Each spring, CSA holds an international annual conference. As with other professional organizations, the conference members an opportunity to meet and network with other professionals in the discipline, introduce students to the wider professional community, and share and discuss current efforts in cultural studies research and practice. Programs from past conferences are also available.
2026 Cultural Studies Association (CSA) Annual Conference: Oppositions
May 28 - 30, 2026
Fully Online
Deadline for Submissions: Friday, December 19, 2025
Registration
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.
POSSIBLE TOPICS INCLUDE:
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
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. 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: [email protected]
May 28 - 30, 2026
Fully Online
Deadline for Submissions: Friday, December 19, 2025
Registration
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.
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
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
- Friday, December 19, 2026: Final Deadline for Submissions
- Friday, January 16, 2026: Notifications sent out
- Friday, April 3, 2026: Early Registration Ends, 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. 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: [email protected]
- 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: [email protected].
- LATERAL WORKSHOP: Lateral, 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.
