Conduits Graduate Conference
Friday May 8, 2026 - SFU School of Communication
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Affect, Resistance, and Control
Affect, Resistance, and Control
The Graduate Program at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication invites proposals for the annual CONDUITS 2026 graduate conference.
The 2026 CONDUITS Conference will take place on Friday, May 8th, 2026, in-person at Simon Fraser University's Burnaby Campus in Burnaby, BC, Canada.
2026 Keynote Speaker: Dr. Moira Weigel
2026 Keynote Speaker: Dr. Moira Weigel
Keynote Talk [Virtual] 1:30 - 2:30 PM
School of Communication, K8652
Dr. Moira Weigel is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and the author of Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating (2016) and co-editor of Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do—and How They Do It (2020). In recent years, Dr. Weigel's research has explored the history of intellectual exchange across critical theorists, computer scientists, and other practitioners— including, for example, big names in 'Big Tech' (e.g., Alex Karp)—focusing on forms of conservatism and nationalism that are often perceived as antithetical to digital networks, yet increasingly prevalent in digital technology industries. She is currently working on her next book, tentatively-titledThird Party, which explores marketplace platforms from the perspectives of merchants, software and service providers, investors and other “complementors”, attending to the forms of communication that these technologies mediate and the imaginaries of “the global” that they sustain. Read more about Dr. Weigel's work here.
Preliminary Notes for a Radical Praxis
Preliminary Notes for a Radical Praxis
In-person screening, 12 pm, K8652
Preliminary Notes for a Radical Praxis, directed by Am Johal and Joey Malbon, is a short, experimental documentary that traces the charged relationship between radical thought and material political change. Rejecting fatalism, the film embraces an insurgent optimism grounded in collective struggle and the refusal to accept politics as usual. How to think past exhaustions and closures?
Through informal and intimate interviews, it brings together Astra Taylor, Matt Hern, Glen Coulthard, Achille Mbembe, Brenna Bhandar, Jodi Dean, Jasbir Puar, Michael Hardt and Alberto Toscano to instigate some preliminary deliberations on how radical thought and material political change are inextricably bound. As useful in the classroom as it will be in the streets, the work asks viewers to think these age old questions anew to breathe life, vitality and novel interrogations into social movements today.
Submission Guidelines
Submission Guidelines
We welcome individual and co-authored proposals for paper presentations as well as multi-modal works such as artworks, films, or performances:
Paper presentation submissions should include an abstract of approximately 200-250 words, providing a brief description of the topic’s relevance to the conference theme, keywords, a title, and the authors’ full name(s), as well as institutional affiliations, if any. We also ask for a short biography of 50-100 words and contact information of the presenter(s). Paper presentations must plan to accommodate, at maximum, 15-minute individual presentations.
Multi-modal presentation submissions can be audio-visual: up to 10 minutes in length (mp3 or mp4), or up to 10 images (JPG, PNG, or GIF), or web/software-based, with a description, link, video, or file attached to the website or software. Submissions for applicable formats, such as performances, may also take the form of a short excerpt, up to a third of the length of the final submission. All submissions must include a short (50-100 words) description of your work/topic and its relevance to the conference theme, with keywords, a title, the authors’ full name(s), and institutional affiliations, if any. We also ask for a short biography of 50-100 words and contact information of the presenter(s).
Please make all submissions to this form before midnight (11:59 PST) Sunday, April 12th, 2026. Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis.
About the Conference
About the Conference
CONDUITS is an annual long-running graduate conference organized by students in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada. We take pride in our program's legacy of critically-engaged research, and uphold this through ongoing commitments in the CONDUITS conference. Each year, we invite proposals from research pertaining to topics in media and communication studies, and welcome interdisciplinary participation from departments both in and beyond SFU.
For more information, including previous conferences, please refer to our about page here.
To get in touch with us, please contact the organizing committee at conduitsconference@gmail.com.
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