana Gershon, and Thomas Malaby, as well as many others (including Kamaldeep Bhui, Suparna Choudhury, Ellen Corin, Frederick Hickling, Ronald Niezen, Sadeq Rahimi, Cécile Rousseau, Kemal Sayar, Radhika Santhanam, Robert Whitley and myself) who are extending their work on culture and mental health to engage with issues raised by information and communications technologies.

It should be an interesting gathering, given that most discussions of mental health in relation to the internet seem to presuppose that new technologies are either pathogenic or heath-promoting — and a central aim of this conference is to keep such assumptions open to discussion.

Also, it isn’t too late to submit a poster for the conference.  Visit the conference website for details.

McGill ASI 2011 Program