Call for Papers: Annual Graduate Workshop Series, Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy – July 1

Posted by The Andrea Mitchell Center on June 11, 2024

The Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania invites paper proposals for its Annual Graduate Workshop Series. We welcome submissions by doctoral students (PhD, JSD, SJD, etc.) from any university and discipline whose research explores the controversies, dilemmas, and promises of democratic society.

The Center provides an interdisciplinary venue for graduate students to present their research and receive constructive scholarly feedback. By placing papers in conversation with each other across disciplinary boundaries, we hope to provoke new ways of thinking about the implications of democracy and citizenship. We encourage papers that interrogate democracy and citizenship from any of the following dimensions and beyond:

• Tensions over definitions and practices of democracy
• Citizenship and political membership
• Historical and contemporary responses and resistance to political institutions
• Movement and migration
• The politics of climate change
• Law and public policy
• Health and society
• Economic inequality and social stratification
• Science, medicine, and technology
• Policing and militarization
• Gender and sexuality
• Issues of race and racism
• Disability studies
• Religion and politics
• Cultural memory and public history
• Media and misinformation
• Social movements
• Affect theory
• Alternative visions of political life
• Successes and failures of the international order
• Education policy and politics

You can find titles of papers presented at the Graduate Workshop in past years here.

The Andrea Mitchell Center’s Graduate Workshop is a yearlong series held once a month between September 2024 and May 2025. Two graduate students, usually from different fields, present their papers at each meeting. Presentations are approximately 10 minutes per paper, followed by a group discussion. Papers must be submitted three weeks in advance of the workshop to be circulated and should be no more than 25 double-spaced pages.

Applications are due Monday, July 1st, 2024. Please submit your applications through this Google form. The application will require the following information:

1. An abstract of up to 300 words including a working title for the paper and up to 5 keywords connecting your project to the aforementioned themes
2. A brief statement that indicates your discipline and institution
3. Three workshop dates (from those mentioned below) that suit your availability, in order of preference
4. Your preference for in-person (in Philadelphia) or virtual attendance at the workshop

Dates for the Graduate Workshop Series, 2024 and 2025

All workshops will be held from 12 – 1:30 pm ET.

• September 18, 2024
• October 16, 2024
• November 13, 2024
• December 4, 2024
• January 22, 2025
• February 19, 2025
• March 19, 2025
• April 16, 2025

The Center is flexible about holding the sessions in person or over Zoom, depending on participants’ preferences and abilities. We will use one of two formats on a case-by-case basis: in-person, if both presenters are willing and able to travel to Philadelphia (the event will still be live-streamed); or entirely virtual in the case that one of the presenters is unable to travel to Philadelphia. Participants will not be required to travel for the workshop.