Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies
Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies is an annual publication of Dance Studies Association dedicated to current themes and debates in the field of dance studies. Each issue is edited by (a) different guest editor(s) and is published online in an open access format. As such, Conversations is a venue in which scholars, artists, and educators of dance and related disciplines can respond quickly and publicly to current events and pressing issues as identified by members of an international dance studies community. Conversations has published annual issues from 2007-present. Prior to 2007, the Society for Dance History Scholars (SDHS) newsletter served as a similar platform for publication. Conversations is a completely open-access journal. Read entire issues on the e-platform. Conversations Submissions, Calls, and Other OpportunitiesAccepting Applications for Editorial Fellow for Conversations Across the Field of Dance StudiesConversations Across the Field of Dance Studies seeks an Editorial Fellow to join the Editorial Board beginning January 2026. This fellowship supports the Dance Studies Association’s mission to advocate for and invest in anti-racist, decolonial, and caste-conscious approaches to curation, programming, administration, and labor practices across all levels of the organization. Working closely with the Conversations Editor and Editorial Board, the Fellow will help shape the publication’s evolving editorial vision and contribute to broader organizational practices within DSA. Applications and inquiries should be sent to Conversations Editor, Arushi Singh, at [email protected]. Deadline: October 15, 2025 The Conversations e-platform also hosts a Talk-Back/Letters from the Editors section and a quick response Chat. Guidelines for Chat Submissions Guidelines for Talk Back/Letters to the Editor 2024 Issue (press release announcement)Ethics, Risk, and Safety in the Field Research ethics, when they came into academic being, were modeled mostly after the experiences of white men based at Western European and North American institutions. These ethical devices also absorbed the assumptions of such a position: that the researcher is in a position of power, that the community must be protected foremostly through anonymity. Neither this thinking nor these practices hold up. For one, as we strive to diversify academia and more space is given to researchers outside of the “West,” to womxn and queer researchers, people of color, people with varied abilities, cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, none of us experience “the field” as the white cis straight expert male researcher did and thus none of us encounter risk the way patriarchal colonialism has identified it and boxed it. Share it. Cite it. Teach it.
PHOTO: View of Palestine from a demolished home in the West Bank by Annie Wren, appearing in essay “Community Care in Palestine: When Grief and Politics Meet in the Body”
Chats Vol.4: Black Men and Dance Now Live!
In the wake of the 2024 Presidential election and the dismantling of DEI initiatives that have long supported Black studies and affinity spaces, alongside enduring and newly emerging debates about Black masculinity and the Black male body, this issue of Chats turns its attention to Black men in dance as a vital site of inquiry, memory, and inheritance. What new histories of Black men in dance emerge when we center the voices of those working in K–12 classrooms, community spaces, and the academy? How might Black men’s movement practices and artistic labor complicate the narrow scripts of visibility, stoicism, and spectacle imposed upon them—from boyhood to manhood, from student to professional? And how do these practices invite us to rethink the very terms through which Black men in dance are studied, remembered, and carried forward? Arushi Singh, Editor
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