Author: Center for Intercultural Dialogue

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

Vilnius Centre for Intercultural Dialogue

On 20 May [2011] in Vilnius, Lithuanian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Egidijus Meilunas and representative from Poland’s Borderland Foundation (Fundacja Pogranicze) Malgorzata Czyzewska discussed the events that are being organized on the occasion of the one hundredth birth anniversary of poet Czeslaw Milosz and activities of the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue that will soon be opened, reported BC the press service of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Egidijus Meilunas and Malgorzata Czyzewska, 20.05.2011. Photo: urm.lt
Egidijus Meilunas and Malgorzata Czyzewska, 20.05.2011. Photo: urm.lt

Czyzewska acquainted the Deputy Minister with plans of the Borderland Foundation on 30 June, on the eve of taking over the Presidency of the European Union by Poland and on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of poet Czeslaw Milosz, to open the Centre for Intercultural Dialogue in the town of Krasnogruda on the Lithuanian-Polish border. The Centre will be dedicated to the strengthening of cross-cultural dialogue in the borderlands of various countries in the world and to the research of such dialogues. According to Czyzewska, the experience that was accumulated over twenty years of the Foundation’s activities will allow to build bridges between the closest neighbours: Belarusians, Poles, Lithuanians and Russians from the Kaliningrad region. The Centre will contribute with education, research, publishing and cultural activities. In her opinion, exchanges of people in culture, historians, teachers and youth from neighbouring countries and cooperation will take place at the Centre.

Deputy Minister Meilunas welcomed the Foundation’s initiative and emphasized the benefits.

“These activities are very necessary. It is important to have and strengthen the dialogue between Lithuanian and Polish people in culture. It is particularly symbolic that the Centre will operate in the borderlands of a few countries, in a manor that was the property of the family of Milosz, the ‘last national of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’ in the interwar period,” Deputy Minister Meilunas said.

For further information, see the original article published in The Baltic Course, 27 May 2011.

Global Media Journal call

CALL FOR PAPERS

Global Media Journal-American Edition – Special Spring 2012 Issue
“The State of Media Conglomeration: Synergy, Power, Resistance”
Deadline for Submissions: October 15, 2011

The focus of this special issue of the Global Media Journal-American Edition:  Is “Big Media” dead and buried, or alive and prospering-or both?

In May 2009, Newsweek magazine eulogized “Big Media” in the aftermath of Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes’ announcement that the corporation would spin off AOL, noting that “the long-suffering Vertically Integrated Media Conglomerate (1989-2009) passed away” and suggesting that synergy was an “overhyped” business model.

Yet in early 2011, the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice approved Comcast’s 51% stake in General Electric’s NBC Universal, creating what the New York Times called, “a media powerhouse.” Comcast, the largest cable company in the United States, longed to own a major media company before its purchase of NBC Universal, as evidenced by several failed attempts to purchase Disney in recent years.  Furthermore, in 2011, AT&T announced the purchase of T-Mobile for $39 billion, which, if approved by governmental regulatory agencies, will create the largest mobile phone company and again consolidate the industry into two main players.  On the other hand, Google’s attempted purchase of social shopping site Groupon for a price of $6 billion was rejected, largely acknowledged as due to fears by Groupon that the acquisition would invoke anti-trust action toward Google.  Elsewhere, though, the largest media conglomerates, including Disney, Viacom, News Corporation, and Time Warner, appeared to be continuing their quest to purchase digital and traditional media outlets.

In light of these paradoxes, articles for this special issue may address (but are not limited to) matters such as:  the use of new synergistic strategies to create barriers to entry, corporate power and media, the use of social media technologies as resistance to dominant corporate practices and content, consolidation in the telecommunications industries, the viability of transnational and transindustrial media corporations, and alternative democratic communication systems.

Graduate Student Research:  In keeping with the mission of the journal to provide opportunities for graduate student publication, this special issue of Global Media Journal will have a graduate research section.  For submission guidelines, see this site. All papers must be submitted via electronic attachment.

Please direct all inquiries and submissions to Dr. Jennifer Proffitt, Florida State University, jproffitt@fsu.edu, and Graduate student submissions and queries should be directed to Dr. Doug Tewksbury, Niagara University, dtewksbury@niagara.edu.

Social Media/Political Change JoC call

Journal of Communication
Submission Call for Special Issue on “Social Media and Political Change”

Guest co-Editor:  Dr. Philip N. Howard, University of Washington
Editor:  Dr. Malcolm Parks, University of Washington

The “Arab Spring” as well as recent events in other parts of the world have demonstrated that new communication technologies, such as mobile phones and the internet, are simultaneously new tools for social movement organizing and new tools for surveillance by authoritarian regimes.  Though communication theory necessarily transcends particular technologies, software, and websites, digital media have clearly become an important part of the toolkit available to political actors.  These technologies are also becoming part of the research toolkit for scholars interested in studying the changing patterns in interpersonal, political, and global communication.

How have changing patterns of interpersonal, political, and global communication created new opportunities for social movements, or new means of social control by political elites?  The role of social media in new patterns of communication is especially dramatic across North Africa and the Middle East, where decades of authoritarian rule have been challenged—with varying degrees of success.  Social media—broadly understood as a range of communication technologies that allow individuals to manage the flow of content across their own networks of family, friends and other social contacts—seem to have had a crucial role in the political upheaval and social protest in several countries.  Mass communication has not ceased to be important, but is now joined with a variety of other media with very different properties that may reinforce, displace, counteract, or create fresh new phenomena.

This Special Issue seeks original qualitative, comparative, and quantitative research on social media and political change, particularly as related to events in North Africa and the Middle East, but we are also receptive to work on political change in other parts of the developing world.  We would welcome manuscripts from a diverse range of methodologies, and covering diverse communities and cultures.  Methodological innovations or mixed method approaches are particularly encouraged, and manuscripts on the interpersonal and intergroup aspects of social movement organizing are central interest.  Whatever the approach, our goal is to select manuscripts that are grounded in the actual use of social media in promoting or resisting political change in developing countries and regions.  If you have questions regarding the appropriateness of a potential submission, please contact Prof. Philip N. Howard (pnhoward@uw.edu).

Deadline for Submission is August 15th, 2011, through http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jcom.  Manuscripts must confirm to all JOC guidelines, including the use of APA 6th edition format and a limit of 30 pages total manuscript length.  Please indicate your desire to be considered for the special issue in your cover letter.

Save

Aoyama Gakuin University

On May 21, 2011 I gave a talk entitled “Asking Cultural Questions: Using Ethnography to Answer Questions about Cultural Identity” to the Department of International Communication, of the School of International Politics, Economics and Communication, at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan.

Prof KaKai's introduction
Prof KaKai's introduction

My thanks to Prof. Hisako KaKai  and Prof. Kiyoko Sueda, who were the hosts and organizers of the event.

After the talk we were treated to an excellent Vietnamese dinner, well attended by many of the graduate students from the presentation as well as the faculty listed above. To all the graduate students I promised to send citations: I really did mean it, so do send me an email as followup!

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Advancing Knowledge grant CFP


The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University is very pleased to announce a request for proposal on Advancing Knowledge in Human Services Philanthropy and Nonprofit Organizations (Advancing Knowledge), supported with funding from the Kresge Foundation.

An open invitation is now issued for proposals on research in the field of human services philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. Pre-tenure scholars are invited to apply for $25,000 grants to fund research and for the opportunity to join a community of scholars seeking to improve the practice of human services philanthropy. The deadline for proposals is June 27, 2011.

Human services organizations play a critical role in providing essential services to low-income and vulnerable populations. Although human services nonprofits provide much-needed resources to households and communities throughout the U.S., more research is needed to understand how human services organizations can improve their practices.

Proposals for research projects must focus on human services nonprofit organizations assisting low-income populations in the United States and, must have the potential to affect the nonprofit practice and philanthropic support of human services nonprofits.

Advancing Knowledge is particularly interested in better understanding four thematic areas of research within the field of human services organizations:
*Organizational Effectiveness
*Social Change and Impact
*Government and Public Policy
*The Role of Philanthropy

Advancing Knowledge responds to the need to build a research community of human services scholars whose work has the potential to improve the practice of human services organizations and philanthropy. Through this initiative, Advancing Knowledge will create a cohort of pre-tenure scholars working in collaboration with tenured mentors and an Advisory Council.

Pre-tenure scholars at accredited universities and nonprofit research institutions in the United States who received terminal degrees within the past seven years will be eligible for research funding.

Ten proposals for funding of up to $25,000 per project will be awarded over two years (two disbursements of $12,500). Recipient scholars will work with mentors and an Advisory Council to produce and disseminate findings that improve the practice of human services philanthropy.  Research using existing data sources is encouraged.

Recipients will be invited to workshops held at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action annual conferences in 2011 and 2012.  Scholars, mentors, and the Advisory Council will also collaborate to generate a “State of the Research” report on human services philanthropy.

Fordham U job ad

VISITING FACULTY – COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA MANAGEMENT

The Schools of Business at Fordham University invite applications for a visiting professor (open rank) in Communications and Media Management for the 2011-2012 academic year (applicants may apply for either a semester or a full-year appointment).  The individual selected will have expertise in one or more of the following areas: media management/economics, new communications technologies, business communication, or organizational communication; and should be able to teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Candidates must have an earned Ph.D. in communication studies or a related field and have a research program and/or professional background appropriate for appointment in a business school.

Located in New York City, Fordham Business Schools offer a variety of programs of international distinction for students and practitioners of global business, including an MBA with a concentration in Communications and Media Management, an MS in Communications and Media Management and an Accelerated Executive MBA. Fordham Schools of Business have approximately three thousand graduate and undergraduate students enrolled on three campuses.

Applications should be received by June 17, 2011 and include:  A curriculum vitae, the names and contact information of three references, and an example of scholarly work.  Applications, and any inquiries or nominations concerning these positions, should be sent to:

Professor Philip M. Napoli
Area Chair of Communications and Media Management
Schools of Business
Fordham University
113 West 60th Street
New York, NY 10023

Application materials also can be sent electronically to pnapoli@fordham.edu.

Fordham is an independent, Catholic university in the Jesuit tradition that welcomes applications from men and women of all backgrounds.  Fordham University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Fordham Business Schools are accredited by the AACSB.

Multimedia Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World

PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY

“We are inviting academic editorial contributors to the Multimedia Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World, a new online library reference that will look at women today around the world and delve into the contexts of being female in the 21st century. Thus the scope of the encyclopedia will focus on women’s status starting in approximately 2000 and look forward.

The new work will supplement the 4-volume print and online edition of the encyclopedia recently published. The 250 signed entries (with cross-references and recommended readings) will cover issues in contemporary women’s and gender studies and the articles will include information relevant to the following academic disciplinary contexts:
women in different cultures/countries; arts and media; business and economics; criminal justice; education; family studies; health; media; military; politics; science and technology; sports; environmental studies; and religion.

This comprehensive project is being published in stages by SAGE Reference and will be marketed to academic and public libraries as a digital product available to students via the library’s electronic services. The General Editors, who will be reviewing each submission to the project, are Dr.
Mary Zeiss Stange of Skidmore College, and Dr. Carol K. Oyster of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

SAGE Publications offers an honorarium ranging from SAGE book credits for smaller articles up to a free set of the printed product or access to the online product for contributions totaling 10,000 words or more.

We are making final assignments that are due June 10, 2011. The following articles are available for contribution:

Abdi, Dekha Ibrahim     750
Andrabi, Asiya  750
Antoni, Janine  750
Archaeology [women in]  1,200
Ardajoun, Colonel Fatma-Zohra   750
Ceramics [women in]     1,000
Combat, Women in, Iraq and Afghanistan  1,200
Davis-Kimball, Jeanine  750
Ecology [women in]      1,500
Ella1   800
Fake, Caterina  750
Flannery, Jessica Jackie        750
Genetics [women in]     1,100
Guns and Gun Use        1,000
Gupte, Lalita   750
Hamilton, Vijali        750
International Women’s Brass Conference  800
Little Dragon   800
Markowitz, Jessica      750
Minashita, Kiriu        750
Morga, Alicia   750
Morparia, Kalpana       750
Musiimenta, Peace       750
Oceanography/Marine Biology [women in]  1,100
Parra, Alondra de la    750
Persad-Bissessar, Kamla 750
Radio Monalisa  800
Roundtable for Women in Foodservice (RWF)       800
Sappho’nun Kizlari      750
Seronde, Adele  750
Sharkey,Tina    750
Sinha, Rashmi   750
Sixth Clan      800
Sy, Oumou       750
Tatarstan       800
Traore, Rokia   750
Trash Fashion development for women (as economic incentive)     1,000
Trott, Mena     750
Wannier, Louise         750

If you would like to contribute to building a truly outstanding reference with the Multimedia Encyclopedia of Women in Today’s World, please contact me by the e-mail information below. Please provide a brief summary of your academic/publishing credentials in women’s and gender issues and the articles you are interested in writing and I will confirm availability.

Thanks very much.
Sue Moskowitz
Director of Author Management
Golson Media
women@golsonmedia.com

Wuhan University

Although I was invited to Wuhan University, I was unable to add another city to my itinerary in China in spring 2011. However, they have an active group of intercultural communication scholars, and have taken the time to develop a database of some of the major intercultural scholars across China. Unfortunately for those of us who don’t read Chinese, only the basic description of the establishment of the organization at Wuhan is in English. I’m quoting from the organizational description below:

“Being interested in cultural studies, we stepped into the field of intercultural communication research in 1990s, when Professors Shan Bo, Shi Yinbin, Wang Handong, and Qin Zhixi formed a group and established the research orientation of comparative journalism and intercultural studies. In 2002 Intercultural Studies became one of the six research orientations in the application by School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University for the right to award doctoral degree in first rank discipline, which got official approval in 2003. The preparations for a doctoral program for intercultural communication soon followed, which was officially established in 2004, being the only one of its kind under Journalism and Communication as first rank discipline. At the same time Research Center for Intercultural Communication was founded at the university level, the director of which is Professor Shan Bo, who collaborated with Université Michel de Montaigne – Bordeaux 3 of France and inaugurated consecutive “International Conference on Intercultural Communication”, which is held annually.”

For the rest of the information provided in English, see this page. For the main page, with links to descriptions of different scholars in Chinese, see this page.

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue

UPDATE as of June 9, 2011: Thanks to Shan Bo for adding me to the database of scholars they describe (in English) – see here.

Intercultural Dialogue issue of JIIC

The special issue on Intercultural Dialogue in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 4(2), co-authored by Shiv Ganesh and Prue Holmes, consolidates emerging interest in intercultural dialogue. The special issue emerged from the NCA Summer Conference on Intercultural Dialogue held in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2009. The four selected articles build upon, expand, and critique current understandings of intercultural dialogue, in particular, the important definition established by the White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008). This definition locates intercultural dialogue beyond mere tolerance of the other and situates deep shared understandings, as well as new forms of creative and expressive communication, as dialogic outcomes.

The four articles elaborate the terrain on intercultural dialogue in five important ways: 1) by drawing on key theorists of dialogue and intercultural communication; 2) by understanding dialogic encounters as intercultural, embedded in national, political, economic, religious, and historical interests, in order to view social problems in new and creative ways; 3) by engaging reflexively in the dialogic processes occurring in intercultural settings and encounters; 4) by situating the study of intercultural dialogue as an applied and pragmatic endeavour, using theories as resources for good practice; and 6) by explicating ethics as central to dialogic processes, for example, in contexts of social justice and colonization.

Witteborn’s paper “Discursive Grouping in a Virtual Forum: Dialogue, Difference, and the Intercultural” investigates how participants, in this case, Uyghur diaspora, construct difference in a virtual forum where difference is an opportunity for dialogic transformation. Witteborn’s analysis reveals that interlocutors mostly confirmed group locations through identity terms, truth talk, and distrust, which prevented dialogue. In reflecting on the meaning of intercultural, she thus cautions not to overemphasize the cultural at the expense of other meanings of group location important to interlocutors.

LaFever’s article “Empowering Native Americans: Communication, Planning, and Dialogue for Eco-Tourism in Gallup, New Mexico” emphasizes the importance of finding ways to meet the participartory needs of a marginalised (Navajo) community to engage and support them in public dialogue. Her study highlights the need for continued development of dialogic practices, and for closer ties among communication and planning scholars.

Carbaugh, Nuciforo, Saito and Shin, in “’Dialogue’ in Cross-Cultural perspective: Japanese, Korean, and Russian Discourses,” explore terms and practices relating to dialogue in the three discourses identified in the title. Their analysis of the term “dialogue” reveals distinctive goals for communication, implicit moral rules for conduct, and the proper tone, mode, and interactional structure within each discourse. They conclude that cross-cultural knowledge of this kind can clarify and address vexing problems such as the cultural balancing of information and truth with relational concerns.

MacLennan’s essay “’To Build a Beautiful Dialogue’: Capoeira as Contradiction” examines the dynamic dance-fight-game of African-Brazilian origins as a metaphor for dialogue. Through text, literature and personal experience, MacLennan reveals how dialogue is constituted through contradiction and paradox. Drawing on co-cultural theory, she reveals the importance of five key contradictions occurring in capoeira that have relevance to intercultural dialogue among cocultural groups.

Together, the articles in this collection expand current understandings of dialogue as they seek to explore the potentially dialogic role of conflict as well as consensus and collaboration. As such they inaugurate a productive exchange between scholarship on dialogue and intercultural communication studies, thereby setting an agenda for studies of intercultural dialogue.

Prue Holmes Profile

ProfilesPrue Holmes is Senior Lecturer in International and Intercultural Education in the School of Education, Durham University. She has also taught intercultural communication at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and English as a Foreign Language and English language teacher education in Italy, China, and Hong Kong.

Her research has been published in international journals and includes, most recently, a special issue on intercultural dialogue in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. Current research interests continue to explore intercultural dialogue in expanded contexts such as internationalisation. Other research includes the intercultural communication and learning experiences of international and Chinese students; intercultural competence, immigrant communication experiences; and intercultural education. She has received commissions from UNESCO to research intercultural communication in the Asia-Pacific region, and from Education New Zealand and the Ministry of Education (International), New Zealand, to research international and Chinese students’ learning and intercultural communication experiences.

Prue supervises post-graduate theses and dissertations in intercultural communication, identity, and competence; international and intercultural education; English and foreign language education; and Chinese and other international students’ learning and communication experiences. She also teaches modules in international and intercultural education and communication at post-graduate and under-graduate levels.

Prue was co-chair of the International Association of Language and Intercultural Communication (IALIC) and hosted the conference at Durham University in December 2012.

Work for CID:

Prue Holmes was one of the participants at the National Communication Association’s Summer Conference on Intercultural Dialogue in Istanbul, Turkey, which led to the creation of CID, and one of the editors of the book resulting from that event, Case Studies in Intercultural Dialogue.

%d bloggers like this: