SSAAANZ Online Conference 2025: Wednesday 12-Thursday 13 November

Emerging and Dispersed Scholarship

Overview

Tertiary education and research sectors are putting unprecedented pressure upon screen studies research. As global institutions restrict or curtail access and funding for humanities research and as screen studies fields continue to be marginalised and eroded from curricula, it has never been more crucial to focus on the emerging research, education and creative practice undertaken by scholars and practitioners. Concurrently, geographic and financial boundaries limit access to wider screen studies communities, isolating scholars and practitioners who may feel they are the “only one at the lighthouse” in undertaking their work. 

In 2025, the SSAAANZ Online conference seeks to address these issues by bringing together a host of presenters from institutions across Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally to illustrate their connection to screen studies. This is the first in a planned series of online conferences offered by SSAAANZ to maintain research networks in between biennial in-person conferences. The conference welcomes a wide range of scholars and practitioners who would like to present their work; we invite both senior and junior colleagues in screen studies disciplines, including Higher Degree Research students, creative practitioners and producers, and those who would consider themselves to be Early Career Researchers.

Keynote Speakers

We are supremely fortunate to have two eminent keynote speaker presentations for this conference:

Registration

There is no conference fee, however all attendees and presenters must be currently-registered SSAAANZ members at either Continuing Salaried or Concession level. Please visit our site here if you need to register; only currently-registered members will receive the links for the conference presentations. Contact our team at ssaaanz@gmail.com if you have any issues with registering.

Once you are a registered SSAAANZ member, please fill out your attendance form for the conference here. Please note that you may require a Gmail account in order to fill out the form. If you have any trouble registering your attendance, please contact the conference working group at ssaaanzonline2025@gmail.com. 

All registered presenters and attendees will receive Zoom links to the conference via email at the start of the conference week; please contact us if you have not received your link by Tuesday 11 November.

Conference Program

Please click here to access the conference program. All times are in Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT), however the program has a guide for converting to other local Australia and New Zealand timezones.

Conference Prizes

The conference features two prizes that will be awarded to the best paper for each category across both days. The prizes are:

  • The Stephen Gaunson Award for Best Higher Degree Research or Independent Scholar Paper

  • The Sue Turnbull Award for Best Popular Culture Paper

A panel of judges for each prize will award the winner from both categories at the end of Day 2 of the conference.

If you are a presenter looking to nominate your paper for one or both awards, please fill out this form.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!