Call for proposals: accessibility beyond the AMS

Following our October 2025 Community of Practice session and our session “Musicking in Disabled Community: Access Intimacy and Cultural Activism” at AMS-Minneapolis in November 2025, we again invite proposals for one or more online sessions in Fall 2026. All submissions will be considered for the 2026 online AMS conference, Community of Practice sessions, and  collaborations with sibling AMS Study Groups.

Our theme for this year is “Accessibility Beyond the AMS.”  We especially welcome proposals for presentations that:

• Are driven by the interests and priorities of disabled people;
  
• Involve musicians, researchers, activists and others who collaborate across disability identities, prestige categories, professional affiliations, and regional/national borders;
  
• Engage with co-creating disability culture as a form of resistance to structural ableism (see Steven E. Brown, “What is Disability Culture,” ​Disability Studies Quarterly 22, 2 (2022) and/or Mia Mingus, “Access Intimacy: The Missing Link,” 2011).
  

Our sessions will feature a series of 10-15 minute talks with extensive conversation to follow. Please email proposals, including a title and an abstract of no more than 250 words, to [email protected]. Authors are welcome to include access requests and needs with their abstract submissions. The submission deadline is Monday, March 9, 2026. Acceptance notifications will be sent out mid-March.

While membership in AMS and registration for the online conference will be required to present at the AMS online conference, we intend to offer ample opportunities to present in other contexts that would not require AMS membership (details forthcoming on alternative sessions/conferences). Once again, we warmly encourage those who want to contribute to our conversations to submit their proposals regardless of affiliation or intention to attend the 2026 AMS online meeting, and are eager to include as many voices as possible in the Community of Practice events.