The International Crossroads Conferences were started in 1996 in Tampere, Finland to fill what was felt to be a gap in the international cultural studies community.
Although cultural studies was becoming increasingly international and multi-centered – or rather centerless because of its virtual nature – cultural studies people had scarse opportunities to see each other and socialize.
Specific cultural studies conferences or seminars were occasional and often advertized only within a particular region. Yet the very character of cultural studies as a meeting place, as a crossroads between different people and disciplines desperately pleads for international conference.
