Call to Host the 2026 Post45 Graduate Symposium

We are pleased to announce an open call for bids to host the 2026 Post45 Graduate Symposium. The Post45 Graduate Symposium is a two-day event, typically held in Spring, which brings together graduate students and faculty members working on post-1945 arts, literature, media, and culture. Around fifteen graduate students each submit a work-in-progress and convene in a workshop-style setting along with faculty respondents to discuss each participant’s work. 

In hosting the symposium, you will have full support of the Steering Committee who will be writing the CFP, selecting papers, and coordinating with participants. As a host committee, you will be responsible for securing funding, booking rooms, organizing catering, and liaising with faculty respondents at your institution(s). Past host institution organizers have reported bringing the symposium to their campus to be a rewarding undertaking, fostering community and rapport between faculty and graduates, as well as between departments and disciplines. It also makes for a constructive professionalization experience in organizing and service. The 2025 graduate symposium was hosted by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and the 2024 symposium was co-hosted by McGill University and Concordia University in Montréal.  

If you are interested in applying to host next year's conference at your institution--or if you would like to partner with another institution and jointly host the 2025 symposium--please fill out the following questionnaire by Tuesday August 5, 2025: https://bit.ly/gradpost45host 

The questionnaire asks you to identify possible sources of funding, potential faculty participants and a potential keynote speaker, as well as potential accommodations for graduate student participants. For the 2025 symposium, we were able to secure travel support for each participant, and we are particularly interested in bids that would seek to establish a similar travel support fund for the 2026 symposium. There is no expectation that hosting applicants will have secured guaranteed funding or full faculty participation at the time of application. In the past, successful applicants have listed possible sources and avenues of funding (such as grants available for graduate conferences and events and/or possible meetings with your Department Chair or Director of Graduate Studies to discuss fundraising strategies) and have also identified 2-3 guaranteed faculty participants (remaining faculty participants can then be confirmed if the bid is successful).

We encourage graduate students from all locations to apply. The steering committee itself represents graduate students from multiple countries, and we will enthusiastically consider bids from anywhere. At the same time, we acknowledge that the current political climate poses serious limitations and risks for crossing borders and applying for visas to enter the United States. The steering committee will take these dynamics into account as part of our decision-making process, recognizing that the situation is volatile and in flux. We will do all we can to create an inclusive and safe symposium. 

If you have any questions regarding the host application process, please feel free to email grad@post45.org. We hope to respond by mid-August and will distribute the CFP for the Symposium in early September.

Thank you for your bid!

The Post45 Graduate Steering Committee (Lauryn Anderson, Andy Perluzzo, Olivia Stowell, Urvi Kumbhat and Juan Velasquez)