Proposed sessions below may be joined by submitting an abstract to the organizer or following the individual contact instructions. Once filled, these sessions must be submitted to the 2025 Annual Meeting CFP by the organizer or chair. If the organizer submits your abstract with their session, please do not submit your abstract as an individual paper proposal. If the organizer does not submit your abstract to their session, please still submit to the Annual Meeting CFP as part of another session or individual paper proposal.
Submit to the Call for Co-Panelists form here to assemble your own proposed session. Once you’ve found your co-panelists, you must submit the session to the 2025 Annual Meeting CFP. Organizers are responsible for remaining in contact with interested panelists as well as with the ASA Secretariat.
If you have questions, please email the ASA Secretariat at members@africanstudies.org.
Exploring New Directions in Agrarian Political Economy: Centring Race & Coloniality
This panel invites submissions that centre the race question in exploring new directions in Agrarian…
Collective Memory Work as a Catalyst: Reviving Revolutionary Pedagogies towards Educational Transformation
This panel examines the transformative role of education in shaping social change across African nations,…
Reimagining the Horn of Africa through Lens of Indigenous Humanism [OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS]
The Horn of Africa has long been shaped by complex histories of colonialism, conflict, and…
Speculative Politics and (Post)Colonial Law [OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS]
Over centuries of Western rule, speculative narratives about the social systems and political movements of…
New Directions in African Postcolonial Theory [OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS]
Our time is one of intersecting political, material, and environmental crises — many of which…
Race, property and “thinking indigeneity” from South Africa
The discursive construction of the ‘settler’ and the ‘native’ in South Africa is at the…
Language and Varieties of Pleasure
Every natural language is afflicted and privileged with polysemy. In English, pleasure is synonymous with…
Living with Algorithms in Africa: From Digital Intimacies to Algorithmic Sovereignty
As African developers and users forge intimate, contested, and creative relationships with algorithmic systems in…
Beyond Binaries: Reimagining Medicine, Knowledge, and Healing in African Contexts
The study of healing in Africa has long been trapped within constraining binaries: traditional versus…
Fuming Cities: Ethics, Imaginaries, and Enactments of Clean Energy in Africa
Across the African continent, the pursuit for clean energy sources to accelerate the transition to…
The Politics of Religious Counter-Hegemony in the African Great Lakes
This panel seeks to explore the relationship between religion and forms of counter-hegemony in the…
African Popular Culture and Web 2.0
Over the past decade, Web 2.0—often referred to as the participatory or social web—has dramatically…
The Backlash on Feminism: Time to embrace Humanism for Inclusive Growth in Africa? [EXTENDED DEADLINE]
The Gender Backlash is no longer a novel phenomenon, both in Africa and globally. The…
The Digital Feminist Solidarity of the #FreeStellaNyanzi, #PushforStellaNyanzi and allied hashtag campaigns
Between April 7, 2017 when Dr. Stella Nyanzi, an academic and activist was arrested for…
China and Africa Rosewood Trade Dynamics
African Rosewood (Pterocarpus erinaceus) has remained the most traded and internationally sought-after endangered wood species…
Northern Nigerian Knowledge Systems: Past, Present, and Future
This panel invites submissions that seek to highlight Northern Nigeria’s intellectual traditions—rooted in indigenous systems…
African Literature and film in understanding African History and current issues
In an interview with Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène in 1976, conducted by Noureddine…
Igbotic Mobilities: The Emergent Arts of Place-Making and Imaginaries of Igbo Identity
This panel invites proposals for studies of the democratic process of creative self-making and popular…
Environmental Violence and Migration in Africa
This panel seeks to highlight the connection between Environmental violence and Migration in West Africa….
Afro-diasporic Feminist Resistance and Representation in Contemporary Cultural Production
This panel invites scholars to explore the multifaceted intersections of feminist perspectives and practices articulated…
China and the Chinese in Africa
The socio-economic and political relationships between China and the continent of Africa continue to bolster….
Mining, Governance, and Energy Exchange in West Africa
Potential presenters are sought for the West Africa Research Association’s (WARA) co-sponsored panel on “Mining,…
Contemporary Perspectives on African Gender Systems
How has research in pre-colonial gender studies affected current research? How have approaches to gender…
African Speculative Expression and Digital Technology: Bringing Traditional Modes, Models, and Systems Into the Future
According to Jonathan Dotse (2016), because digital technologies have become an integral feature of many…
Archives of the Past, Theories of the Future in African Comics and Animation [EXTENDED DEADLINE]
Taking up the ASA’s call for contributions that “enlarge our understanding of what counts as…
Past, Present, and Future Paradigms for Promoting Public Health in Africa
Recent events in the United States cast doubt on the future of a major framework…
Gender, Tradition, Customary & Legal Frameworks
We invite abstract submissions for a panel that explores the relationships between gender, tradition, “customary…
The Pioneering African Literary Text in 2025
The written text in African literature has a rich history even though pioneering works can…
Individual Activists in Social Movements
Main argument: Studies of social movements mostly focus on Western (primarily)theories and structural arguments; relatively…
Cultural Responses to Memory, Trauma, and Violence
We are looking for co-panelists working in a range of disciplines who explore how culture…
Irregular Migration, Borders Security, and Anti-blackness in a Post-COVID-19 World: African Youths’ Experiences in Transit Spaces toward the Global North [EXTENDED DEADLINE]
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally reshaped global mobility regimes and border security practices, with particularly…
African Storytelling: Recalling Traditions, Bridging Boundaries & Exploring Futures – DEADLINE EXTENDED
At an African studies conference 2023, we called for a panel on African Storytelling where…
Political Autobiographies and the African Intellectual Tradition
What can we learn about history, governance, and democracy from the autobiographies of politicians? This…
Colonial Means, Decolonial Ends – Archival Representations of Resistance
Our understanding of the colonial world is mediated. Within visual and textual archives, knowledge of…
Critical Synergies and Disruptive Dialogues Between African Masculinities and African Studies
Over the last decades, African scholars have subjected Western-centred discourses and theories regarding gender and…
Exploring Migration, Return, and Changing Concepts of Home in African Studies
Within African literary discussions, migration and return migration stand out as critical themes that interrogate…
Oral Traditions & Warfare
This panel invites submissions that explore the relationship between oral traditions and warfare in African…
Rethinking Africa: Place, People, and Ideas (Sponsored by the Emerging Scholars Network)
As African Studies continues to gain more traction in historiographical conversations globally, ESN invites emerging…
Feminist Ethics of Care: Fostering Assistance for Migrant African Women
With an emphasis on Africa, this study explores the feminist ethics of care as a…
Streets as Living Archives: Bodies, Movement, and Alternative Epistemologies in Urban Africa
In recent years, urban studies of Africa have grappled with a persistent epistemological challenge: how…
Food, People, and Culture
This panel is looking for presenters exploring the multifaceted nature of food in Africa. It…
African Studies Keywords
The African Studies Review (ASR) invites proposals for its Keyword essay panel at the 2025 annual meeting…
Beyond Pathology and Pleasure: Crossing Boundaries in the Representations of African Bodies [EXTENDED DEADLINE]
The study of African sexuality occupies a critical space in academic discourse, often shaped by…
Africa in the Nineteenth Century
While the single most consequential event in Africa during the 19th century was European colonization…
The US Africa Command and Trump’s Policy Toward Africa
With the second inauguration of President Trump, the United States is set to pursue an…
Corruption and Anti-Corruption in African Politics: New Research Frontiers
Corruption is prevalent in African politics, with many African countries ranked as being highly corruption…
Governing Climate Change in Africa
Despite having contributed the least to global climate emission, Africa is the continent being hardest…