Author: Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, the Director of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue, manages this website.

U Oxford: Postdoc in International Mobility and World Development (UK)

Postdocs
Postdoctoral Researcher: International Mobility and World Development, Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Deadline: 20 January 2023.

This is an exciting opportunity for a post-doctoral researcher to join a research project, funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. Department of State, examining the links between international mobility and world development. Reporting to Prof Maia Chankseliani, the post-holder will join a team of six enthusiastic, interdisciplinary researchers based at the University of Oxford Department of Education. The post-doctoral researcher will be fluent in Arabic and possess familiarity with the Middle East & Northern Africa (in particular, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, UAE, Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Israel), and will lead on the data collection, searches, analysis, and presentation of findings on the Middle East & Northern Africa and, if required, on other regions. They will also work on extensive searches of secondary sources, conduct elite interviews online and engage in conducting systematic literature reviews, as well as independently develop a holistic understanding of the designated global region (Middle East & Northern Africa) in order to be able to meaningfully contextualise and interpret numeric and narrative findings pertaining to the selected region.

U Notre Dame: Visiting Research Fellowships for 2023-24 (USA)

FellowshipsVisiting Research Fellowships, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA. Deadline: January 31, 2023.

Each year, the Kroc Institute’s Visiting Research Fellows Program brings outstanding scholars focused on peace research to the University of Notre Dame for a semester or a full academic year. The Institute particularly seeks scholars who will actively integrate their research with ongoing Kroc research initiatives. Applicants must have completed a doctoral, or equivalent, degree (with the exception of the Alumni Visiting Research Fellow). Clearly identify the field to which you are applying (Gender, Intersectionality, Conflict & Peacebuilding; International Mediation; Systemic Racism in the United States; Alumni).

CFP South Asian Perspectives on Securing Health and Well-Being (USA)

“PublicationCall for Book Chapter Manuscripts: The Handbook of Communication in (pre & post)Pandemics: South Asian Perspectives on Securing Health and Well-Being. Deadline: 15 February 2023.

“We are inviting authors to submit chapter manuscripts for a forthcoming handbook, tentatively titled The Handbook of Communication in (pre & post)Pandemics: South Asian Perspectives on Securing Health and Well-Being, under consideration by Routledge and edited by Gita Bamezai (Former Head, Communication Research, Indian Institute of Mass Communication), Pradeep Sopory (Wayne State University), and Uttaran Dutta (Arizona State University).

Research on health communication in South Asia tends to center around media health campaigns and media health discourse analysis. The proposed handbook seeks to shift the focus from the media as a site of health communication to other contexts such as communities, organizations, work groups, and family. It seeks to highlight everyday South Asian experiences of communicative exchanges about health and well-being in these contexts, which may be located in both the geographical South Asia as well as its Diasporas, through de-colonial, indigenous, and de-westernized perspectives.

The proposed edited handbook will examine communication related to physical and mental health and wellbeing during (and beyond) the Covid-19 pandemic in South Asia. The region comprises eight countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Maldives) that share many geopolitical, socio-structural, and cultural characteristics. Its citizens face a range of noncommunicable and communicable disease burdens in the context of a dense population (1.9 billion people, 25% of global population) and an inadequate health infrastructure. The Covid-19 (& post) pandemic scenario has added to the health burdens and posed significant short- and long-term challenges to people’s physical and mental wellbeing. The handbook chapters will cover the full range of communication contexts from intrapersonal to societal/cultural, with a focus on communities, organizations, work groups, and family, to examine communicative contents, structures, and processes that both enhance and harm health and well-being in South Asian countries and its diasporas.”

Harvard U: Multiple Fellowships in Law & Society or Negotiation (USA)

FellowshipsMultiple fellowships for 2023-24 relating to either law and society or negotiation, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Deadline: Varies by program.

Harvard University is offering a number of fellowship opportunities:

  1. The Program on Law and Society Visiting Fellowship Program provides opportunities for outstanding scholars and legal practitioners to undertake research, writing, and scholarly engagement on law and society in Muslim majority and minority contexts. They are particularly interested in applicants whose work focuses on human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, minority rights, animal welfare and rights, constitutional law, food law, environmental law and climate change in particular, migration and refugee studies, LGBTQ issues, and related areas. They welcome applicants with advanced degrees (e.g., JD, LLM, SJD, PhD or other comparable degree) and experienced practicing lawyers who aim to draw upon their legal experience in their Fellowship project. Fellows may spend from one month up to one academic year (excluding June-August) in residence at Harvard Law School working on an independent project. Deadline: 1 February 2023.

  2. The Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowship provides support for one year of dissertation research and writing in negotiation and related topics in alternative dispute resolution and give fellows an opportunity to immerse themselves in the diverse resources available at PON. Deadline: 9 February 2023.

Mélodine Sommier Profile

ProfilesMélodine Sommier is currently working as an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She received her Ph.D. in 2016 for work on representations of secularism as part of the French national imaginary in newspaper texts.

Melodine Sommier

Mélodine’s research interests cover a variety of themes related to intercultural communication, media representations, race and racism, migration, sustainability, and education. Within the field of intercultural communication, her work concentrates on the use of culture as a discursive and an interactional resource. She mostly relies on critical and discursive approaches to examine the construction of cultural realities and outcomes regarding the (re)production of difference. Her research project on ‘racial landscapes’ (2022-2027) focuses on the way race and racism materialize in everyday urban spaces across Europe in ways that contribute to (re)produce and contest existing discourses and processes of racialization.

Mélodine is co-founder of the Intercultural Communication & Diversity division at the Netherlands-Flanders Communication Association (NeFCA) which she co-chaired between 2018-2022. She is the chair of the Intercultural and International Communication division at the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and a board member of the Society for the Study of Ethnic Relations and International Migration (ETMU).

Selected publications:

Fanari, A., Sommier, M., & Rahmani, D. (2025). (Re)defining intercultural communication theorizing: Mapping the current landscape of the field. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 54(5), 287-97.

Sommier, M., Roiha, A., & Lahti, M. (Eds.) (2023). Interculturality in higher education: Putting critical approaches into practice. London: Routledge.

Sommier, M. (2022). Race et espace: La ville comme lieu d’étude des représentations raciales [Race and space: Exploring racial representations in the city]. Itinéraires: Littérature, Textes, Cultures, 2021(3).

Sommier, M., Wang, Y., & Vasques, A. (2022). Transformative, interdisciplinary and intercultural learning for developing HEI students’ sustainability-oriented competences: A case study. Environment, Development and Sustainability.

Sommier, M., Lahti, M., & Roiha, A. (Eds.) (2021). From ‘intercultural-washing’ to meaningful intercultural education: Revisiting higher education practice. (Special issue). Journal of Praxis in Higher Education, 3(2).

Galy-Badenas, F., & Sommier, M. (2021). “A baby bump for women’s rights”: Analysing local and international media coverage of Jacinda Ardern’s pregnancy. Feminist Media Studies.

Sommier, M. (2020). “How ELSE are you supposed to dress up like a Black Guy??”: Negotiating accusations of Blackface in online newspaper comments. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(16), 57–75.

Work for CID:
Mélodine Sommier is the co-author of KC107: Interculturality and of a Guest Post on Implementing Critical Approaches to Interculturality in Higher Education., and the translator of KC107: Interculturality into French.

Happy New Year 2023

About CIDHappy New Year 2023 from the Center for Intercultural Dialogue. Wishing peace, happiness, and good health to all our followers in the coming year. May this be an easier year for everyone than the last several have been.

handmade tile with sun from Albuquerque NM
handmade tile with sun seen in Albuquerque NM

Thank you to all those who have supported CID over the past year, and over the past 13 years. Our work would not be possible without the considerable contributions of scholars and practitioners around the world. See the acknowledgments for specific names, but you know who you are. Your time and effort are much appreciated.

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Casey Man Kong Lum, Associate Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue

World Food Prize Foundation: Program Manager, International Dialogues (USA but Remote Possible)

“JobProgram Coordinator/Manager, International Dialogues, World Food Prize Foundation, Des Moines, Iowa, USA (Remote Considered). Deadline: 4 January 2023.

The Program Coordinator/Program Manager, International Dialogues supports the planning and implementation functions of the World Food Prize Foundation’s International Dialogues team. This includes a set of convenings designed around the foundation’s mission. These convenings will include the annual International Borlaug Dialogue, Laureate Announcement, Iowa Hunger Summit, Digital Dialogues and Webinars, essential food and ag meetings, and special events like “Live with the Laureate.”

Duties and responsibilities include:

  • Provide content research writing support on critical agriculture and food security issues in preparation for the International Borlaug Dialogue, Regional Dialogues, International Events, Digital Dialogues, Iowa Hunger Summit, the Announcement of the World Food Prize Laureate and other important meetings.

  • Provide support to the team in stakeholder management, especially associated with engaging stakeholders around their participation in the events of the World Food Prize Foundation.

  • Prepare materials for internal and external distribution about the work and direction of the Foundation and the International Dialogues team. Draft written communication – internal and external.
    Provide support in speaker/topic identification, invitations, and panel management at various dialogues – including helping to create a cohesive convening, creating briefing materials, and communicating about meeting outcomes.

  • Support the International Dialogues team through meeting preparation, meeting notes, Google Suite Management, contact database (i.e., SalesForce) and other technology support including the organization-wide project management platform.

Newcastle U: Second Language Acquisition (UK)

“JobSenior Lecturer in Second Language Acquisition, School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK. Deadline: 7 February 2023.

The School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics wishes to appoint an outstanding teacher and researcher to the open-ended, full-time post of Senior Lecturer in Second Language Acquisition. The appointee will make major contributions to teaching, learning, research and impact in the English Language and Linguistics subject group, and be an active member of the Language Evolution, Acquisition and Development research group.

Applicants will have a completed PhD in Linguistics or a related discipline, and be able to demonstrate success in teaching Second Language Acquisition at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Applicants will have an outstanding record in research (including outputs, engagement/ impact activities and bids for external grant income) that is informed by linguistic theory and firmly embedded in the field of Second Language Acquisition. Proficiency in the collection, handling and analysis of second language data is essential, as is a track record in attracting PhD students and supervising them to completion. Applicants will also demonstrate clear potential for making a strong contribution to the School’s and Faculty’s collaborative education and research culture.

U Edinburgh: Postdoc in Psychology & Language Sciences (UK)

Postdocs
Postdoctoral Research Associate in Psychology and Language Sciences, School of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. Deadline: 13 January 2023.

The Psychology department in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences is seeking a research associate on a full time, fixed term basis until 31st August 2024. This post is expected to commence in approx. February 2023. This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious post-doctoral candidate (pending accepted) to join the School. The Research Associate is required to design, develop and refine experiments on language alignment in communication as well as write up and contribute to relevant reports. Some delivery of undergraduate and/or postgraduate teaching activities related to the topics of language production and/or dialogue will also be required. Applications are invited from those with a PhD (or pending) in Psychology, Linguistics, Cognitive Science, or related disciplines.

CFP Lived Transnationalism Symposium (Germany)

ConferencesCall for Papers: Symposium and PhD Training: Lived transnationalism in times of violent conflict – Cross-border connections and mobilities of people, goods and capital, 27-28 March 2023, Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies, Bonn, Germany. Deadline: 31 January 2023.

Violent conflicts set people into motion and change existing social relations. More specifically, large-scale wars and localised conflicts not only force people to flee from violence but transform pre-existing mobility patterns, often rupturing the rhythms and routes of movement. As a consequence, new forms of social practises across international borders and of ‘transnational living’ are established. This two-day symposium, which is co-organised by the IMISCOE Standing Committee on Migrant Transnationalism (MITRA) and the BMBF-funded project Forced Migration and Refugee Studies: Networking and Knowledge Transfer (FFVT), seeks to unpack how transnational mobilities and connectivities come into being and change under the conditions of violent conflicts, and how they shape the lives of those who are transnationally (dis)entangled.