[Air-L] CFP Grad Conference: Critical Themes in Media Studies - New Constructions

[Josh Scannell]

Critical Themes in Media Studies: New Constructions - Building for the
Moment

A celebration conference for the 50th anniversary of The New School’s Media
Studies Program


Conference Dates:

   -

   March 27th - 28th


Location: Parsons Media Studies:  6 East 16th Street, 5th Floor New York,
NY 10003

Keynote Speaker: TBC

Proposals Due: December 15th, 2025

Submission Form: https://forms.gle/RKHKMLcdJfUtsQNf9

Call For Proposals:

The Graduate Students of Parsons’ MA in Media Studies are excited to
resurrect the New School’s annual Critical Themes in Media Studies
conference. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Media Studies program,
we invite scholars and practitioners to submit panels, paper discussions,
and multidisciplinary presentations focusing on this year’s theme, New
Constructions - Building for the Moment. While the word “constructions” can
bring about feelings of limitations and boundaries, we want to challenge
fellow students and thinkers to build new ways to think and move in
opposition to them. We are seeking a broad spectrum of work from scholars
and practitioners working in or at the intersection of media studies,
communication, arts and design, and other related fields. We invite
proposals including but not limited to papers, panel discussions, films,
and workshops that engage with the New Constructions theme. Our proposal
review group will reach out regarding the status of your proposal no later
than January 12th, 2026.

Theme:

This year's theme, New Constructions - Building for The Moment, reflects
the multiple and overlapping crises that structure both our sociopolitical
environment *and* the state of media studies. The country is enduring a
fascist regime built on the worst and most violent aspects of our national
political culture. The already woefully inadequate structures of the
liberal democratic state are crumbling, and those institutions that have
worked to expand our democratic horizons of possibility and community power
are under immense pressure. At the same time, the media environment
continues to fragment and heel-turn to the hard right under the weight of
corporate monopoly, disintegrating collective life, and the alien pressure
of AI software warping indexical reality. Meanwhile, devices that we might
use to document and contest these abuses are built by workers toiling under
dehumanizing and dangerous conditions on neocolonially extracted and
environmentally devastating materials. Every stream, Chatbot query, and
social engagement feeds a digital media industry whose energy resource
requirements are accelerating catastrophic climate change. Things are, in
other words, grim.


But things have been grim before, and every crisis is also an opportunity.
The project that faces us as scholars and practitioners is to build
something new on the ashes of the old. To that end, the conference planning
group offers the theme of New Constructions - Building for The Moment. We
are curious about what emergent, undercommon, and radical possibilities can
be collectively imagined, manufactured, programmed, accounted for and held
to account in a moment when the new calls to us with fierce urgency.  This
conference aims to take an interdisciplinary approach to think through the
what, how, where, and when of the tools we build. This is vital in order to
reconstruct our world that has been intentionally abstracted from its
material conditions. We invite submissions to consider their new
constructions in the spirit of Deleuze’s famous provocation from the dawn
of the digital age: “There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for
new weapons.”

Submissions might address but are not limited to the following topics:


   -

   Community Organizing


   -

   Open Source Software
   -

   Technical support for depreciated software
   -

   Zine production
   -

   NYC Mesh Internet Project
   -

   Creating New Pedagogy, how do we teach in a moment of crisis?
   -

   Social and Digital Media Studies, how do we build online communities
   that are focused on actual, tangible change?
   -

   Television and Film, what does representation mean in this era?
   -

   Building Networks, both in-person and online
   -

   Media Ecologies, how do we learn to function alongside the planet as
   opposed to against it?
   -

   Media Materialities and Infrastructures
   -

   Media Archeology, what has led us here and how might these older
   technologies or mediate pieces inform the way to move forward?
   -

   Forms of Digital Labor Unrest and Resistance


FAQ:


   -

   How Do I Apply?
   -

      Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words with a clear
      project title
      -

      If submitting as an individual project, please complete the full form
      -

      If submitting a pre-constituted panel or group submission, please
      submit individually with the same project name and description including
      the topic, names and focus of all panelists, and any logistical support
      needed.
      -

      If submitting art, screenings, etc. please specify space, technical,
      and any other needs.
      -

      Submit to the form here: https://forms.gle/RKHKMLcdJfUtsQNf9
      -

   Who is eligible?
   -

      Anyone with a thematically relevant submission, with priority given
      to junior & senior undergraduate, Master’s, and PhD. students.
      -

   What mediums do you accept?
   -

      Papers, Panel Discussions, Workshops, and Films
      -

   Will the conference be virtual or in-person?
   -

      The conference will be in-person.
      -

   Is travel support available?
   -

      TBC
      -

   Additional Questions and accommodation requests? Please contact:
   CriticalThemes at newschool.edu