CFP: Disability Studies Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference
ten grrl
Disability Studies
Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)
47th Annual Conference, February 25-28, 2026
Marriott Albuquerque
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Submissions open: September 1, 2025
Proposal submission deadline: October 31, 2025
Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 47th annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://swpaca.org/subject-areas/.
Submissions are welcomed that apply disability studies, including specific areas such as Deaf Studies, in any area of cultural, historical, literary, or pedagogical research, or that apply disability studies in conjunction with another theoretical approach, such as queer studies, feminist or gender studies, issues of diversity, and so on. Work addressing all media and cultural contexts (literature, TV, film, games, social media/web media, laws, social and cultural practices, politics, and so on) from a disability studies or combined approach is welcome.
Some possibilities include:
- Historical or cultural studies research into attitudes toward disability
- Legal, social, or cultural research into treatments of disability
- Research on the representation of disability in textual or graphic literature, drama, television, film, ephemera, games, or other cultural objects
- Work on technology and disability
- Pedagogical approaches drawing on disability studies concepts or studies of disability in relation to pedagogy
All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database.
For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general (including submitting proposals for roundtables and preformed panels), please see the FAQS & Resources tab on https://swpaca.org/.
Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words and a brief summary of 100 words or less.
For information on how to submit a proposal for a roundtable or a multi-paper panel, please view the above FAQs & Resources link.
The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2025.
SWPACA offers monetary awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. Submissions of accepted, full papers are due January 1, 2026. More details are here: https://swpaca.org/graduate-student-paper-awards/. SWPACA also offers travel fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students as well as contingent faculty: https://swpaca.org/travel-awards-students-faculty/.
Registration and travel information for the conference is available at https://swpaca.org/albuquerque-conference/. For 2026, we will be returning to the Marriott Albuquerque (2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110), which boasts free parking and close proximity to shopping and dining.
In addition, please check out the organization’s peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, at https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dialogue/.
If you have any questions about the Disability Studies area, please contact its Area Chair, Kassia Krone, Friends University, kassia...@friends.edu. If you have questions about the conference in general, please contacts us: https://swpaca.org/contact/
This will be a fully in-person conference. If you’re looking for an online option to present your work, keep an eye out for details about the 2026 SWPACA Summer Salon, a completely virtual conference to take place in June 2026.
We look forward to receiving your submissions!
Kassia Krone