EAPSU 2025 Conference: “Threat Assessments”
Hosted in-person and online at Slippery Rock University October 23-24 (online) and 25 (at Slippery Rock University’s main campus)
Call for Proposals
EAPSU 2025 will be a hybrid conference to accommodate those without travel funding or transportation. For the in-person sessions on Saturday, we welcome individual papers, group panels, discussion sections, workshops, or creative works from faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. We also welcome online (via Zoom) and pre-taped papers, panels, and creative works for our Friday sessions. Please indicate your modality in the proposal.
On the evening of the 24th we plan to host a roundtable discussion with the chairs of the departments leading a discussion on challenges facing English departments in PASSHE schools. Afterwards, the evening will see an open mic featuring the creative work of EAPSU students and faculty – if you or your students would like to be a part of the open mic, contact Jason.stuart@sru.edu for more info.
Traditionally, EAPSU presents faculty, student, and faculty/student work in all areas of English Studies: writing studies, creative writing, composition, rhetoric, literature and literary studies, technical and professional writing, linguistics, film and new media studies, popular culture, pedagogy, and creative writing. We also encourage submissions that focus on new areas of inquiry, PASSHE-oriented discussions, and current problems in the field. Proposals might include:
- Responses to the numerous crises facing academic freedom and productivity both in PASSHE and in higher education, generally
- Mitigation strategies against the explicit threats to student and faculty safety and well-being, in particular LGBTQI+ and international students
- Countering threats to the integrity of knowledge work by educational technologies and so-called “Artificial Intelligence”
- Evaluations of literary works, theories, and movements at the end of the “Long 20th century”
- Revisiting concepts of aesthetics, authorship, and reception in the digital humanities and writing
- Definitions of the threat to pedagogies that support diversity, equity, belonging, and accessibility
The conference committee and EAPSU strongly encourage the development of long-term discussions, working groups, and roundtables to encourage continuous discussion and interplay between English programs and writing programs within PASSHE. Additionally, EAPSU encourages organizations and working groups within PASSHE to join us to share the work they are doing and develop partnerships for the long-term sustainability of all groups.
Please submit your 200-word proposal for online and in-person conference sessions to jason.stuart@sru.edu by July 15, 2025.
EAPSU is also looking for schools to host future conferences! If you are interested in developing a thematic conference that celebrates the work of PASSHE educators, scholars, and – most importantly – students, please get in touch with the EAPSU Board! We are looking to schedule the next three years of EAPSU conferences at sites across the Commonwealth.
