The Grateful Dead Studies Association is a group of scholars, writers, and academic professionals who study the Grateful Dead phenomenon. The Association formed in 2019 and was chartered in 2020 as a federally registered not-for-profit corporation chartered in the state of California.
The Association was formed by scholars who sought to create a more permanent structure for the work of Grateful Dead studies and who saw a need for a professional organization to lead that effort. By 2019, more than 300 scholars representing 26 different disciplines and fields had contributed to Grateful Dead studies, giving more than 500 conference papers and publishing dozens of articles, chapters, and books. Interest in forming a formal discourse community had been advanced by two major conferences and many years of meetings by an area of the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association (now the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association) conference, nicknamed the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus. Information about these earlier efforts, as well as and how they helped to inform the establishment of the Association, can be found on this site under Resources: Other Conferences.
The best way to understand the Association is to read our work. This site has our newsletters, meeting minutes, and proceedings. For our journal, please go to www.gratefuldeadstudies.org.