Category: Collaborative Opportunities

Digital humanities grants

Transatlantic program for collaborative work in the field of Digital Humanities

 

The Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) is pleased to announce the launch of a new grant program in digital humanities. Thanks to a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, FMSH will co-finance transatlantic collaborative projects in the field of the digital humanities.

To strengthen its activity in the broad sphere of Digital Humanities, the FMSH seeks at present to implement a new international program of “digital philology”. To date, funded interactions in this area have been limited to exchanges within Europe. The purpose of this proposal is to create a formal organizational and funding structure for collaboration between the US and Europe in « digital literary studies ». For too long, Europe’s major projects in the digital humanities have been on a different track, as it were, from American projects. The present initiative is intended to help US and European researchers work together in an entirely new way in the field of digital literary studies, to share knowledge and methods, disseminate common practices and tools, and publicize their works.

The Program will support only research projects whose goal is to set up or to strengthen collaborations between US and European universities. It will co-finance up to 60% of the total cost of the research project per year.

Eligibility:
Grants are available to European and US universities willing to set up transatlantic collaborations. The competition is open to senior and junior researchers. The European groups will be asked to co-fund 40% of the total cost (total cost of the project can vary between $50,000 and  $100,000 per year. While the whole of Europe and North America is included in this call, priority will initially be accorded to applications originating in the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.  Expenses for which grant funds may be requested include the following:

  • Visiting lectureships
  • Doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships
  • International seminars, symposia
  • Honoraria, travel and meeting expenses
  • Publications

Coverage of other expenses will be subject to negotiation with the FMSH.

Deadlines:

  • Applications due – March 31, 2014
  • Notification given – June 2014
  • Grant period commences – September, 2014

Before submitting a proposal, potential applicants are encouraged to contact the FMSH program secretary.

Application Form here

ATYA Azerbaijan youth group looking for partners

Fakhrinur HUSEYNLI writes:

We have had a youth NGO in Azerbaijan since 2002 which is interested in joining international projects and activities. If you wish, we are ready to sign partnership agreements to organize joint projects in Azerbaijan or send our active young participants to your coming activities in 2014 under Erasmus+ and other foundation programs.

If there are any small participation fees for your programs, our participants are ready to pay that amount. They will be glad to be part of your coming academic programs, workcamps, summer camps, internship, volunteer and training activities.

Thanks for your cooperation in advance. We are looking forward to cooperating with you in 2014.

Further information about ATYA:
Azerbaijan Tafakkur Youth Association (ATYA) is a national NGO working towards building better civil society. The organization is located in Absheron region (between Baku and Sumgait cities). ATYA has been mainly active in disseminating information on Human Rights Education, Peace Promotion and Civil Society Building. We look forward to creating local-international partnerships with great pleasure for organize fruitful and interesting projects for the sake of peace building, youth empowerment and civil society development.

The main purpose of ATYA is enlightenment, especially youth, on the social, scientific-cultural, legal spheres, to development thinking and to strengthen their role in civil society building.

Main activities:

  • Art and cultural exchange, conflict solution, intercultural learning and peace building;
  • NGO/Civil society and community building/development;
  • Youth empowerment, capacity building, apprenticeship and business education;
  • Advocacy, active citizenship, youth exchange and voluntarism;
  • Human rights education and promotion;
  • Healthy life style (HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria);
  • Environment and biodiversity education.

For more information on Azerbaijan Tafakkur Youth Association, ATYA, see this video.

Those interested in potential collaborations should contact:
Fakhrinur HUSEYNLI
Director of Institute for Peace & Dialogue

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Intercultural Survey

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue has been asked to help circulate the following notice:

We are currently running a survey on the nature of the intercultural profession with three goals in mind:

1. Gain an understanding of the nature of the intercultural profession globally in 2013

2. Provide guidance for newcomers in the intercultural field

3. Show the development of the intercultural profession over the last 10 years (this will be done based on the results of surveys from 2004 and 2008 from K. Berardo and G. Simons)

We are asking all  who work in the intercultural field (*), be it as educators, trainers, coaches, academics, youth workers or others, to please take time to complete the survey.

Here’s the link to the 15 mins survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ICProfessionSurvey2013

Thank you all for this collective effort to shed light on our field and the way we work.

Best regards,

Anja Franz (Lecturer and Research Associate at Institute of Educational Science (IEW), Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany | M.A. Sociology and Education)

Susan Salzbrenner (Intercultural Trainer and Owner of “Fit Across Cultures”, Paris, France | M.A. Psychology)

Tanja Schulze (Program Officer for German-Indian Relations at Robert Bosch Stiftung, Stuttgart, Germany | 2011-2013 President of Young SIETAR | M.A. Romance Languages and Literature,Intercultural Business Communication, History of Economics)

(*) For the purposes of this study, ‘intercultural work’ is defined as work that focuses on the subject of culture and aims to facilitate communication and interaction across cultures. It may involve, though is not limited to, such activities as teaching, training, and consulting. We do keep the term “cross-cultural” as well since it’s commonly used in some parts of the world.

How does one find international collaborators?

When I was a kid my father talked to everyone. He made best friends with random strangers in the checkout line. As a middle schooler I hated it. It was weird, awkward, and completely embarrassing. Couldn’t we just get the groceries and go home?

Fast forward more than a few years later. As a graduate student, I remember being puzzled about how I could find international collaborators for the NSF grant for which I wanted to apply. I ended up sending emails to some researchers in some non-U.S. institutions. It felt awkward. Thankfully a few scholars had pity on me. I didn’t get the grant, but I learned that cold calls weren’t for me.

Now I let the process be more serendipitous, driven by my curiosity about other people and what interests them, rather than exploring potential collaborations. For example, this past summer I spent a few days with a colleague in Cyprus. How did we meet? He was an engineering graduate student at the school where I got my first tenure-track job. I was sitting in the Engineering Building before our orientation meeting and he said hello (likely to avoid working on the dissertation, which we’ve all done). I asked about his research—the de facto first question of all academic conversations–and we started talking, happening upon overlapping interests between our research and professional lives. Three years later I ended up visiting Cyprus where he was working after he finished his Ph.D. so that we could begin putting together a research project that we’d been discussing for a few years. How was I able to afford the visit? I tagged it onto another international trip. Since I was already in Europe, the trip to Cyprus cost me very little extra (plus, now I know that the Center offers some nice mini-grants for exactly such trips).

Certainly I’ve met international colleagues at international conferences; however, many of the connections happened on my “home” turf—in the United States where I work—myself an international import from Canada. (It may be hard to believe but Canada and the United States are different countries). The best collaborations have come when I have not tried to seek collaborations but rather simply expressed interest in other people’s work—and also when people have connected me with other people who could add a different perspective to the work I was doing. In both cases, if the conversation continues, then I propose a project. Not every conversation becomes a collaboration—but on my best days by being open to new people and new perspectives, I leave open the door to such conversations. And if you’re wondering who I am, I’m that person who now makes friends in the grocery line and the conference line—and just wherever the interest strikes me. Thanks Dad.

————————————————————–
Brenda Berkelaar
Assistant Professor | Communication Studies
The University of Texas at Austin

CINMR Research Associates list

The names, university affiliations, and countries of all Center for Intercultural New Media Research (CINMR) Research Associates are now listed on the public CINMR website and available for the world at large.  CINMR consists of 238 Research Associates in 42 countries representing 190 universities worldwide.

In addition, CINMR now has a new category of membership: Student Research Associates.  Graduate students are now welcome to join CINMR.  The names, university affiliations, and countries of graduate students are also listed on the CINMR public website.

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Community libraries

COMMUNITY LIBRARIES: CONNECTING READERS IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1650-1850

AHRC Research Network – Call for Papers

Deadline for CFP: 1 September 2013

“We are currently accepting proposals for a new AHRC-funded international research network on Community Libraries, which aims to establish a dynamic, interdisciplinary research forum to investigate the role of libraries in shaping communities in the (very) long eighteenth century. Developed by Dr. Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool) together with partners at Loyola University Chicago, the Newberry Library, and Dr. Williams’s Library (London), the Network will investigate the emergence of libraries in the ‘public sphere’ between 1650 and 1850. We will assess the contribution made by libraries to the circulation and reception of print of all kinds, and to the forging of collective identities amongst local, national, and international communities of readers. In addition, the network aims to explore the emergence of libraries in comparative perspective, asking how far models of library provision and administration were disseminated, discussed, imitated, and challenged as they traveled between different social environments and political regimes.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

a)     To explain the emergence of libraries in the ‘public sphere’ between 1650 and 1850;

b)     To examine the emergence of libraries in comparative perspective, testing the explanatory power of the Atlantic paradigm for Library History;

c)     To pool expertise on the use of database software for interrogating library records, discussing the full range of approaches, potential pitfalls, and successful solutions;

d)     To investigate the feasibility of developing a universal ‘virtual library system’, connecting up records relating to different types of library, in different places, and at different times with other large scale digital analyses of historic book production, distribution and reception;

e)     To assess the contribution made by libraries to historical processes of community formation, including questions relating to collective identity, gender, civility, sociability, literary censorship, social exclusion/social mobility, mental health and well being, and the impact of print;

f)    To contribute to current debates about the future of public libraries in the UK and the US, highlighting ways in which historical models of library provision might be adapted to contemporary needs.

PLANNED ACTIVITIES:

The Network will organize three two-day colloquia in the UK and the US. Each colloquium will focus on a specific theme, and will feature methodological workshops, work-in-progress presentations, pre-circulated papers, and roundtables.

Colloquium 1: Libraries in the Atlantic World, to be held in Liverpool on January 24-25, 2014

Colloquium 2: Digital Approaches to Library History, to be held in Chicago on May 30- June 1, 2014

Colloquium 3: Libraries in the Community, to be held in London on January 23-24, 2015

CALL FOR PAPERS:

The project team invites proposals from scholars interested in any element of the Community Libraries research program. If you feel you can make a significant contribution to any or all of our colloquia, please send abstracts of 500 words, together with a brief summary of your career to date, to the Principal Investigator Dr. Mark Towsey (towsey AT liverpool.ac.uk) by September 1, 2013. For further information, please visit our website.”

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Culture in EU external relations

A general call is being circulated – feel free to respond directly, as described below.

“We would like to hear from you – what role should culture play in EU external relations?

In 2012 a consortium consisting of eight members, led by the Goethe Institute, Brussels, was tasked by the European Commission to carry out the preparatory action ’Culture in EU external relations” launched by the European Commission and approved by the European Parliament.

The purpose of the action is to facilitate an on-going process of research, exchange of knowledge and support policy reflection in strengthening the role of culture in external relations.

In particular, the preparatory action will contribute to formulating recommendations for a strategy on culture in EU’s external relations on basis of the comprehensive mapping exercise and consultation process involving 54 countries worldwide. Watch and hear Professor of Cultural Policy Studies Yudhishthir Raj Isar, team leader, shortly explaining the aim and purpose of the Preparatory Action.

The Preparatory Action is running until mid-2014 along with the online discussion. To sum up the process, we converge the results into a final conference in April 2014 where future recommendations for policy makers are made and the strategic approach towards mobilising action on culture in external relations is presented.

It is our goal to raise awareness of the project and make the debate on Culture in EU external relations as strong as possible by involving wider public, civil society, culture institutions, artists, public bodies and individuals who have knowledge to add and comments to share. So, please tell us what do you think?

Please visit our website/blog and join the discussion, or post a video, picture or comment #CultExtRel on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. And subscribe to our Newsletter to be on top on the latest research in the field – and add your perspective and knowledge to it.

We are looking forward to passing on your recommendations to the policy makers, the European Parliament and interested parties.”

All the best,

Maiken Høj
Web-Editor, Culture in EU’s external relations
www.cultureinexternalrelations.eu

CFP IAIR conference panel

Call for Papers and Discussants for the 2013 8th biennial IAIR Conference: Reno/Lake Tahoe
Symposium Proposal on IC History Pioneers, Paradigms, and National Developments

For the upcoming June 23-27, 2013 8th biennial conference of the IAIR, we have been notified that there is still space in the schedule and that the deadline for submissions is extended to March 15, 2013.  Please consider if you have content that might contribute to this session proposal (admittedly being expanded rather late) and contact us soon.

Because the theme of this conference is “Pushing the Frontiers of Intercultural Research: Asking Critical Questions,” we propose that one of the important questions to answer concerns evaluation of the
history and status of our diverse intercultural discipline(s). More specifically, it seems critical at this juncture to assess:
(1) What are the enduring contributions of pioneering intercultural trainers, scholars, and practitioners?
(2) How and why have various national/ethnic trajectories in IC expanded, redefined, or repositioned the boundaries and knowledge base of the IC field(s)?
(3) How have the developments of differing paradigms contested and/or contributed to the various expressions now referred to under the “intercultural communication” [IC] rubric?

This is a dialogue that was crystallized in 2010 at two German government sponsored conferences, first at the Berlin “Sino-German Conference on Intercultural Communication” (March 28-April 1) and then
the Shanghai “Chinese IC Disciplinary Development Symposium” (June 11-14). Discussions at those gatherings in part prompted an initiative to document the history of early IC influencers, recently published as the 2012 IJIR Special Issue on “Early American pioneers of intercultural communication“ (Vol. 36(6), which included 14 articles). In compiling that volume, the editors adopted a biographical approach, but acknowledged gaps in both important figures not yet covered as well as the need for developing a more thorough sociology of our IC knowledge (Kulich & Zhang, 2012, pp. 885-901). This session is being organized to continue to address such needs.

Kulich’s opening and concluding articles in the 2012 IJIR issue (available online) suggested the need to cover other important IC pioneers (such as Harry Triandis, Richard Brislin, Mitsuko Saito, David Hoopes, Peggy Pusch, Clifford Clarke, William Howell, William Gudykunst, Young Yun Kim, Stella Ting-Toomey, Mitchell Hammer, Al Wight, Marshall Singer, George Renwick, Stephen Rhinesmith, Robert Moran, Shiela Ramsey, Lynn Tyler, Donald Klopf, Satoshi Ishii, John Berry, Dan Landis, William Starosta, Mary Jane Collier, Geert Hofstede, Alexander Thomas, along with a LONG list of MANY others, and many apologetically NOT yet listed, with influences from and around the world).

One concern, however, is that single scholar/practitioner biographies may not provide as highly-cited journal contributions as work that is more integrative. Seeking to address this, we welcome papers for this session that discuss people, analyze paradigms, organizations, national developments, or other aspects of our shared or divergent history, especially seeking to further a sociology of science for the
IC field(s):
* the analysis of specific intercultural groups/schools of scholars, events, places, programs,
* the interactions/collaboration or divergences of concurrent intercultural pioneeers,
* the history of IC in varied national contexts/ their development landscapes,
* the challenges and contributions of cross-national IC collaborations,
* the framing of contrasting IC paradigms and those who championed them, and/or
* analyzing their effects on the development of IC in different places or persuasions, or
* critical correctives to mainstream IC history, alternative tracks/standpoints/marginalized groups or approaches to studying or doing IC.Discussions are underway for several possible publication outlets for
contributions to this symposium. Some may be selected as articles for another IJIR Special Issue (tentatively possible in 2016), or as key chapters in theme volumes in the Shanghai-based Intercultural Research book series (5 volumes currently published), or as an eventual IJIR “Handbook on the History and Status of Intercultural Communication Research.”

The proposed session is organized by Steve J. Kulich with feedback from a panel composed of Michael Prosser, Jackie Wasilewski, Special Issues Editor Dan Landis, IJIR Editor Colleen Ward and confirmed contributions from Clifford Clarke, Holly Kawakami, and others.

Proposals for contributions for this special conference session should be sent to Steve.Kulich@gmail.com and also to kulich@shisu.edu.cn and should include a 200-500 word abstract detailing the content to be covered or issues to be addressed (before March 15). Responses on inclusion and the tentative design of the symposium session will be sent out before March 18, 2013.

CFP Intercultural comm strategies

“I am putting together a panel for the 2013 WSCA [Western Speech Communication Association] conference. This panel seeks to create space to dialogue about strategies for teaching intercultural communication that will prepare students to understand, respond to, and potentially address emerging ethnic, racial, and religious conflicts manifesting both globally and locally.  I seek teacher-scholars willing to share creative pedagogical and theoretical leaps you are making in your intercultural communication courses to engage students and to equip them to effectively and pragmatically negotiate this 21st century moment that is characterized by instability, conflict, and sociocultural shifts. Interested parties are welcome to submit a 150 word abstract for consideration by August 20, 2012.”

Hannah Oliha, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Faculty Advisor, WTAMU NAACP College Chapter
West Texas A & M University

Cross-cultural/intercultural powerpoints wanted

Request for Basic Cross-cultural/Intercultural Powerpoints

“I am Mara Adelman (Seattle University, author of BEYOND LANGUAGE: Cross-cultural Communication for ESL), and I am heading to Mekelle University in Ethiopia on a Fulbright assignment, for a 42 days series of lectures, seminars, workshops on various topics in communication. Am seeking powerpoints on basic presentations for cross-cultural communication (e.g. theory, values, rituals, non-verbal, verbal, cross-cultural adaptation, work place, friendships, etc.). I would be willing to exchange for powerpoints on such topics as distraction, solitude, contemplative practices, world travel.  Please know that your powerpoints would only be used during this assignment, no copies, forwarded emails, etc. would occur.  Please send to/any questions, etc.: mara@seattleu.edu
MANY THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT.”

–Mara Adelman, Seattle University