Call for Papers "Academics on Fire: Controversies over (Re)Naming Educational Institutions"

AI-generated poster, non official illustration

 

The American Name Society invites proposals for an organized session at the 2027 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, to be held in San Francisco, California, from 6–9 January 2027.

The session, titled “Academics on Fire: Controversies over (Re)Naming Educational Institutions,” will explore one of the most visible and politically charged areas of contemporary onomastics: the naming and renaming of educational spaces.

Names of universities, schools, buildings, campuses, halls, memorials, scholarships, academic programs, fraternities, sororities, and honor societies are never neutral labels. They communicate institutional history, cultural memory, social values, and political orientation. At the same time, they may preserve older hierarchies, controversial commemorations, or contested narratives. For this reason, decisions to retain, remove, reinterpret, or replace institutional names often become catalysts for public debate.

The proposed session seeks papers examining how naming and renaming shape institutional identity in educational contexts. Possible topics include the history of institutional namesakes, controversies over eponyms, strategies for deciding whether names should be retained or changed, demographic patterns in institutional naming, and diachronic or synchronic variation in the naming practices of educational bodies.

The call is open to a wide range of approaches. There are no restrictions regarding period, language, country, methodology, theoretical framework, or level of educational institution. Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies are all welcome, provided that the analysis is clearly focused on names and naming. Any use of artificial intelligence should be disclosed at the end of the proposal.

Proposals should include the presenter’s name and affiliation, the title of the proposed paper, and an abstract of up to 250 words. Submissions should be sent to abstracts@americannamesociety.org with “LSA2027” in the subject line.

The deadline for abstracts is 31 August 2026. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 September 2026. Accepted presenters must be current members of the American Name Society and register for the LSA Annual Meeting.

This session promises to be a timely contribution to the study of names as instruments of memory, identity, authority, and public controversy in academic life.