Furry Studies third academic conference planned for Australia, call for proposals

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Welcome to guest Zeldstarro, a semi-furred dragon that likes geography and travel and also writes about furry event mapping. 

You may remember Dogpatch Press previously reporting on Furry Studies and their two international conferences, held in the Netherlands in 2024, then Washington State in the US in 2025. For those who don’t remember, or are stumbling into this post, Furry Studies is an academic conference that aims to add more research from and about the fandom, as well as opening more research avenues more generally. Unlike Furscience, which is a group of researchers that conducts its own research, Furry Studies instead hosts or publishes research. Think about it like panels in a furry convention – while Furscience (for example) may host a panel at, say, 4pm on Saturday, Furry Studies would be responsible for booking the meeting room with the venue itself.

The next conference will take place in July 2027, on the Wednesday and Thursday preceding Aurawra, a furry convention. More specifically, it will be in Parramatta (basically Sydney) in New South Wales, Australia (with online streaming). Since Aurawra’s exact dates are yet to be determined, the same holds true for Furry Studies.

However, the “Call for Proposals” is in effect and is on the Furry Studies website! This year’s theme is Feeling the ‘fur’.

The first theme in 2024 was What does it mean to be furry?, and the second year focused on furry worldbuilding on the global stage. For the third iteration, Furry Studies asks: “How do furries use fursuits, fursonas, and the feeling of ‘fur’ to navigate identity, belonging, and collective creativity?”

Put briefly, there are two main categories for proposals: academic papers and community talks.

Papers are research presentations, though the particular length is shorter than I, personally, was expecting: 500-1000 words. In a more traditional academic setting, this would be submitted with the expectation that a longer, more thorough paper would be submitted to a professional journal, though that’s not yet the case for Furry Studies. Keep in mind, you do not have to be in university to contribute to academia! You will need to submit the paper proposal and describe your aim, finding, and a brief discussion, which will be peer reviewed.

Community talks are also presentations about various furry things without basing itself on academia as strictly as the other category. There is plenty of “furry knowledge” that may be difficult to share otherwise in this context, so this is a great opportunity to present these kinds of topics in an academic setting. The submission for this will be 300-1000 words, and leans more towards presentation than paper.

The deadline for submissions is the 8th of January, 2027, which means that you have about 3 months to make your submissions. Every submission is peer reviewed, including at least one researcher from Furry Studies, so you won’t know the actual decision until the 5th of February.

More information can be found at https://furrystudies.org/ and https://bsky.app/profile/furrystudies.org!

Furry Studies also has a Telegram announcement channel: https://t.me/furrystudiesconf

– Zeldstarro

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