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@newschool.edu