Call For Proposals

The submission system will open tomorrow.

Please read our Symposium statement, available themes, submission instructions, and acceptance notification below.

2027 Assyrian Studies Symposium

Uppsala University

Sweden

June 23-24, 2027

Deadline for Proposals: December 15, 2026 at 11:59pm Central European Time (CET) or 5:59 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Notification of Acceptance will go out: February/March 2027.

Submit Proposal

Care, Continuity, and Community: Interdisciplinary Directions in Assyrian Studies

The Assyrian Studies Association's third biennial symposium addresses a question of growing scholarly and communal significance: how has the Assyrian people sustained their wellbeing, meaning, and cultural life across homeland and diaspora?

Building on the historical and methodological foundations laid at Stanford University in 2023 (Formative History, Challenges, and New Directions) and at Arizona State University in 2025 (Innovative Methodologies in Assyrian Studies), the 2027 symposium brings the dynamics of care, resilience, and continuity to the centre of the meeting. It does so for the Assyrians, a transnational people whose presence spans West Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia, and who are known, across communities and scholarly traditions, by many associated names – as a community whose persistence has itself become a sustained object of empirical inquiry (Atto, 2011; Cetrez et al., 2012).

The existing literature is substantial but unevenly distributed. Several disciplines are well developed and offer a robust basis for new research; others are consolidating rapidly; and some areas central to the symposium's concerns remain comparatively under-represented.

Themes

Applicants must select one of the nine themes below when submitting to the call for papers.

Care, Health, and Wellbeing across the Life Course - Health, everyday care, ritual, and existential meaning as resources for resilience and self-continuity across generations.
Language and Literary Vitality - Mother-tongue endangerment and revitalization, oral history, literature, translation, and intergenerational transmission.
Heritage, Memory, and Creative Practice - Heritage loss and recovery, participatory curation, archives, and the arts as creative repair after conflict.
Communication, Media, and Institutional Trust - Multilingual communication, diaspora media, and civil-society and institutional relations.
Generations, Gender, and Inclusion - Youth participation, gendered care, intergenerational transmission, and disability access and inclusion.
Indigeneity, Politics, Rights, and Citizenship - Indigeneity and the minority-to-citizenship debate, recognition and rights, governance, migration and integration policy, social cohesion, and political participation.
Digital Methods and Research Ethics - Digital humanities, GIS, participatory video, community archives, and ethical, community-governed research data.
Place, Ecology, Foodways, and Livelihood - Climate stress, foodways, rural/urban transition, work, and the material conditions of cultural continuity.
Open Track: Interdisciplinary and Emerging Directions - Interdisciplinary, comparative, and emerging work that crosses or extends the themes above; open to all relevant disciplines and methods.

Submission Instructions

Title & Abstract
Titles are limited to 1,000 characters.

Abstracts are to be no more than 250 words.

Subject Area

Please select the subject field your abstract belongs to (i.e., History, Political Science, etc.).

Themes

Applicants must select one of the nine themes (listed above) when submitting to the call for papers.

Format Selection

Please indicate which format you'd like for this presentation: Individual Paper or Roundtable.

Presentation Format

Please select either in-person or online presentation.

Selecting & Adding Authors

First, indicate whether you are the sole author or co-authoring. If co-authoring, include your co-authors' name(s).

Questions?

Email us at info@assyrianstudiesassociation.org

In late February/March 2027, you will receive an acceptance or rejection e-mail for each proposal you submitted. If accepted for a panel or roundtable, the email will indicate the division for which you are accepted. You will receive additional detailed information regarding your panel or roundtable session from the division or panel chair.

If a paper is accepted to either a panel or roundtable session, participants will be required to formally indicate their willingness to participate in the symposium. Failure to reply to an official email of acceptance within the designated timeframe will be taken as a withdrawal.

Acceptance Notification

Let's Work Together

Are you interested in volunteering at ASA's Symposium? If so, we are looking for volunteers like you who can help us during the event! To learn more, click here.