This call for contributions invites proposals to a two-day roundtable (2-3 July 2026, online) from researchers currently working on the arts in the field of ethnomethodology/conversation analysis (EM/CA). 

2-3 July 2026, Online

Presentation

Over more than half a decade, ethnomethodology has been developed in and across various fields, giving rise to “hybrid studies” in and across a range of professions, sciences, and practices. This multifaceted development has been marked by a series of landmark studies and edited volumes, including Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences (Button 1991), Scientific Practice and Ordinary Action (Lynch 1993) and Ethnomethodology’s Program (Garfinkel 2002). What is still missing, setting aside individual studies (e.g., Sudnow 1978) and recent invitations to probe everyday aesthetics (e.g., Carlin et al. 2025), is a (more broadly) joint engagement with “arts in the making” from an ethnomethodological perspective. 

Therefore, this call for contributions invites proposals to a two-day roundtable (2-3 July 2026, online) from researchers currently working on the arts in the field of ethnomethodology/conversation analysis (EM/CA). For each proposal, we invite prospective contributors to send us (in one word.doc(x) file)

• a working title, 
• a short abstract (approximately 150 words), and 
• short bio relating to their EM/CA study of artistic work “in the making.” 

On this basis, the two-day roundtable will be composed of short presentations of ongoing EM/CA work on the arts (ca. 15mins, followed by 30mins discussion). While we welcome proposals on a wide range of artistic domains, including visual arts, performance art, performing arts, music, and more, the roundtable favours contributions that engage with the “identifying details” of the artworks studied – that is, their constitutive particulars as distinctive works of art as crafted, attended to, and/or elaborated on (e.g., via aesthetic argument) by practitioners, participants, and publics in situ (e.g., studios, exhibitions, performances). In this vein, this two-day roundtable also aims to lay the groundwork for various upcoming events, and even contribute to a joint publication project. 

Submission guidelines

For organizational reasons, we would be thankful to receive your proposal by 1 June 2026 via an email sent to yael.kreplak@univ-paris1.fr, arsene.caens@gmail.com and philippe.sormani@zhdk.ch.

Convenors

Convened by Yaël Kreplak, Arsène Caens and Philippe Sormani.