Historically, the Death Online Research Network (DORN) was founded in 2013 aiming at establishing an international cross-disciplinary research environment for the, then, growing field of studies of what happened to conceptualizations, practices and technologies of death in the light of new platforms and technologies. Today, there is a growing awareness that what we now refer to as ‘digital death’ is a broader term recognizing that the doings in relation to death – whether online or offline – are all affected by digital death as sociocultural realities where the digital is one fundamental premise among others.

At the 8^th International Death Online Research Symposium (DORS#8) we want to call attention to the conceptualisations, productions and uses of ‘context’ in the study of digital death.

We are curious to dwell on questions like:

• in a cross-disciplinary research field, how do we establish contexts for understanding our fields of study and which contexts do we consider relevant?
• In which disciplines and areas of theories and methodologies, do we look for contexts?
• What makes up productive contexts for the studies of digital death?
• What are the challenges of working in a cross-disciplinary field?
• How would we like this field to develop?

Keynote speakers will be announced soon on the conferencesite: https://conferences.au.dk/dors8

We invite you to contribute with a presentation (be it empirical, theoretical, methodological, reflecsive or everything in between)

We welcome paper and panel submissions on the following themes and beyond:

• Digital afterlife
• Immortality
• Death, grief and AI
• Digital grief and mourning practices
• Public mourning
• Communites of death and grief
• Interrelations between online and offline practices in mourning
• Aesthetically based death and grief practices
• Histories of digital death
• Religion and digital death
• Online funerals
• Health perspectives in digital death practices
• Robotics and end of life care
• Death and Grief influencers
• Marginalised representations and digital death
• Challenges in studying digital death
• Legal perspectives and digital death

The symposium will, besides hosting paper presentions, also reflect new ways of working together and promoting dialogical modes of knowing. You are welcome to suggest a panel or another format for presenting or discussing relevant ideas. Please share at nordrc@cc.au.dk

The symposium will be on-site only at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Submission guidelines

Paper submission:

Please send us an abstract no longer than 250 words and your contact info.

Panel submission:

Panels up to four papers should include a general description of the panel (max 250 words) together with abstracts of the individual papers (max 250 words) with contact details of each participant and the panel chair.

All paper and panel proposals should be sent to Dorthe Refslund Christensen, nordrc@cc.au.dk before January 5, 2026.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed.

Please note that participants will be accepted to present only one paper as the first author.

Conference organizing team

Dorthe Refslund Christensen nordrc@cc.au.dk

Jonatan Spejlborg Juelsbo jsj@cc.au.dk

Important dates and info

Abstract/panel submission deadline: January 5, 2026 EXTENDED TO JANUARY 12, 2026
Notification of paper acceptance: February 7, 2026

Registration: February 8– April 10, 2026 (formalities will be communicated after February 8, 2026)

Ph.d. workshop: May 5, 2026
Conference: May 6-8, 2026

Conference fee

Includes coffee, snacks, lunches, reception, performance, conference dinner and PhD workshop

Early bird and ph.d.s: 2.200 DKK (approx 295 €)

Regular 2.900 DKK (approx 390 €)