On June 17, 2013, I was one of three co-authors of a paper entitled “Robert E. Park’s contribution to the history of intercultural communication” for the New Histories of Communication Study Preconference, at the International Communication Association convention in London. My co-authors were Filipa Subtil and José Luis Garcia, who I met last year while in Portugal. Dave Park, Peter Simonson and Philip Lodge did a great job of organizing the preconference. A group photo of 60 of the 80 participants is available here.
And after the preconference came the conference proper. ICA has really worked on becoming a more truly international organization (it’s now up to about 45% international members). As a result, this conference was the perfect ending for the last six months of travel because I connected again with other scholars I had last met in the countries where they live and work: China (Jiang Fei and Kuo Huang), Saila Poutiainen (Finland), John Wilson (Northern Ireland), Saskia Witteborn and Ling Chen (Hong Kong), Todd Sandel (Macau), Tamar Katriel, Esther Schely-Newman and Ifat Maoz (Israel), Cindy Gallois and Jeff Pittam (Australia). And Casey Lum, who I last met in Hong Kong, though he lives in the US. Of course, I also met a variety of friends and colleagues, both international and from the US (Richard Buttny, Theresa Castor, Don Ellis, Larry Gross, Beth Haslett, Evelyn Ho, Klaus Krippendorff, Dave Park, Jeff Pooley, Jeff Robinson, Karen Tracy and Bob Craig, Steve Wilson, Cynthia Stohl, Bill Eadie, Natasha Shrikant, François Cooren (Canada), Akiba Cohen (Israel), Olga Ivanovna Matyash (Russia), among many others – sorry not to be able to name everyone!), as well as several directly connected with this Center or the Council that is its parent organization (Linda Steiner, Brenda Berkelaar, Michael Haley). And I was glad to discover new international colleagues (Sheila Lodge, UK; Marion Wrenn, now at Princeton, but shortly to be in Abu Dhabi; John Laprise, Qatar; Zrinjka Peruško, Croatia; Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska, Poland; Raul Fuentes Navarro, Mexico; Peter Putnis, Australia, among others). As a result, some new researcher profiles and guest posts will be appearing on this site over the next month or so. Some of the conversations were about the possibilities permitted by social media and new publishing choices, so stay tuned for additions to this site as a result.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 