Calls for Papers, Conferences, and Events
If you wish to have a conference announcement posted, please send an email to ssspgra@utk.edu (Microsoft Word files and PDFs preferred). Please include a URL for more information, if available.
There is no charge to place an announcement on this website. Calls for papers will be posted until the submission deadline. Conference announcements will be posted until the date of the conference has passed.
Calls for Papers
Call for Participants
Call for Articles
Ongoing Calls
Conferences and Events
Virtual Events
Other Opportunities
Calls for Papers
Work and Family Researchers Network
Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, 17-20 June 2026
Submission Deadline: 1 November 2025
The next Work and Family Researchers Network Conference will be held June 17-20, 2026 at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. The conference theme is Centering Care Across the Life Course. More than 500 stakeholders in the work-family field are anticipated to attend, with a dynamic program focused on meaningful exchanges. Submissions open in July and close November 1, 2025. More information can be found at the conference website.
2026 Special Focus—Centering Care Across the Life Course
Southern Sociological Society (SSS) Annual Meeting
Jacksonville, FL, 8-11 March 2026
Submission Deadline: 7 November 2025
The SSS annual meeting is constructed entirely out of member submissions. Submissions are considered from the breadth and depth of the discipline, regardless of the theme of the 2026 Annual Conference. There are six submission types: individual papers, poster presentations, full session proposals, flash talks, roundtables, and special sessions. To submit to SSS 2026, please visit our membership portal. The 2026 Annual theme, Empowered Sociologists: Agency and Action towards Social Change, is a call to action for empowered thought leaders to uphold the ethical mission of the Southern Sociological Society. Sociologists are well-positioned to lead through times of rapid social change with our collective action. In an era when many feel disempowered, this call serves as a reminder of the strength of sociology and the contributions of sociologists. It is also a reminder of the Society’s mission to apply our knowledge and training to address and resolve societal problems. Learn more about registration and sessions seeking papers.
2026 Special Focus—Empowered Sociologists: Agency and Action Towards Social Change
Twentieth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, 25-27 February 2026
Submission Deadline: 25 November 2025
The 20th anniversary of DPP provides a valuable opportunity to assess how well our principles and practices have performed and to envision how Design must adapt to meet the challenges of the near future. This moment invites us to reinforce Design’s cultural role as a catalyst for meaningful, lasting change. We call on researchers across all domains of Design to explore the concept of Time, reflecting on its influence in any aspect of Design practice or research. What changes would you advocate for in the next 20 years? Learn more about registration and submission.
2026 Special Focus—Design Across Time
Seventeenth International Conference on the Image
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore + Online, 1-2 October 2026
Submission Deadline: 1 December 2025
This year’s special focus examines how visual media serve as agents of cultural dialogue, activism, and change, particularly within complex and pluralistic societies. Images do more than reflect the world; they intervene in it. Whether mobilised to document injustice, amplify marginalised voices, reframe dominant narratives, or inspire solidarity, images hold or possess the capacity to advocate. As technologies evolve and the circulation of images intensifies, so too does the need to critically assess how they shape public consciousness and cultural meaning. This conference invites an exploration of how visual forms, across analogue, digital, and emerging mediums, operate as tools of advocacy within their own cultural contexts and in dialogue with others, placing an emphasis on practices that are situated, responsive, and ethically engaged. We ask: What are the possibilities and limits of the image as advocate? How does visual advocacy operate across linguistic, societal and cultural thresholds? And what pedagogies, platforms, or ethics are needed to support such work? In gathering diverse voices, we aim to cultivate a conversation on how images not only represent but also actively shape the cultures from which they emerge. More information can be found at the conference website.
2026 Special Focus—The Image as Advocate: Shaping Cultural Conversations
Sixteenth International Conference on Food Studies
University of Osaka, Osaka, Japan, 10-12 October 2026 and Online
The Sixteenth International Conference on Food Studies will be held in Osaka, Japan—a city whose identity, culture, and cuisine have been shaped by water for centuries. Known historically as the “Kitchen of the Nation,” Osaka flourished as a hub of trade and food distribution, made possible by its extensive river and canal networks. Today, this rich heritage offers a powerful context for exploring the conference’s special theme: Living with Water: Food and Life.
In Osaka, water is more than a resource—it is a foundation for food culture, daily life, and ecological understanding. From the soft water used to make dashi, to the thriving markets that once received goods from across Japan, the city embodies a deep connection between water systems and sustainable food traditions. As global food and water crises intensify, Osaka offers a compelling site to examine how local knowledge, urban infrastructure, and culinary heritage can inform more resilient and equitable food futures.
Along with our papers that speak to our annual themes, we invite proposals that explore food sustainability, water security, health and nutrition, and the politics of food systems, especially about urban ecologies and historic foodways. Join us in Osaka to reflect on the past and reimagine the future of food in a world increasingly defined by its relationship to water. Learn more about registration and submission.
Aging & Social Change: Sixteenth Interdisciplinary Conference
Akdeniz University in Antalya, Turkey, 15-16 October 2026
Submission Deadline: 15 December 2025
Care environments for aging populations must move toward more individualized, person-centered models. Yet across diverse national contexts, many systems remain fragmented or under-resourced, with gaps at the intersections of medical, social, and familial care arrangements. At the same time, promising new approaches are emerging around the world—ranging from dementia care innovations and age-friendly community programs to lifelong learning institutions for older adults.
This international dialogue will be hosted in Turkey, a country that both reflects these global challenges and serves as a site of experimentation in gerontological practice and policy. The conference offers an opportunity to exchange cross-national insights, share institutional innovations, and collaboratively reimagine the social contract across generations. Learn more about registration and submission.
2026 Special Focus—Demographic Futures: Political and Social Transformations
Subjugated Knowledges, Secrecy and Society Volume 4, Issue 1
Submission Deadline: 15 March 2026
Sixteenth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society
University of Guadalajara, Mexico + Online, 9-11 September 2026
Submission Deadline: 9 June 2026
Founded in 2011, the Health, Wellness, & Society Research Network is brought together by a common concern in the fields of human health and wellness, and in particular their social interconnections and implications. We seek to build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries. As a Research Network, we are defined by our scope and concerns and motivated to build strategies for action framed by our shared themes and tension. Learn more about registration and submission.
2026 Special Focus—Nourishing Societies: Bridging Nutrition, Wellness, and Sustainability for a Healthier Future
Calls for Articles
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
The New Asylum Seekers: Subnational Dynamics of Migraton Governance in the United States
Submission Deadline: 7 January 2026
Asylum-seeking is a long-standing legal pathway enshrined in international law through which migrants flee home-country persecution, arrive in another country, and pursue refugee status there. Yet unlike resettled refugees, who receive the refugee designation overseas and arrive in the US with legal status and dedicated services, asylum seekers come directly to the US without express invitation. This contributes to their conflation with unauthorized entrants and "illegality" in the political and public sphere. Contemporary asylum seekers are often framed by politicians as motivated by experiences—such as economic deprivation—that fall outside the scope of the refugee definition and thus make them unlikely to advance successful legal claims. Moreover, because asylum seekers arrive without invitation, they may resemble long-term unauthorized residents in their challenges accessing work and public services. At the same time, their formal pursuit of refugee status through legal channels differentiates them from both resettled refugees (who enter through pre-authorized programs) and undocumented migrants (who lack a pending legal claim). In highlighting these contrasts, this issue of RSF underscores how in-land asylum seekers occupy a distinctive position at the intersection of legality and illegality. As they increasingly concentrate in US cities, subnational governments and institutions face urgent practical and political challenges that have become central to the national immigration debate.
In the US context, scholars, policymakers, and the public have not fully grappled with the distinctions between asylum seekers and other categories of legally vulnerable immigrants. Given their pending legal petition, for example, asylum seekers and their identities are fully visible to government. They thus have a different orientation to the state than many long-term undocumented immigrants, who manage decisions to engage or avoid government institutions from an alternative set of circumstances. Despite these and other differences, we know little about the implications of such distinctions for migration governance or for the broader "ecosystems" of institutions that shape migrants' lives—including not only state and local governments but also schools, police, employers, landlords, NGOs, and even anti-immigrant organizations. Given that related work is more prevalent in the European context, this issue of RSF will focus on the US case to highlight both what is distinctive and what lessons might travel across other nation-states.
Accordingly, this issue examines the ways in which contemporary asylum seekers to the US resemble and differ from other immigrants, past and present; it considers how rising asylum-seeking shapes subnational responses among diverse state and non-state actors; it compares the experiences of asylum-seeking newcomers with long-term unauthorized immigrants; it analyzes the relationships of these groups with the US-born population; and, in turn, it assesses their influence on broader US immigration policies.
Click here for a complete description of the topics to be covered in this issue.
Call for Participants
Teaching About Race
Ongoing Calls
Spark Magazine
Spark Magazine is now accepting pitches for essay ideas on a rolling basis. Spark offers essays grounded in research that can inform readers to make decisions for themselves, their families, and communities. The essays are meant to spark curiosity — whether by encouraging deeper questions about society, challenging taken-for-granted ideas, or inspiring greater empathy and support for marginalized communities. Submit a pitch.
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity series provides a venue for international, pioneering scholarship that moves our understanding of race, racism, ethnicity, and ethnic oppression forward. The series features books that engage in contemporary social issues in a meaningful way, advocating intervention and action in social justice and social transformation. While theoretically and empirically grounded in sociology, books in this series intersect a wide array of social sciences (geography, history, political science, anthropology, philosophy). We seek book proposals that accomplish the dual goals of speaking to the public square and pushing the intellectual conversation forward. To inquire about publishing in the series, please contact Mick Gusinde-Duffy at mickgd@uga.edu.