CDCS 2026 Annual Spring Symposium

“Good Vibes Only? How Affects and Emotions Are Mediated for Justice in Digital Culture,” taking place on April 9-10, 2026. The symposium brings together scholars across career stages and qualitative–critical methodological traditions to examine how rapidly changing digital platforms and generative technologies are reshaping the production, circulation, and governance of affect and emotion. The symposium pays particular attention to affect as both a generative force driving social movements, everyday activism, and social justice work, and a mechanism that can be operationalized to amplify misinformation, disinformation, and digital tribalism in the face of fascism and militarism. Collectively, the papers advance new agendas for studying affect as a constitutive dimension of how power, visibility, and belonging are negotiated in mediated environments across diverse geopolitical contexts.