An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
University of Cincinnati – Friday, February 19, 2027
What value can we find—as teachers, researchers, and creators—when we embrace the parts of our work that are slow, messy, and complicated? In a product-driven world (especially when AI gets involved!), none of the struggle, the deliberation, or the trial-and-error of human writing is visible. But in human writing (as in human life), messiness is fundamental. As Ann Berthoff asked her students, “But wait a minute! Where are your notes to yourself? Where are your lists? Where are your points of departure? Where are your leads? Where is your lexicon? Where are your quoted passages? Where is your chaos?”
In this spirit of embracing the messiness behind the scenes, we welcome proposals for the 2027 University of Cincinnati Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference that bring that mess to the forefront—that explore what new insight can be found when we lean into chaos, rather than sweeping it away.
We encourage proposals for individual presentations, panels, or other experimental ways of sharing research and creative work. Presenters might address (but are not limited to)…
- Pedagogical practices that encourage students to take risks, try new things, and learn from mistakes
- Experimental, unconventional, or hybrid research methods
- Teaching and researching potentially-controversial topics, especially in light of increased scrutiny and surveillance in higher education
- Interdisciplinary, collaborative work that does not fit cleanly into one particular discipline or category
Please submit written individual proposals of up to 250 words or panel proposals (3-5 people) of no more than 500 words, or an approximately equivalent multimodal proposal, given your chosen medium. Panel sessions will be approximately an hour and 15 minutes long, and individual presentations will be approximately 15 minutes. Click here to submit your proposal.
Submissions due: December 18, 2026
Decisions sent: January 15, 2027
Conference date: February 19, 2027
Questions? Contact the conference organizers, Christine Ochs-Naderer and