Ramen Shop could not be more appropriate as a tool for starting discussions about intercultural dialogue.
The protagonist, the son of a Singaporean mother and Japanese father, searches for family history and recipes simultaneously. By the end, he combines his father’s ramen noodles with his mother’s bak kut teh, or pork rib soup.
Call for papers: Critical Approaches to Cultural Identities in the Public Sphere: From Ivory Tower to Social Arena, University of Burgundy, Dijon, France, May 14-15, 2020. Deadline: 1 October 2019.
This international conference aims to address and bridge the gap between critical approaches to cultural identities common in academia and essentialising discourses increasingly widespread in the
public sphere. Organizers would like to bring together researchers from intercultural communication, cultural and postcolonial studies, media studies and other disciplines, who are keen to challenge and deconstruct reductionist discursive stances on culture and identity.
Conference languages will be English and French with mediation provided between the two languages.
The conference is organized by the University of Burgundy (“Text-Image-Language” research group) and supported by the ECREA International and Intercultural Communication division and SAES. Organisers: David Bousquet (University of Burgundy), Alex Frame (University of Burgundy), Mélodine Sommier (Erasmus University of Rotterdam).
CID’s second video competition is over. As a reminder, students were asked to answer the question “How do social media influence intercultural dialogue?” in 90-120 seconds, on video. Posts have appeared over the past weeks describing each of the top videos, but here is a single list with links to all of them.
The winners were:
1st prize: Juanma Marín Cubero & Rafa Muñoz Hernandez, students in Advertising and Audiovisual Communication at the University of Murcia, Spain
2nd prize: Francesca Kroeger, an MA student in Cognitive Semiotics at Aarhus University, Denmark
3rd prize: Sampson Siu Pak Hei, a BA student in Public Relations and Advertising at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong
My thanks to all the competitors, who took the time to really think about the question of how to show the ways in which social media influence intercultural dialogue. Thanks to colleagues around the world, who helped spread the word about the competition. Thanks to the judges of the competition, professionals who made time to review student videos (and special thanks to Mary Schaffer, on the CID Advisory Board, who not only served herself but recruited the other judges.) Thanks to Heather Birks, for initially suggesting the idea of a video competition, for arranging funding for the award to be provided by the Broadcast Education Association (BEA), for providing server space for the videos, and for providing most of the technical support (and to JD Boyle, at BEA, for additional technical support). The competition would have been impossible without all of the work of all these people.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Fellowships for interdisciplinary research groups (not individuals), Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University, Germany, 2020/21. Deadline: 1 October 2019.
The Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld University offers the opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary Research Group in the academic year 2021/22. For several months up to one year fellows reside at the ZiF and work together on a broader research theme. ZiF provides funding, support by a research group coordinator, and a professional infrastructure (i. e. accommodation, conference facilities).
The Research Group may be applied for in two different formats: (1) Research Group with a duration of 10 months and a budget of 500.000 € (2) Research Group with a duration of 5 months and a budget of 250.000 €
Applications for organising a ZiF Research Group may be submitted by any scholar from Germany or abroad. In the initial phase, a draft proposal for a Research Group (up to 5 pages) is required. In a second phase, invitations to submit full proposals will be issued.
25 Junior/Senior Fellowships, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), University of Freiburg, Germany, for Academic year 2020/21. Deadline: 15 September 2019.
FRIAS is announcing its seventh call for applications for the FRIAS COFUND Fellowship Programme (FCFP) and invites outstanding international senior and junior researchers from all disciplines and nationalities to apply. Fellowships of 3 to 10 months in the senior scheme and of 12 months in the junior scheme may be applied for. Up to 25 FCFP fellowships are available to researchers regardless of their nationality and field of research. All fellowships will be awarded through a highly competitive, strictly merit-based selection process. The FCFP is co-financed by the EU’s Marie S. Curie Actions COFUND Programme.
FRIAS unites research in the humanities and social sciences, the natural and life sciences, engineering, and medicine. The Institute supports academic exchange across existing boundaries: between disciplines, between different cultures and countries, between established and younger researchers. Furthermore, FRIAS engages in activities opening the research community to society and politics. Fellows will be part of this community and profit from the lively research environment of the university and its eleven faculties.
Velasquez-Manoff, Moises. (28 June 2019). Want to be less racist? Move to Hawaii. New York Times.
A thoughtful exploration of race, racism, and the impact of a substantial mixed-race population in Hawaii on local thinking about race.
Mixed-race people, who make up nearly a quarter of Hawaii’s population of 1.4 million, serve as a kind of jamming mechanism for people’s race radar, Dr. Pauker thinks. Because if you can’t tell what people are by looking at them — if their very existence blurs the imagined boundaries between supposedly separate groups — then race becomes a less useful way to think about people.
“Dr. Pauker runs the Intergroup Social Perception Lab at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maybe her most intriguing finding is that Hawaii can rub off on visitors, changing how they think about race.”
The article is illustrated by wonderful photographs by Damon Winter, showing some mixed-race locals.
Intercultural Harmony Initiative, Laura Jane Musser Fund. Deadline: October 16, 2019.
Through the Intercultural Harmony Initiative, the Laura Jane Musser Fund supports projects that promote mutual understanding and cooperation between groups of community members of different cultural backgrounds. Project planning grants up to $5,000 or implementation grants up to $25,000 will be considered. New programs or projects in their first three years are eligible. Applications will be accepted online through the Fund’s website from September 16 – October 16, 2019. The geographic areas for this initiative are Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota, Wyoming, and limited counties in Texas.
Call for Papers: Communication, Identities, and Difference Interest Group of Western States Communication Association, February 2020, Denver, CO. Deadline: September 1, 2019.
The Communication, Identities, and Difference (CID) Interest Group of WSCA invites competitive paper submissions and program proposals for the 2020 Annual Convention in Denver, Colorado. The theme for this year’s conference is “Communication, Agitation, and Justice.” See further information about the conference theme and the general Call for Papers.
Call for Chapters (Abstracts): Diversifying family language policy: Families, methodologies, and speakers (Bloomsbury). Deadline: 1 August 2019.
Diversifying family language policy is an edited collection of studies of multilingual family policy, a line of inquiry that examines family members’ attitudes towards, planning for, and use of language(s) in the home. The volume expands this field by representing diverse family types and unexplored contexts of multilingual childrearing to demonstrate a wider array of contexts for understanding language maintenance and shift.
Editors Lyn Wright (University of Memphis) and Christina Higgins (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa) are currently seeking proposals for chapters that expand FLP lines of inquiry by investigating language practices and ideologies in families that have heretofore been under-researched in the field, including single-parent, LGBTQ-identified families, families with “new speakers,” diasporic families in rural communities and communities where other speakers are few in number, migrant marriage families, and other ‘unconventional’ family constellations. By expanding the full scope of families in research on FLP in diverse contexts, the book seeks to better understand how the make-up of contemporary families influences FLP processes.
Please send a title and abstract of 250-300 words by August 1, 2019 to cmhiggin@hawaii.edu. Make sure to highlight how your research involves the study of FLP on new and/or unconventional family configurations that have previously been under-researched.
CID’s second video competition is now over, and the judges have reviewed all the videos. As a reminder, the instructions were to answer the question How do social media influence intercultural dialogue? in 90-120 seconds, on video.
3rd prize goes to Sampson Siu Pak Hei, an undergraduate studying Public Relations and Advertising at Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong.
Title: The Impact of Social Media on Intercultural Dialogue
Description: The video shows a “blind” experiment by asking two people of different nationalities to communicate and understand each other only using Facebook. The test demonstrates both the strengths and weaknesses of social media when used as a tool in intercultural dialogue.
There were first, second and third place winners. Each of these is being highlighted in a separate post, as they warrant our attention. My thanks to the judges of the competition, professionals who made time to review student videos. Thanks also to all the competitors, who took the time to really think about the question of how social media influence intercultural dialogue.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 