Annual Conference 2026
The 53rd AAAS conference will take place from November 5-7, 2026, at the University of Education, Upper Austria and the University of the Diocese of Linz. It is titled “Critical Media Analysis, Participatory Cultures, and New Textualities: American Studies through a Digital Lens”.
This conference investigates the rise of digital technologies and ongoing AI-development that create new challenges for American Studies, including the need for critical engagement with novel forms of textual production, dissemination, and reception.
Critical media analysis, media education, and digital literacies form an integral part of our new curricula. Through digital periodical research and digital archives, scholars recuperate previously neglected voices, adding to a more inclusive and accessible representation of the United States. Participatory cultures, adaptative revisioning, and transmedia storytelling not only challenge but also expand literary and cultural canon formations. Post-cinema art, live-streaming poetry slams, educational podcasts, computer games, digital art, memes, webcomics, poetry films, remixes, spin-offs, and fanart etc. invite us to study new forms of cultural and literary expressions as a creative response to narratives in print culture. Through digitally connected action, people mobilize online for social change and act as a vital counterforce to traditional, hegemonic, techno-capitalist trajectories and knowledge regimes.
In short, we explore American Studies through a digital lens, examining the multisensory quality of multimodal works as well as their creative, historical, social, political, and educational relationships to formative narratives and epistemologies.
CfP (closed): please regularly come back to this website https://ph-ooe.at/aaas-conference-2026 to find out to more about the program.
Arrival
How to get to Linz
There are many ways to get to Linz. If you travel to Linz via airplane, consider flying either directly to Linz or to Vienna, Salzburg, or Munich. Train connections to Linz are excellent from all these international airports.
Please note that there are two main venues for the conference: Pädagogische Hochschule OÖ and Pädagogische Hochschule der Diözese Linz.
Daten © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende (ODbL), CC-BY-SA, mitmachen/Fehler melden
PH OÖ: The conference opening and keynote (November 5) will take place at PH Oberösterreich, Kaplanhofstrasse 40, 4020 Linz. The nearest bus stops are Garnisonstraße (Bus 45 and 46) from Linz central station and Gruberstraße.
DIRECTIONS to PH OÖ FROM THE MAIN TRAINSTATION IN LINZ:
Bus lines 45 and 46:
- Buses on lines 45 and 46 run from Linz central station (Linz Hbf)
- The buses run every 7–8 minutes during the day from Monday to Friday.
- The stop closest to the University of Education (PHOÖ) is called Garnisonstraße (approx. 5 min walk). Please see map below.
Daten © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende (ODbL), CC-BY-SA, mitmachen/Fehler melden
For further arrival details please see this link: Anfahrt
PHDL: The conference venue for days two and three (November 6-7) is located at the campus of PHDL. PH-Linz: Campus
The conference venue for days two and three (November 6-7) is located at the campus of PHDL. PH-Linz: Campus
PH-Linz: Parking There is car parking available at the PHDL but spaces are limited and part of a paid parking scheme (2€/hour with a daily maximum of 20€, no cash payments accepted).
Getting to PH-Linz (PHDL) by public transport: bus# 27 takes you to bus stop Salesianumweg, it is a 2 min walk from there. Bus#27 connects both the city center as well as the station. We recommend using an online mapping service from your location.
Here is a map, red is the walk from the bus stop Salesuiumweg (B) to the PHDL.
Daten © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende (ODbL), CC-BY-SA, mitmachen/Fehler melden
You can also walk from the city center. This will take you about 20-25 minutes. It is quite straight forward but please note that it is slightly uphill. (along Kapuzinerstraße, 4020. Linz). We recommend using an online mapping service from your location.
Hotels and Accommodation
The following list of hotels is a small selection of what is available in Linz. As the conference will be hosted in two different locations, please make sure you bear in mind that cheaper options that are slightly further away from the city center might prove harder to get to in the evening. Public transport is generally good in Linz and buses run (although on a slightly more limited timetable) till late.
Please check the conference website for detailed information on how to get to the conference venues. It will take you about 20 minutes from the Hauptplatz (main city square) to either of the two venues, if you choose to walk. Bus stops are located approx. 5-10 min. walking distance from the two venues.
Please note: The Conference Dinner will be at Hotel Kolping, which is close to Linz Cathedral and the main shopping district along Landstraße.
Name | €-€€ | Link |
Arcotel Nike **** | €€ | |
Art Inn (Self Check-in) | € | |
B&B Hotel Linz | €€ | |
City Hotel **** & Dom Hotel | €€ | |
Hotel Schwarzer Bär **** | €€ | |
Hotel Kolping *** | €€ | |
Austria Classic Hotel Wolfinger Linz | €€ | |
Park Inn by Radisson **** | €€ | |
Leonardo Hotel Boutique Linz | €€ | |
Jugendgästehaus | € | |
Motel One Linz Hauptplatz | €€ | |
Mamma Muh (Self check-in) | € | |
Hotel Wilder Mann Linz ** | € |
Premliminary Program
Keynotes
Reading in Circles: Digital Humanities and American Studies in Dynamic Partnership
Abstract:
My career as literary scholar, which began in traditional lecture halls, brought me unexpectedly over time into new circles. In collaborating on projects in the digital humanities, I learned about participatory culture, fluid-text theory, digital annotation, and quantitative textual analysis. These wide-ranging concepts have informed my various efforts in scholarship and pedagogy, but one thing has remained constant: the presence of Herman Melville, whose novels, stories, and poems attract readers to digital spaces but also to physical classrooms, museums and other public venues. At these sites, we sit in virtual or physical circles: sharing expertise, applying new methods, reading together. In a talk that is as much narrative as theoretical exploration, I chart how American Studies and Digital Humanities can co-operate in the same circles. This AAAS conference is an ideal place to recognize their partnership and its implications.
Bio:
For most of her career, Wyn Kelley has taught American literature at MIT, where she is a Senior Lecturer Emerita. She has published books and articles on Herman Melville, including Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom, co-authored with media scholar Henry Jenkins, and more recently A New Companion to Herman Melvilleco-edited with Christopher Ohge. She has served as Associate Editor of Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, and as Associate Director of the Melville Electronic Library. As a founding member of the Melville Society Cultural Project, she has also worked with the New Bedford Whaling Museum on programming and community engagement. More recently she was an NEH Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, researching Frances E. W. Harper for an essay published in American Literary History.
Workshops/Panels
Side Events
Fees & Registration
Conference Fees: AAAS 2026, Linz
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN
Please register for the conferende in two steps.
Here you can register: Registration / Anmeldung
Organising committee & contact
We look forward to welcoming you in Linz!
The 53rd AAAS conference is organized by Melissa Kennedy, Edith Kreutner, and Martina Pfeiler at the University of Education Upper Austria (PHOÖ) and the Private University of Education of the Diocese of Linz (PHDL)
For more information about the AAAS and for membership applications, please visit https://aaas.at.
Contact us at aaas@ph-ooe.at
Prof. Dr. Martina Pfeiler (AAAS President), PHOÖ / University of Vienna
University of Education Upper Austria
Kaplanhofstraße 40
A-4020 Linz
Dr. Edith Kreutner (AAAS Secretary), PHDL
Private Pädagogische Hochschule der Diözese Linz
Salesianumweg 3
A-4020 Linz
etc.
Event
November 5th–7th, 2026
Pädagogische Hochschule Oberösterreich
Kaplanhofstraße 40
A-4020 Linz
Private Pädagogische Hochschule
der Diözese Linz
Salesianumweg 3, A-4020 Linz
Co-Organizer
