COLA RSA is holding a conference in April, and we were wondering if you would be willing to share our CFP with the graduate students you know or colleagues at other universities who have students who may be interested in presenting. Abstracts are due tomorrow 2/28, so we are doing one last push of reminders. I have attached the CFP and website below.
Thank you for your help,
Sam
https://sites.google.com/view/colarsa25/conference-call<https://sites.google.com/view/colarsa25/conference-call>
Crises are becoming more commonplace in everyday conversations. Climate change, political concerns, and social unrest dominate news cycles. Such crises influence academics. Likewise, many of our fields are facing crises: of authority, of scope, of our ability to remain relevant amidst the everchanging public landscape. This conference seeks to reframe this narrative. Drawing on Anna Tsing’s assertion that “precarity is the condition of our time,” we ask solicitations to imagine what happens when precarity becomes a strength through vulnerability with ourselves and others (20). If we accept that “[u]npredictable encounters transform us,” then embracing precarity allows for new ways of creating and delineating communities across previously held boundaries (Tsing 20).
Boundaries can include disciplines, academic/non-academic, identity markers, and questions surrounding self-care. We offer these terms in their widest possible definitions to encourage an interdisciplinary response as resilience and community are inherently co-created through engagement with others within and beyond our areas of work. The goal is to turn to joy amidst crisis and find positivity through resilience and community as noted in the work of JJ Wright and Joshua Falek. The call asks scholars to think about how they, their works, and their fields are shaping society with resilience. Part of that means an examination of citation practices. We echo calls by Mott and Cockayne to promote “a conscientious engagement with the politics of citation that is mindful of how citational practices can be tools for either the reification of, or resistance to, unethical hierarchies of knowledge” and challenge proposals to engage with underrepresented voices (including non-academic sources) (956).
Some potential questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:
* How can we respond to uncertainty in productive ways?
* In what ways does precarity create and break community boundaries?
* What is the role of communication in fostering community?
* What can historical consideration of social and/or political movements teach us about enacting resilience in times of precarity?
* What are the ethical implications of discussions of care and boundary making?
* Where does literature intersect with responses to cultural and social instances of resilience?
* How can imagination foster resilience with an eye toward futures?
* How do we account for the cost (be it economic, environmental, personal, etc.) of resilience?
* How can methodologies ethically respond to notions of crisis and precarity?
* How are notions of precarity impacting the classroom? What can educators do to mitigate crises and promote community in the classroom?
All graduate students, regardless of disciplinary background, are encouraged to submit a proposal. Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words by 11:59 PM EDT on Friday, February 28, 2025. To submit an abstract, please fill out the application form<sorsa if you have any questions.
Virtual Presentation Types:
* 15 min paper presentation (you will be placed on a panel with similar presentations)
* Creative presentation: open-ended, the committee welcomes alternative presentation types.
Works Cited
Mott, Carrie, and Daniel Cockayne. “Citation Matters: Mobilizing the Politics of Citation toward a Practice of ‘Conscientious Engagement.’” Gender, Place & Culture, vol. 24, no. 7, July 2017, pp. 954–73.
Tsing, Anna Lowen Haupt. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Wright, Jj, and Joshua Falek. “‘The Loving Queer Gaze’: The Epistemological Significance of Queer Joy.” Sociology Compass, vol. 18, no. 7, 2024, p. e13255. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13255.