When: October 15 - 16, 2026
Where: Memorial Union N201A
Call for Papers
Missing and Murdered: A Transdisciplinary Conference on Black Women and Girls in Missouri and Beyond
The Black Studies Department at Mizzou will host its two-day annual Black Studies Fall Conference to intervene in an urgent and long-overdue conversation on missing and murdered Black women and girls in Missouri and beyond. Across the U.S. and beyond, Black women and girls experience disproportionately high rates of disappearance and lethal violence, yet their cases are consistently minimized, delayed, or rendered invisible within public discourses and institutional responses. In recognition of this crisis, the state of Missouri has formally acknowledged missing and murdered African American women and girls as an urgent matter of public safety and public accountability. On August 28, 2025, the Missouri Senate created the Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force to suggest policy reforms and other measures to address the violence against African American women and girls. Senator Angela Mosley (D-Florissant) sponsored the bill and is committed to bringing resolution for families who have been impacted by this crisis. This intervention is not isolated to Missouri. Minnesota has already undertaken similar efforts and has produced extensive evidence that confirms that Black women and girls are uniquely vulnerable and too easily erased from public discussions and accountability for missing and murdered people.
In response to this urgent moment, the Department of Black Studies at the University of Missouri is organizing a conference to bring together scholars, advocates, practitioners, policymakers, and community stakeholders for a critical dialogue on missing and murdered Black women and girls in Missouri and beyond. As such, we invite local and international contributions for individual papers and panel presentations, performance pieces, visual art, and poster boards, which interrogate questions centered on missing and murdered Black women and girls in Missouri, across the U.S., and other regions and territories around the world.
Some possible sites for engagement include:
* Black Girlhood (rural areas vs. urban areas)
* Data Gaps (erasure, collection/collectors, access, data categories/classifications/definitions, reporting mechanisms)
* Media and Representations
* Policy, Accountability Frameworks, Reform (part of Creating Coalitions with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women [MMIW])
* Structural, Historical, Social Foundations of the crisis (Domestic violence and sex abuse in Black churches, for example)
* Intersectionality
* Policing, Law, State
* Health, Housing, and Social Systems
* Archives, Memory, and Memorialization
* Comparative Studies
* Gender, Sexuality, and Intimacy
* Methods and Ethics of researching Missing and Murdered Black women and girls
*Any other topics on missing and murdered Black women, broadly defined
Individual paper abstracts should be no more than 250 words. Panel proposals (including all paper titles and names of panelists) should be no more than 500 words. Additionally, please include a brief biographical statement of no more than 150 words with your proposal.
International participants will have the option of participating virtually.
Proposal should be submitted to: https://missouri.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e5wjtq9a271Mn4i by March 31, 2026
Conference Organizers: Dorothy Atuhura, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Black Studies (datuhura@missouri.edu); Christina Carney, Ph.D., Associate Professor & Taskforce Member, Women’s and Gender Studies (carneyc@missouri.edu); and Willie Mack, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Black Studies & Taskforce Member (wmack@missouri.edu).
Please expect a response to your submission by April 30, 2026.