Chicago, our gathering place, is improvisation in action.
A city built on the ancestral homelands of the Neshnabék: the Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe Nations; the Illinois Confederation: the Peoria and Kaskaskia Nations; and the Myaamia, Wea, Ho-Chunk, Sauk, and Meskwaki Nations, shaped by centuries of dispossession and violated treaties. A palimpsest continually remapped by waves of Black, Latino/a/x, and Asian migration, Chicago is a living repertoire of improvisatory practices that link art, activism, and knowledge production. Scarred by segregation and violence, yet alive with queer and trans brilliance and disability justice work, the city deeply informs—and maybe even changes—how we gather and what we can learn from one another and from our local communities.
The 2026 ASA Annual Conference will be held October 22-25 at the historic Palmer House Hotel in downtown Chicago.
Palmer House Hotel
17 E Monroe St
Chicago, IL 60603
A Chicago site guide will be available closer to the conference.
We’ve provided some starting points for learning more about our host city below. Have a source you’d like to share with us for inclusion on this site? Please email asastaff@theasa.net.
Scholarly & Archival Institutions
- Encyclopedia of Chicago: A foundational scholarly reference with peer-reviewed entries on migration, segregation, labor movements, neighborhood change, and cultural institutions; an essential starting point for advanced research.
- Chicago History Museum: Research collections include union records, manuscripts, photographs, and oral histories, with particular strength in the Haymarket Affair, African American history, and Chicago’s civic and cultural life.
- Newberry Library: A major independent research library with deep holdings in urban history, ethnic studies, print culture, and the arts; widely used for manuscript research and interdisciplinary scholarship.
- Chicago Collections Consortium: A digital portal aggregating materials from dozens of Chicago-area archives, enabling cross-institutional research on race, labor, neighborhood history, and cultural production.
Grassroots & Community-Based Resources
- The Black Metropolis Research Consortium: A collaborative initiative focused on Black history and culture in Chicago, aggregating archival collections documenting migration, community formation, labor activism, and cultural production.
- South Side Community Art Center: Founded in 1940, this artist-run center preserves and advances Black artistic practice on Chicago’s South Side and is central to scholarship on art, race, and New Deal cultural policy.
- Illinois Labor History Society: Dedicated to preserving and interpreting Illinois labor history, with substantial material on Chicago’s unions, radical movements, and working-class politics.
- Invisible Institute: A nonprofit investigative newsroom maintaining public data archives on policing and racialized state violence, frequently cited in contemporary scholarship on race and governance.