[Commlist] CFP: 2026 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Annual Conference: Oppositions

2026 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Annual Conference: Oppositions

May 28 - 30, 2026

Fully Online

Deadline for Submissions: Friday, December 19, 2025

Registration <https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjMyNjA2>


The Cultural Studies Association (CSA) invites proposals for 
participation in its twenty-fourth annual  meeting, which will be held 
fully online.  Proposals on all topics relevant to cultural studies will 
be considered, with priority given to those that engage this year's 
theme, Oppositions.


As its root, opposition signals both a placement and an antagonism, a 
“setting against” something: in thought, identity, space, movement. 
Opposition, then, represents more than being against something: it also 
signifies being an opponent, placing oneself against something perhaps, 
even, holding one’s ground. Today, when we think of oppositions 
mobilizing (placing and moving) in and through a space, images of social 
movements and social protest have given way to the mobilization of 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the National Guard, and federal 
agents. On the other hand, these government and paramilitary forces 
claim to be operating in opposition: against purported invasions, 
phantasmatic “transtifa” terrorists, a “woke mob.” But, again, social 
movements, social protest, citizen and neighborhood patrols reemerge as 
counter opposition, counter mobilization. The extraordinary power to 
“pose” and, as such, produce the terrain of oppositions, to define what 
counts as an opposition in a moment of interregnum, brings us back into 
the orbit of cultural studies’ early engagement with the problem of 
determinism and relative autonomy, domination and subordination, but it 
sets it off against a new and different context.  At the same time, 
oppositionality provides its own set of epistemological and ontological 
challenges, maintaining constructed binaries as natural or immutable 
forms. On that terrain of oppositions, we thus struggle to distinguish 
between those positions that are actually oppositional and those that 
are merely alternative. As Raymond Williams puts it, “The alternative, 
especially in areas that impinge on significant areas of the dominant, 
is often seen as oppositional and, by pressure, often converted into 
it.” How might a logic of opposition obscure acts of complicity, 
interpenetrating agendas, and complex cultural, political, and social 
intra-actions?


Through this year’s theme, we encourage submissions that explore 
oppositions in political, cultural, and discursive practices–as well as 
how a logic of oppositionality  maps out the field of cultural studies 
while at the same time imposing conceptual and structural limits on its 
scope of inquiry. All proposals should be submitted through the Easy 
Chair submission link: https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=csa2026


POSSIBLE TOPICS INCLUDE:

  * Culture Wars; Structural Closures
  * Rhetorics of Polarization and Anti-Polarization in Political Discourse
  * Political Communities and the Potentials of/Limits to Opposition
  * Networks of Resistance–Online and In the Streets
  * Opposition as a site of struggle: who is being counter-hegemonic now?
  * Opposition as the Right of Refusal/Right to Self Defense/Right to
    Self-Determination
  * Opposition and the Field of Violence: Aggression; Suppression;
    Liberation; Self-Defense
  * Transversal Challenges to Binary Oppositions
  * Agonistics and their delimitations and limits
  * “Disarticulation” as a Form of Opposition
  * “Intra-Oppositions:” the cultural unravelling of political community
  * Contrarian Cultural Studies
CONFERENCE FORMAT

This year the annual Cultural Studies Association Conference will be 
held fully online. Online conferences help a wider cohort of cultural 
studies scholars of all ranks, nationally and internationally, to 
present their work. To allow for both the benefits of an in-person 
conference and the expanded access of an online conference, the CSA 
plans to maintain an alternating, biennial structure of in-person 
conferences (on odd years) and online conferences (on even years).


SUBMISSION AND REGISTRATION

  * Friday, October 31, 2025: Submission System Open
  * Friday, October 31, 2025 until Friday, April 3, 2026: Early Bird
    Registration <https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjMyNjA2>
  * Friday, December 19, 2026: Final Deadline for Submissions
  * Friday, January 16, 2026: Notifications sent out
  * Friday, April 3, 2026: Early Registration Ends
    <https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjMyNjA2>, Regular
    Registration Rate Begins
  * Friday, May 8, 2026: Last day to register to participate in the
    conference. If you do not register by this date and are not a
    current member, your name will be dropped from the program.


REGISTRATION: In order to participate in the conference and be listed in 
the program, all those accepted to participate must register before 
Friday, May 8, 2026. Remember:registration for the conference and 
membership in the CSA are combined transactions 
<https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/MjMyNjA2>. Note that 
while we do not have overhead costs for an online conference, the 
registration fees collected for this year’s conference allow us to 
increase our support of graduate student travel for our 2027 in-person 
conference. Additionally, registration fees cover CSA’s one paid 
administrative position and provide needed support CSA’s peer-reviewed 
journal Lateral.


Make sure to create and/or log in to your Easy Chair account before you 
attempt to submit. All submissions must be made through CSA’s online 
EasyChair submission portal: 
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=csa2026 . Program 
information--names, presentation titles, and institutional 
affiliations--will be based on initial conference submissions. Please 
avoid lengthy presentation and session titles, use normal capitalization 
and standard fonts, and include your name and affiliations as you would 
like them to appear on the conference program schedule.


INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIPS include individual memberships for up to seven 
affiliate faculty, staff and students at member institutions. Graduate 
students who wish to submit proposals are strongly encouraged to speak 
with their Department Chair or Program Director about institutional 
membership and where possible, make use of the complimentary individual 
memberships and reduced registration rates. Full benefits of 
institutional membership see: 
http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/institutions.


SUBMISSION FORMATS:

All sessions are 90 minutes long. All conference formats are intended to 
encourage the presentation and discussion of projects at different 
stages of development and to foster intellectual exchange and 
collaboration. Please feel free to adapt the suggested formats or 
propose others in order to suit your session’s goals.


The CSA aims to provide multiple and diverse spaces for the 
cross-pollination of art, activism, pedagogy, design, and research by 
bringing together participants from a variety of positions inside and 
outside the university. While we welcome traditional academic papers and 
panels, we also encourage contributions that experiment with alternative 
formats and intervene in the traditional disciplinary formations and 
exclusionary conceptions and practices of the academic. We are 
particularly interested in proposals for sessions designed to document 
and advance existing forms of collective action or catalyze new 
collaborations. We encourage submissions from individuals working beyond 
the boundaries of the university: artists, activists, educators, 
independent scholars, professionals, and community organizers.


Further information regarding various session formats can be found 
below. If you have any questions, please address them to Michelle 
Fehsenfeld at: (admin /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org) 
<mailto:(admin /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org)>


WORKING GROUP SESSIONS: CSA has a number of ongoing working groups. 
Before submitting under “General Conference,” please consider if your 
presentation topic aligns with one of CSA’s ongoing working groups, and 
submit accordingly. Choose the appropriate working group from the 
drop-down menu at the bottom of the page. For more information see: 
https://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/working-groups.html


INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Individuals may submit a proposal to present a 15-20 
minute paper. Selected papers will be combined into panels at the 
discretion of the Program Committee. Submissions must include an 
abstract of the paper (<500 words)


PRE-CONSTITUTED PAPER PANELS: Pre-constituted panels allow 3-4 
individuals to offer 15-20 minute presentations, leaving 30-45 minutes 
of the session for discussion. Panels should have a chair/moderator and 
may have a discussant. Proposals must include a description of the 
panel's topic (<500 words); and abstracts for each presentation (<150 
words).


ROUNDTABLES: Roundtables allow a group of participants to convene with 
the goal of generating discussion around a shared concern. In contrast 
to panels, roundtables typically involve shorter position or dialogue 
statements (5-10 minutes) in response to questions distributed in 
advance by the organizer. The majority of roundtable sessions should be 
devoted to discussion. Proposals for roundtables must include a 
description of the position statements, questions, or debates that will 
be under discussion (<500 words).


PRAXIS SESSIONS: Praxis sessions allow a facilitator or facilitating 
team to set an agenda, pose opening questions, and/or organize hands-on 
participant activities, collaborations, or skill-shares. Successful 
praxis sessions will be organized around a specific objective, 
productively engage a cultural studies audience, and orient itself 
towards participants with minimal knowledge of the subject matter. 
Sessions organized around the development of ongoing creative, artistic, 
and activist projects are highly encouraged. Proposals for praxis 
sessions must include a brief statement explaining the session’s 
connection to the conference theme and describing the activities to be 
undertaken (<500 words) and a short description of the session (<150 
words) to appear in the conference program.


MEET THE AUTHOR: Meet the Author Sessions are designed to bring authors 
of recent books deemed to be important contributions to the field of 
cultural studies together with discussants selected to provide different 
viewpoints. Books published one to three years before the conference are 
eligible for nomination. Meet the Author Sessions are a subcategory of 
Roundtable presentations. Enter your submission in that track and 
indicate that you are proposing a Meet the Author session.


MAKE(R) SPACE: The Make(r) Space is an online space for the 
collaborative and praxis driven presentations and exhibitions – making 
space for art, activism, and new modes of knowledge exchange for those 
voices that have been historically and systemically left out of these 
conversations: artists, activists, poets, and other cultural critics and 
makers. We want to dedicate a portion of our conference  that will 
explicitly address  some of the CSA’s implicit focus on praxis in its 
goal to “create and promote an effective community of cultural studies 
practitioners and scholars.” We welcome proposals for web-native and 
online exhibits, performances, workshops, skill shares, story telling, 
and other ways of meaning-making and art-making in the world that 
consider the theme of “Oppositions” We especially encourage Make(r) 
Space submissions from individuals working beyond the boundaries of the 
university: artists, activists, independent scholars, professionals, 
community organizers, contingent faculty, and community college 
educators.  MAKE(R)SPACE Sessions are a subcategory of Praxis sessions. 
Enter your submission in the Praxis track and indicate that you are 
proposing a MAKE(R)SPACE session. In addition to submitting through the 
EasyChair system, please email Make(r)Space submissions by February 20, 
2026 to: (admin /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org) 
<mailto:(admin /at/ culturalstudiesassociation.org)>.


LATERAL WORKSHOP: Lateral (https://csalateral.org/), the journal of the 
Cultural Studies Association, invites submissions of emerging work for 
constructive feedback with the Lateral editors at the Cultural Studies 
Association 2025 Conference. If you are interested in being considered 
for the workshop merely check “yes” when prompted to do so in Easychair 
and, if accepted to the conference, you will also automatically be 
considered for the workshop. We especially invite participation from 
junior scholars, graduate students, and those working beyond the bounds 
of the university, as well as those who intend to eventually submit 
their work to Lateral (workshop papers that are later submitted to the 
journal will undergo regular editorial and peer review). Strong 
submissions will situate their considerations of cultural practices, 
critical theories, and/or pedagogies within established and emerging 
conversations in cultural studies. Those interested in participating 
will be notified of their acceptance into the workshop in March, and 
complete drafts of articles (approximately 4,000–9,000 words in length) 
will be due two weeks before the conference.



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