Welcome

We are pleased to announce that the International Conference on Psychology and the Arts will be held at the University of Ghent, Belgium, July 4-8, 2012. Our hosts will be Professor Filip Geerardyn and Wim Matthys of the University of Ghent, Marleen Stevens of Ghent, and Professor Solange Leibovici of the University of Amsterdam. The conference sponsors are the PsyArt Foundation and the University of Ghent.

Papers may be in English, French, or German and deal with any application of psychology to the study of literature, film, painting, sculpture, music, or the other arts. Our conference is very convivial and draws scholars from around the world. The registration fee of $295 includes all sessions, two tours, reception, coffee breaks, and Sunday banquet.

Information about Ghent

Known as Gent in Flemish and Gand in French, Ghent was medieval Europe’s largest city outside Paris. Sitting on the junction of the Leie and Scheldt Rivers, it was the seat of the counts of Flanders, who built a fearsome castle, Het Gravensteen.

Today, Ghent is Flander’s biggest university town and an important Flemish cultural center. The city center offers numerous shops and restaurants and is also a showcase of beautiful gothic buildings. The Cathedral holds the famous Ghent altarpiece “Het Lam Gods” (1432).

Bruges Tower

Ghent is sometimes called the flower city of Belgium, as flower growers sell their begonias and azaleas worldwide.

Ghent has two train stations. The main one, St Pietersstation (02 528 28 28), is very close to the city centre. Some trains also stop at Gent-Dampoort to the east of the city. From St Pietersstation there are trains every half-hour to Antwerp (€7.80, 45 minutes), Bruges (€5.40, 20 minutes), Brussels (€7.40, 45 minutes), Kortrijk (€5.70, 20 minutes) and Ostend (€7.80, 50 minutes).

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Ghent%2c+Belgium&qpvt=Ghent%2c+Belgium&FORM=IGRE#x0y0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece

We will also visit the beautiful nearby city of Bruges, which has most of its medieval architecture intact. The historic centre of Bruges has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

http://www.brugge.be/internet/en/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges

Preliminary conference outline

Wednesday, July 4: evening reception.
Thursday, July 5: morning and early afternoon sessions; afternoon walking tour of Ghent; evening movie.
Friday, July 6: morning and afternoon sessions; evening entertainment.
Saturday, July 7: morning and afternoon sessions; evening movie.
Sunday, July 8: morning sessions, business meeting, group photo; bus tour to the city of Bruges (lunch in Bruges); evening banquet.
Monday, July 9: morning departure.
We assume most conferees will arrive Wednesday, July 4 and depart Monday, July 9.

Participants can choose between two hotels, Ibis Ghent Cathedral and Ibis Ghent Opera. Both are three-star hotels (star ratings in Belgium are quite stringent) in the center of town, offering comfortable, air-conditioned rooms, WiFi access, 24-hour bar with snacks, and with many restaurants nearby.

Ibis Cathedral (the more expensive of the two) is in the historic center opposite the cathedral,

Ibis Opera is just outside this historic centre (distance between the two hotels is 600m).

It is a 20 to 30-minute walk (2 km) from each hotel to the faculty building where the meetings will be held, or one can take a tram/bus.

In each hotel, 20 single rooms and 10 doubles have been blocked from July 4 till July 9 (5 nights):

IBIS GHENT OPERA
Single: 84.5 € per room per night
Double: 101 € per room per night
Prices include breakfast buffet and city tax.

IBIS GHENT CATHEDRAL
Single: 94.5 € per room per night
Double: 111 € per room per night
Prices include breakfast buffet and city tax.

Conferees make their own individual reservations, either by email (Ibis Opera H1455-RE@accor.com // Ibis Cathedral H0961-RE@accor.com) or fax (+3292331000), mentioning the booking code PSYART2012.

Rooms will be blocked until May 21. After that, reservations will depend upon availability.

Papers should be short, 20 minutes at most. Please observe this time limit, so as to allow for the maximum number of presenters. Normal speaking rate is 140 words per minute, and, for clarity, a scholarly presentation should be somewhat slower. Our standard 20-minute limit allows you to speak about 2400 words. An additional five minutes are allotted for discussion after each paper, and the remaining time will serve for discussion at the end of the session. For each session, there will be a moderator responsible for keeping speakers within 20 minutes. The moderator speaks last, and it is therefore to his or her interest to keep to the schedule.

If submitted for publication after the conference, papers can be as long or short as you like.

We recommend that speakers in English who are not native speakers of English accompany their talks with PowerPoint.

Please prepare your abstract and add it to the registration form below. Abstracts must be less than 150 words. Any excess will be cut. Also, please, in a separate e- mail, e-mail your abstract to our program assistant Abra Gibson: agibson10@ufl.edu

The deadline for sending us your title and abstract and registration fee is April 15 or the time at which we receive 65 abstracts, titles, and registration fees, whichever comes sooner. Accepted abstracts with completed registration, i.e., all three items submitted, by the deadline are assured a slot on the program. Abstracts submitted and accepted after then will be put on a waiting list and will be put on the program as cancellations permit.

For a complete registration, we require three items:

a completed registration form (see below) including paper title.

Brief abstract of paper (150 words maximum; excess will be cut). These abstracts enable us to place your paper in an appropriate session. We will also publish them online and distribute the abstracts at the conference.

A registration fee of $295 U.S., which includes admission to all sessions, two tours, reception, coffee breaks, and banquet. The $295 also includes a $25 tax-deductible donation to the PsyArt Foundation, as voted in 2005. The registration fee is refundable (except for the $25 donation) for any reason until May 15, but not thereafter for any reason. The donation makes you a member of PsyArt, entitled—and encouraged—to attend and vote at the annual meeting of PsyArt which will take place on July 8 at the conference in Ghent. You will find instructions for payment after the registration form below.

Registration Form 2012

Important: Include your e-mail address below. It will not come through to us automatically from this form, and, if we don't have it, our communications with you will be impossible. Make sure it is typed correctly.

If, by April, you are not getting e-mail from us, let us know. Your registration has probably gone wrong. Do not assume that some currency arrangement you made the previous year is still effective. Do not leave your registration for some friend to do. Make sure that we have your complete registration (all three items) and your correct e-mail address.

Last name:

First Name and Initial:

E-mail address (Important! Be sure it is correct!):

Re-type to confirm your e-mail address:

Affiliation (e.g., Department and University):

Preferred Mailing Address:

For U.S. addresses:

City:
State:
Zip:

For non-U.S. addresses:

City:
State:
Mail code:

Country:

Telephone during business hours (include all codes):

Telephone during non-business hours (include all codes):

Fax Phone (include all codes):

For how many people do you need housing?

One Two Three

Names of persons coming with you to the conference:

When are you arriving at the conference?

Date: Time:

When are you leaving the conference?

Date: Time:

Do you have any special dietary requirements (e.g., vegetarian)?

For each person attending the conference in your party, please fill out the sections above in a new online form. Please indicate clearly in the adjoining space "No Paper" if that is the case for this person. Otherwise indicate the title and abstract below. And please provide a registration fee for each person in your party attending the conference (see below). The expense for the conference managers is the same for each attendee, whether or not that person is giving a paper.

What is your exact paper title?
Please enter your abstract here. The abstract should be no longer than 150 words. Also, please, in a separate e-mail, e-mail your abstract to our program assistant, Abra Gibson: agibson10@ufl.edu Registration is not complete until we have received the abstract.
In what language will you deliver your paper?
What special equipment do you need (VCR, tape recorder, slide projector, DVD, laptop, computer screen projection. etc.)? Remember that European video formats are different from the U.S.'s.
Do you have anything else you wish to tell us, for example, dates on which you cannot speak or papers you wish to be paired with? We will do our best to accommodate you.
To reduce spam, please enter the last name of the founder of psychoanalysis:

Last-minute changes in titles, abstracts, and schedule cause great difficulty for the organizers. We will not accept changes in title or abstract after May 15 nor changes in the schedule after one week from the time the organizers e-mail the schedule.

Payment

Your conference registration fee pays for a reception Wednesday evening July 4, sessions from Thursday July 5 through Sunday morning July 8, coffee breaks, a walking tour on Thursday afternoon July 5, and a bus tour and a final banquet on Sunday, July 8. The registration fee is $295 U.S., $25 of which is a tax-deductible donation to the PsyArt Foundation which supports the conference, the journal, and the listserv. The registration fee (except for the $25 donation) is refundable for any reason until May 15, but not for any reason thereafter. The donation makes you a member of PsyArt, entitled to attend and vote at the annual meeting to be held on Sunday, July 8, in Ghent. Please do attend and vote in Ghent.

U.S. registrants can send a check to our treasurer, made out to "PsyArt Foundation":

Dr. Elizabeth Fox
Treasurer, PsyArt Foundation
2 Sparks Place
Cambridge, MA 02138
U.S.A. e-mail: emfox@mit.edu

Alternatively, both U.S. and non-U.S. registrants from many countries can pay through our PsyArt account at PayPal.com. That way you can charge your registration to your credit card over the Internet with no delay and save the bother of writing and mailing a check. If you do pay this way, however, we ask that you add 3% ($9) to your payment, because that is what PayPal charges us for a credit card payment into the account.

For Western European and other non-U.S. registrants, our local bank puts a heavy surcharge on foreign checks. We much prefer that you use PayPal. If necessary, you can arrange a check for us through your bank. Non-U.S. registrants who cannot arrange payment through their banks or through PayPal should contact Elizabeth Fox.

Registrants may choose to sign up for a PayPal account during the Web "Accept payment" process. An "account" simply means telling PayPal your name, address, and your credit card number.

Registrants outside the U.S. may need to take a few extra steps to pay or to establish a PayPal account. You may need to sign up for PayPal separately before making payment to the conference. Here are the directions for doing so.

Signing up for a PayPal account does not commit you to anything—it just enables you to use your credit card to make payments on the Internet to this conference (and anything else that catches your fancy). The Wall Street Journal assures us that this method of payment is more secure than check or money order.

To begin the PayPal payment process, click on the icon: