Scholars from all disciplines are invited to submit proposals for papers, panels, and special sessions for the third annual Grateful Dead Studies Association meeting, to be held in conjunction with the Grateful Dead area at the Popular Culture Association conference, April 5 – 8, 2023, in San Antonio. 

The Grateful Dead Studies Association was founded in 2019, building on the work of the Grateful Dead area of the Southwest Popular Culture Association, which has met annually since 1998.  GDSA was founded to provide a lasting scholarly foundation for academics. A registered nonprofit association, we publish a peer-reviewed journal, Grateful Dead Studies, the Proceedings of our conferences, and a newsletter, along with Working Papers and other reports. We also sponsor the Duke University book series, Studies in the Grateful Dead.

We welcome papers and presentations on all aspects of the Grateful Dead’s music, cultural impact, and historical significance, and their associated contexts, including the counterculture, fan culture, the 1960s, rock poster art, and more. The Association is richly interdisciplinary and welcomes contributions representing all fields and theoretical perspectives. Our conferences regularly reflect research in musicology, theology, history, literature, linguistics, sociology, and more. 

Abstracts are due December 20, 2022; 200-250 words. 

Please review our Conference Proposal Checklist to see the criteria used to evaluate your proposal. 

Submission information may be found here. 

All presenters must be members of the PCA. Membership in the GDSA is not required. Feel free to contact Granville Ganter at ganterg@stjohns.edu for informal questions of any kind.