Call for Submissions: 2025 CARGC Fellows Biennial Conference - "Unsettling Global Media and Communication Studies"

The organizing team of the 2025 CARGC Fellows Biennial Conference, which will take place April 10-11, 2025 in Philadelphia, is seeking papers, films, artworks, or reflections that explore the theme, "Unsettling Global Media and Communication Studies." Submissions are due by December 15, 2024.

About the Conference

In April 2023, CARGC hosted the Fellows' Symposium, centered around "Doing Global Communication and Media Studies." Since then, the world has witnessed a surge in political violence, multiple genocides, media censorship, and a subsequent dependence on social media for news. During this time, student activists across college campuses raised awareness about what the United Nations and the International Court of Justice believe to be evidence of a genocide in Gaza. As the intersections of manufactured humanitarian and media crises continue to evolve, this symposium asks not what a global approach to media and communication can achieve today, but rather, what it should strive to accomplish. What are the conditions under which we produce knowledge in our field, and what are the outcomes of that production -- is there a media scholarship crisis? This symposium reflects upon our tools and methodologies to rethink entrenched power structures and disrupt prevailing narratives of objectivity and neutrality.

We ask: historically, what has been the role of media and communication scholars in times of global crises? To what extent is the "political”— whether understood broadly or through specific contextualization —  linked with the civic, ethical, elemental or epistemic underpinnings of global media scholarship? How can scholarly practices- methodologically and pedagogically- challenge and unsettle existing ideological frameworks? Certainly, media reporting on Palestine and the erasure of its people raises questions regarding the responsibilities of media studies scholars in and out of academic spaces. What broader insights can we glean from this crisis about the strengths and limitations of global media studies? Additionally, how can a critical analysis of these crises deepen our understanding of the historical, geographical, and future dimensions of the field?

The CARGC Fellows Conference invites scholars to participate in a collective space of supportive peers, encouraging contributions from early-career academics and practitioners alike. Submissions should address any of the above questions and themes to advance critical discussions in global media and communication studies.

We look for critical scholarship on one or more of the following issues, but not limited to:

• genealogies of critical media scholarship
• solidarities in times of crisis
• collaborative media practices and third spaces
• critical media approaches and ethnographies
• practices of repair, critical hope, and world-making
• the work of the “political” and “apolitical”
• the nonhuman, the elemental, the geological and/as media
• reflections on actions in and alongside academic spaces

Submission Guidelines

We welcome interdisciplinary and multimodal approaches and contributions from early career scholars across various fields. Submissions should include:

• Title of the paper, film, artwork, or reflection
• A brief abstract (250-300 words)
• At least five bibliographical references
• Author's name, institutional affiliation, and email address

Please submit your proposals by December 15, 2024, to cargcfellowssymposium@gmail.com. If you have any questions, reach out to the same email address.

Keynote speech will be given by Dr. Nabil Echchaibi (University of Colorado Boulder).