SASS 2027 · San Francisco
Call for Papers
The general call for papers for the 117th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study is now open!
The presidential theme for the 2027 conference is Artificial. As artificial intelligence becomes pervasive, we have opened a space to talk about it in the context of our discipline in the Bay Area, the very heart of where this technology is being developed. The idea of the artificial is also broadly generative, and its reach extends well beyond this local and recent context.
At the core is “art”—human making, craft, and its material result; the counterpart of science. Next comes “artifice,” with its associations of ingenuity, technical skill, cunning, falsity and deception. Our theme reaches its destination at “artificial”: fabricated, prosthetic, non-spontaneous.
Read the full conference theme statement
Submission deadline: January 15, 2027
11:59 p.m. Pacific time
Papers and organized sessions
The conference program committee invites proposals for individual papers, pre-constituted panels, roundtables, workshops, and other organized session formats. Proposals outside the conference theme are also welcome.
Individual papers will have 15–20 minutes for presentation. All organized sessions must fit within a 90-minute conference slot.
Pre-constituted panel
Three to four thematically linked papers.
Workshop
Up to four presenters introducing and discussing a methodology, skill, question, or shared topic.
Roundtable
Up to five presenters in informal conversation on a specific topic.
Other formats
Alternative formats are welcome, including sessions centered on collaborative work.
Preparing your proposal
Individual papers
Submit an abstract of no more than 300 words. Include a few keywords to help with programming and discoverability. Titles may contain a maximum of 15 words.
Pre-constituted panels
Each paper must be submitted individually. Each submission should identify the proposed panel’s title so the program committee can match the submissions. List only the author(s)/presenter(s) of the individual paper, not everyone on the panel.
Workshops, roundtables, and other organized sessions
Submit a 200–300-word abstract describing the session and list all proposed presenters in the Author(s)/Presenter(s) section. The person submitting the form will be designated as the session chair/organizer and primary contact.
Chair and organizer responsibilities
The chair or organizer is responsible for the session’s internal organization and communication with presenters and the conference program committee.
In-person participation
SASS 2027 is an in-person conference. Remote presentations and independently arranged virtual sessions are not permitted. Organizers of multi-presenter sessions must ensure that all presenters understand they must register for and attend the conference in person if they participate.
Thematic streams
Seven streams invite submissions. You may select a thematic stream in the submission form or choose the General Paper Pool.
- Bodies in Premodern Nordic Culture Organizers: Christine Ekholst and Natalie Van Deusen
- Singing the North: Continuity and Disruption from Sibelius to Today Organizers: Kathleen Roland-Silverstein and Colin Levin
- Constructs of Identity and Belonging Organizers: Verena Höfig and Kate Heslop
- Ibsen and the Art/ific/ial Organizer: Olivia Gunn
- Art and Life: Making Meaning and Belonging in the Nordic World Organizers: Tuire Liimatainen, Peter Stadius, and Lotta Weckström
- Powering Culture: Nordic Energy Landscapes Organizers: Katie Ritson and Jenna Coughlin
- Art and Artifice in the Nineteenth-Century North Organizer: Troy Wellington Smith
The Program Committee also welcomes contributions that fall outside these streams and engage with humanistic questions centering on art, artifice, the artificial and their others in a broad sense, or on the specific questions raised by AI. Papers and panels that do not explicitly engage with the presidential theme are also welcome.
Submit your proposal
January 15, 2027, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time
This deadline is a little later than at previous conferences, allowing time over the holiday break to collect thoughts and finalize abstracts. To leave time for the Program Committee’s work, the deadline cannot be extended.
Questions? sass2027@scandinavianstudy.org