49th Annual Conference

Marshall University welcomes submissions to the 49th Annual Appalachian Studies Conference, to be held in Huntington, West Virginia, an urban centerpiece in the heart of Appalachia. The Tri-State Area, where three states, three major rivers, and one of the most significant dividing lines in U.S. history converge, provides a welcoming, unique environment for sharing and learning.

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The conference runs from March 19 through March 21, 2026.

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The 49th Annual Appalachian Studies Conference takes as its theme “Power of a Place, Power of Its People” and encourages submissions that elevate, celebrate, and interrogate the strength and diversity that give life to our region. United by the commonalities of resistance, perseverance, and pride, we invite work that elaborates and extends these themes through art, performance, research, policy/analysis, and advocacy. Although separated in geologic space by our region-defining mountains and rivers, and in political space by state borders and bureaucratic subdivisions, the Appalachian region has long served as a symbol of an alternative to the nation’s norms, the “best” and the “worst” of the American experience, and of endurance in the face of economic, political, and natural struggles.

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For this gathering, we place a special emphasis on regionally significant strategies for confronting and countering issues of exploitation, prejudice, and oppression (broadly defined) relative to Appalachia. We realize, and desire, that submissions will take many different approaches to these concerns: community-based documentation, critical media-analysis, performance, literature, humanities-oriented scholarship, sociological perspectives, theological contemplation, visual art, pedagogy, etc. We seek work that focuses on the people of the region—collectively, diversely, and/or individually—that defines the simultaneously persistent and ever-evolving character of Appalachia.

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For further information, please contact:

• Cicero Fain Conference Chair: fainc@marshall.edu

• Paul Robertson Program Co-chair: robertsonp@marshall.edu

• Marianna Linz Program Co-chair: linz@marshall.edu

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