CENTRO calls for contributors for symposium on US territories

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, known as CENTRO, opened a call for contributors for its upcoming symposium, A Sea of Islands: the US Territories in Relation.

The two-day symposium will take place June 11–12 and will bring together scholars, artists, and activists from the inhabited United States territories and their diasporas. According to CENTRO, the event aims to examine shared struggles, relational coalitions, and opportunities to expand networks of solidarity across the territories.

CENTRO is accepting individual paper submissions that engage with the symposium’s focus on the territories in relation to one another, including American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Proposed topics may include land and ecology, archives and history, colonialism, militarism and demilitarization, federal representation and plenary power, statehood and nationhood, citizenship status, data representation, labor, migration, housing, climate change, and self-determination, among others.

The call also encourages proposals that engage comparatively with other territorialized places and peoples, including Hawaiʻi, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, and Tribal Nations from Turtle Island and Abya Yala, in dialogue with Puerto Rican studies. Experimental, artistic, and moving image submissions are also welcome for review.

Individual paper proposals must include the participant’s name, email, and affiliation, a paper title, a 250-word abstract, and any audio or visual requirements. Proposals should clearly explain how the submission connects to the symposium’s theme and indicate any accessibility measures planned for the session.

CENTRO’s research team will review submissions and assemble individual papers into panels. The deadline to submit proposals is January 19, 2026, with decisions to be announced by February 8, 2026.