CFP: 17th Annual African, African American, and Diaspora Studies (AAAD) Interdisciplinary Conference
Hosted by James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Conference Theme: Beyond Repair: Reconciliations, Restorations, Resurgences
Conference Dates: February 10-12, 2027
Submission Deadline: October 23, 2026
The African, African American, and Diaspora Studies Center at James Madison University invites proposals for its annual interdisciplinary conference Beyond Repair: Reconciliations, Restorations, Resurgences. The conference will be held from Wednesday, February 10 to Friday, February 12, 2027 and brings together scholars, archivists, and practitioners from a variety of overlapping and intersecting fields. Submit proposals by October 23, 2026.
Repair has become one of the defining political and ethical vocabularies of our moment. Calls for reparations have generated new ways of imagining justice, accountability, and redress, while also raising questions about whether the language of repair is itself sufficient to address the enduring legacies of colonialism and slavery. This year’s theme “Beyond Repair” gestures simultaneously in two directions: it evokes what may appear irreparable, but it also invites debate over what we mean by “repair” in the first place. What can it achieve? What are its limits? What lies past its horizons? What in our present condition is beyond repair, and where does this leave us for imagining a future that does justice to the past?
This year’s conference will be hybrid; we invite in-person and virtual presentations on all topics relevant to AAAD studies, even if not directly pertinent to the conference theme. We welcome proposals from scholars from all disciplines at any point in their scholarly careers. Proposals for individual presentations or pre-constituted panels could address, but are not limited to, topics such as the following:
- Reparations and reparative structures
- Post-conflict recovery
- Frameworks of restorative justice
- Relief and its discontents
- Reconciliation and refusal
- Resurgence and renewal
- Community restoration
- Global and transnational partnerships
- Historical reckoning
- Memory and forgetting
- Archives and recovery
- Narrative repair
- Healing and health
- Arts of restoration
- Religious communities and social repair
- Ecological restoration
- Climate resilience
- Land and belonging
- Diasporic networks
- Pedagogies of repair
- Reproductive justice
- Literary resurgences
- Queer histories and futures
- Transitional justice
- Care and community
- Reparative economy
- Wealth and debt
- Digital storytelling
Please submit either a 300-word individual paper proposal or 1000-word panel proposal on the appropriate form linked below by October 23, 2026. Panel proposals must include at least three panelists. For panels, acceptance information will be sent directly to the panel organizer.
CLICK HERE: Individual Paper Submission Form
CLICK HERE: Panel Submission Form
Further information and updates about the conference may be found at sites.lib.jmu.edu/aaadjmu.
International respondents traveling to the United States in need of Visa documentation are encouraged to submit their abstracts as early as possible, ideally before September 15. International respondents will be notified on an ongoing basis after submitting their proposal. US respondents will be notified within a month after the deadline.
Questions may be sent to aaadstudies@jmu.edu.