Annual Guns in Society Symposium

CSGS's Inaugural Guns in Society Symposium

January 30 - February 1, 2025

Downtown Phoenix campus of Arizona State University

Call for Submissions to Inaugural Guns in Society Annual Symposium

Deadline for abstract submission: September 20, 2024

Arizona State University’s Center for the Study of Guns in Society invites submission to the Inaugural Guns in Society Annual Symposium January 30 to February 1, 2025, on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. 

Organized around the theme of “Elevating the Gun Debate, Bridging Gun Divides,” this symposium aims to bring together cutting-edge scholars whose work frustrates the typical terms of the gun debate–and provides the insights necessary to think more expansively about the significance of guns in American life. Gun politics represent one of the most polarizing topics in the current US political climate. But our two-sided gun debate obscures the more complex reality of guns in American life: from gun violence to gun ownership, we experience guns in complicated, and often ambivalent, ways that vastly exceed the simplistic terms of the gun debate. This symposium is motivated by a key claim: a core challenge facing Americans today about guns is our collective inability to engage the complexity of gun ownership, gun violence, and gun policy. 

We are interested in agenda-setting work on the culture and politics of armed self-defense; gun violence and gun trauma; guns, identity, and inequality; guns, markets and the economy; social movements surrounding gun rights and/or gun control; comparative/transnational approaches to guns in society; the intersection of guns, conservation, and environmental justice; the role of art in shaping our relationships with guns; and related topics grounded in qualitative or quantitative social science and humanities approaches. 

To submit an abstract, please complete this form by September 20, 2024.