2026 LRA Annual Conference

HILTON HAWAIIAN VILLAGE WAIKIKI BEACH RESORT

HONOLULU, HAWAI’I | DECEMBER 2 -5, 2026

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Manifesting Quantum Imaginaries: Re-searching Literacies
as a Transcontextual Enterprise

“You never change things by [only] fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

—Buckminster Fuller

The LRA 2026 conference theme, “Manifesting Quantum Imaginaries: Re-searching Literacies as a Transcontextual Enterprise,” invites a metaphorical reimagination of literacies through a quantum lens, challenging the static, linear models of space and time that dominate Western thought. But what is quantum? Simply put, quantum science states that the smallest units of reality do not follow linear rules; instead, they exist as bundles of potential, holding multiple states simultaneously (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2025). Metaphorically, for the research of literacies, this suggests that just as a subatomic particle holds infinite potential until it is observed, a single literacy event (e.g., a spoken word, a text sent; see Heath, 1982) holds multiple meanings depending on where and how it travels and can thus create limitless possibilities all-at-once (Smith, 2013, 2025a). Drawing on Michelle M. Wright’s Physics of Blackness (Wright, 2015), the LRA 2026 conference theme asks us to see literacies not as a simple “what,” but also as a complex “when” and “where” in the lives of all humans—as literacies in motion.

Literacies are always in motion. They are in motion when students move across new contexts and borders (Capstick, 2016; Silvester, 2015). They are also in motion when students do not (Brandt & Clinton, 2002). When students who move use literacies, they show how these literacies travel across nations, countries, lands, and locales. When students who do not move become participants with literacies, whether across online or offline worlds, they demonstrate how literacies travel across classrooms, schools, neighborhoods, homes, and communities. Whether leveraged by students who move (e.g., Silvester, 2015; Leonard, 2013) or by students who do not (Brandt & Clinton, 2002), the smallest instances of literacies are constantly in motion, creating multiple possibilities across a range of contexts all-at-once (Smith, 2025b).
This dynamic instantiates multiple literate possibilities that form a complex transcontextual architecture of literacies—literacies used by, and, with people to shape how we communicate, belong, and resist across actual local-global contexts as well as real-imagined borders and boundaries. In turn, this enduring transcontextual architecture of literacies attends to space and time, suggesting that the “when” and “where” of literacies are as equally important as the “what” (Brandt & Clinton, 2002; Wright, 2015). As outlined in Black Quantum Futurism (2024), re-seeing counterhistories becomes an imperative when we break from fixed temporal conceptions of literacies (Phillips, 2025), allowing for the research of literacies in motion so that the past, present, and future contexts of students’ literacies are all examined based on possibilities created at a single point in the present moment—the “now.” These metaphorical quantum conceptions align with long-standing Indigenous, African, Asian, and diasporic philosophies—such as Ubuntu, Samadhi, Ihsan, Advaita Vedanta, and Imago Dei—which emphasize the deep interconnectedness of humans and of their literacies, as a function of non-linear time.
So, what does this mean for the LRA 2026 conference, and for this call generated in 2025, a year marking 100 Years of Quantum (UNESCO, 2024)?

The LRA 2026 conference theme invites research that foregrounds how students work with and through the smallest literacy events to make visible the multiple possibilities that exist all-at-once (e.g., Bartlett, 2008; Brandt & Clinton, 2002; Canagarajah, 2017; Jimenez et al., 2009; Lam & Warriner, 2012; Skerrett, 2015; Willis, 1995). The theme calls for the metaphorical consideration of a quantum lens that emphasizes the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of literacies in motion in much the same way that we have for so long emphasized the ‘what.’ To this end, we invite researchers to submit proposals that broadly name and expand our understandings of literacies as quantum—the smallest literacy events, occurring transcontextually, potentially creating multiple possibilities all-at-once. Proposals can consider questions such as:

  • How do literacies remain in motion in the lives of students who move and those who do not move?
  • How do literacies remain in motion in the lives of students across online or offline worlds?
  • How do teachers support literacies in motion when guiding students to achieve tangible and measurable outcomes often required by schools, institutions, and societies?
  • How do students participate with literacies in motion when designing their lives?
  • How can researchers attend to space as well as time when studying the smallest instantiations of students’ literacies?
  • How do the smallest instantiations of literacies in motion reflect the multiple possibilities available to students in a single moment across a range of contexts all-at-once?
  • Why do we embrace some of the many possibilities created by literacies in motion but fear or devalue others?

To thrive beyond 2025—the Year of Quantum—accompanied by a technologically advanced era of artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and allusions to a global metaverse, students must be prepared to function not merely as resistors of the old, but also as creators of new models of the now. The LRA 2026 conference theme asks researchers to explore how these new models might hold possibilities for centering literacies in motion as fundamental to advancing justice in ways that honor responsibility and privilege (kuleana). Centering literacies in motion signals a paradigm shift as the world continues to collapse narrow definitions of time and space that require more expansive understandings of students’ literacies. Doing so, in turn, requires acknowledging that researching literacies to excavate our full humanity and creativity lies in the capacity to metaphorically recognize literacies as quantum. 


 By challenging rigid colonial characterizations of human movement
and of literacies in motion enmeshed in limited linear histories, the LRA 2026
conference theme makes space for a metaphorical manifestation of quantum imaginaries that liberate literacies as a living, transcontextual enterprise. Through this manifestation of quantum imaginaries, the LRA 2026 conference theme hopes to signal a collective (re-)awakening to truths embedded in literacies in motion —truths poised to heal, redeem, reconnect, care and protect (mālama), as well as radically reshape the shared nows of all.

Patriann Smith, LRA 2026 Conference Chair
Rahat Zaidi, LRA 2026 Associate Conference Chair

Acknowledgements

The conference co-chairs acknowledge moderate use of ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2025) in reviewing initial and iterative drafts of the LRA 2026 conference theme. The original and final content was created, reviewed, revised, and edited by conference co-chairs, with consideration to suggested ChatGPT revisions for clarity. The conference co-chairs take full responsibility for this work.
The conference co-chairs acknowledge Drs. Janice Almasi, Eurydice Bauer, Adeline Borti, Fenice Boyd, Cynthia Brock, Samuel DeJulio, Patricia Edwards, James King, Susan Piazza, Jenifer Jasinski Schneider, Allison Skerrett, Norm Stahl, Alfred Tatum, Dianne Wellington, Arlette Willis, University of South Florida Doctoral Student of Literacy Studies — Darlshawn (Shawn) Patterson, & Indiana University Bloomington Doctoral Candidate, Taiwo Jumoke Ogundapo, for the exceptional feedback provided in the preparation of the LRA 2026 conference theme. The multi-pronged design architecture surrounding the production of the conference theme is attributed to USF Doctoral Student, Darlshawn (Shawn) Patterson.
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