2025 Dress and Body Association Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Dress and Body Association invites submissions for the organization’s sixth annual conference, which will be held on November 1-2, 2025. Consistent with our long-term goals for inclusivity and sustainability, all activities will be 100% online.

Join our Google Group to learn about opportunities and converse with members of the DBA year-round! Email to request membership: dress.body.assoc@gmail.com.

Comfort and Joy: Locating Hope in Dress and the Body

Given the number of wars, genocides, and authoritarian movements happening worldwide, 2025 is shaping up to be a historically challenging year. Nevertheless, dress and the body have long been sites where people find real pleasure, meaning, and hopefulness.

Proposals on any topic related to dress and the body will be considered, but abstracts related to this year’s theme are most likely to be accepted. Topics might include:

• The role of dress in cultural survival and revival
• Embodied experiences with positive psychology
• Claiming and reclaiming comfort in disabled bodies
• “Black boy joy” (defying appearance-based stereotypes)
• The deep satisfactions of place-specific dress practices (i.e. indigenous)
• Taking up space and reclaiming privacy through dress
• Tattoos as permanence in an impermanent world
• Reclaiming the joys of being a student, scholar, educator, etc.
• LGBTQ+ strategies for surviving and thriving
• Performing resistance through costuming and cosplay
• Inspiring hope and personal reflection through wearable art
• Fashion outside of the corporate and/or capitalist sphere

Both beginning and advanced scholars are welcome. Abstracts should be 200-300 words. Presenters do not need to submit a paper before the conference. Depending on the number of submissions and the time zones of presenters, each person should have approximately 20 minutes to speak with additional time for discussion.

Although we welcome scholars, educators, artists, designers, and activists from any country, the language of the conference will be English. We will consider a group of presentations in another language if there is sufficient interest.

Abstracts must be written in English and should be drawn from your own, original work. We ask that presenters not simply recycle presentations from classes or other conferences. Pre-recorded presentations are allowed, but presenters must join the Zoom meeting to hear other speakers and participate in the discussion in real time.

Please submit your abstract by July 1, 2025. All submissions will be read by at least two reviewers in a single-blind review process. If there is no extension on the deadline, authors can expect letters of acceptance by mid-August. (Given the challenging times we are living in, please be patient with any delays… we are doing our best.)

To submit an abstract, go to this link: https://forms.gle/uoz3ohs9bG21pQDFA

Curious about past conferences? Check out our programs for 2020-2024 on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/@dress_and_body_association.

Whether you choose to submit an abstract or not, you’re welcome to attend the conference!

There is no charge. Just email us (dress.body.assoc@gmail.com) to join our Google Group and stay informed.

The Dress and Body Association is registered as a non-profit organization (501(c)(3)) in the state of Indiana (United States).

Dress & Body Association | dress.body.assoc@gmail.com