Category: Conferences

CFP Work, success, happiness, good life

ICA PRECONFERENCE: (RE)DEFINING AND (RE)NEGOTIATING THE MEANING OF WORK, SUCCESS, HAPPINESS, AND GOOD LIFE

Organizational Communication Division
Date: May 22nd, 2014
8:00 am- 5:00 pm

Sheraton Seattle Hotel
[With an off-site visit to The Seattle Glassblowing Studio]

CALL FOR PAPERS
What is the role of work in constructing “the good life”? How have our definitions of what it means to work, be successful, and be happy evolved over the years? This preconference examines questions about work and life including the important practical, social, and theoretical concerns surrounding these issues.

Aspiring to lead a good life almost mandates that every aspect of one’s life align with the individual’s personal definition of what constitutes a ‘good’ life in the first place. This idea though unequivocally includes pursuing a professional life of passion, pride, dignity, and worthy of one’s time, skills, and energy. At this pre-conference we will bring together scholars who have an interest in examining the constraints and opportunities for a good life and how that definition is shaped discursively by the different contextual factors that determine our material work-life realities. While there are multiple lenses with which to view one’s good life, we circumscribe our pre-conference within specific frames of work and its allied implications within, between, and outside of organizations.

We invite you to submit short papers (7-10 pages excluding references) pertaining to the following five themes: Socialization and Ethics, Immigrant Experiences of Meanings of Work, Sociopathic Demands of Modern Work, Positive Emotions at Work, and Career and Personal Life Sustainability (please see descriptions below):

Facilitators and Respondents:
Suchitra Shenoy-Packer (co-organizer)
Elena Gabor (co-organizer)
Patrice M. Buzzanell
Majia Nadesan
Dan Lair
Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik

Instructions for Papers:
1.     Please submit short papers (7-10 pages excluding References) in APA (6th Edition) format directly to Suchitra Shenoy-Packer and Elena Gabor by March 1, 2014.
2.     Clearly state the theme to which you are submitting your paper on the cover page (include your name, affiliation, and academic position (e.g., grad student, professor).
3.     The questions we provide under each theme are examples to get you started and thinking about the scope of each area. We encourage potential contributors to redefine and renegotiate the meanings of work, success, happiness, and the good life as they deem befitting the different themes.
4.     A total of 24 papers will be competitively selected for the pre-conference.

Theme 1: Socialization & Ethics

The socialization and ethics themes individually or collectively, will explore discourses about work circulating in, and produced by, socialization agents (e.g., Jablin: family, friends, media, education, part-time work). Here, the interest would be in how institutional discourses such as media and education discourses-about work produce discursive resources that shape our understandings of and expectations for work.
For those interested in the ethics theme exclusively, we encourage the exploration of meaningful work as a decidedly ethical question. We spend a great deal of time thinking through the ethical dimensions of communication at work, both in general (e.g., whistleblowing) and in relation to specific occupations/professions (e.g., medical ethics). What are some of these thoughts that translate to research and contemporary visions of leading good work-life?

To submit papers to this theme, participants are invited to submit short papers that address one or more of the following questions: How do socialization discourses influence the manner in which we make sense of what work means, the role it plays in our lives, and the nature of the working world? How do they enable/constrain the choices that we make in pursuit of meaningful work in our lives? What does it look like when we consider the question of work itself from a distinctly ethical framework? What are the ethical dimensions of the ways in which we talk about work? For instance, what are the ethical implications when we elevate some forms of work, and not others, as “meaningful”? If the choices that we make about work have implications for ourselves, our families, our communities, our world, and if those choices are implicated by communication about work, what are the ethical dimensions of the ways in which we speak about work?

Theme 2: Immigrants Experiences of Meanings of Work

Finding meaning in work has been argued as being the prerogative of the fortunate few who have the choice of discriminating between the work (or non-work) options available to them. But, what happens to this choice when the desire to do so takes individuals to foreign lands in the hopes of exercising that choice and finding meaningful work? Immigration is not a single event of being uprooted from the culture of origin and leaving behind the homeland to face the challenge of assimilation into a new culture. Rather it is a lifelong, multifaceted and multilayered, complex, and never-ending experience. With this theme, we start from the assumption that voluntary immigration is a deliberate decision to change one’s life, often, but not necessarily, driven by the optimism of finding personally significant and self-defined meaningful work.

Immigrant workers are known to experience stress related to their visa status, language proficiency, money, loss of connections and status in the work context, discounting of skills acquired in their native countries, ethnic/gender discrimination, feelings of isolation and insufficient orientation to new job skills, and wages based discrimination, to name a few.

To submit papers to this theme, participants are invited to submit short papers addressing how immigrants construct the meaning of work in their lives? Within the larger frame of meanings of work, some examples of questions are: How does voluntary or involuntary immigration influence work values and transform (or if it does) work ethic? On the other hand, how do lessons learned about work in one’s native country complicate workplace relationships in a host country? Do degrees of adaptations/assimilation change immigrants’ meaning-making initiatives? Are meanings of work consciously constructed and do they differ across types and scope of work? How are (or are they?) meanings of work differently enabled and enacted by immigrant entrepreneurs versus working professionals versus unskilled laborers versus those compelled to immigrate as refugees or asylum seekers?

Theme 3: Sociopathic Demands of Modern Work

Sociopathy is arguably an entrenched feature of modern capitalism. For-profits institutionalize sociopathy in the relentless pursuit of profits and market growth. Non-profits and government organizations, including universities, increasingly resemble for-profits in operations and decision-making logics. The result of this focus on growth and profits include resource exhaustion, environmental degradation, social antipathy, and the degradation of the human spirit. Instrumentalization and prioritization of unrestrained growth constrain praxis, that is, they constrain the possibilities for making socially proactive meanings out of everyday work activities as daily activities are typically subordinated to the demands of efficiency, expediency, growth and/or profitability.

Participants are invited to submit short papers that address the following questions: How can alternative, socially pro-active meanings be generated from the instrumental and often sociopathic demands of modern work? How can alternative meanings be introduced into institutional life so as to counter or temper sociopathic practices and decision-making? Is it possible to transform capitalism itself from the ground up so that opportunities for generating alternative and socially pro-active meanings are actually institutionalized in organizational decision-making and practice?

Theme 4: Positive Emotions at Work

Notwithstanding the tendency to focus on the pitfalls and problems of organizational life, being an organization member can also provide extraordinary, positive experiences. Sensing others’ appreciation can make endeavors feel worthwhile and open creative channels in previously unrecognized directions. A heartfelt thank you can contribute to an overall sense of contentment, infusing a positive mood workers subsequently bring home. Positive emotion is associated with improved overall health and longevity; increased altruism, courtesy, and conscientiousness in organizations; enhanced tendencies to assist others; and increased creativity and innovation at work and the experiences that evoke positive emotions.

Although a number of experiences elicit positive affect for employees, one of the most powerful is positive managerial communication (PMC). In fact, people point to these experiences as nothing less than life changing, the effects of which last years after the experiences. The Broaden and Build Theory of Positive Emotions suggests that “positive emotions … broaden peoples’ momentary thought-action repertoires,” which are the possibilities for actions or responses we contemplate and then use when in an emotional state. The theory also argues that “positive emotions promote discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds, which in turn build that individual’s personal resources; ranging from physical and intellectual resources, to social and psychological resources” (Fredrickson, 2004).

Participants are invited to submit short papers that address the following questions: Within the framework of meanings of work/meaningful work, how do negative emotions contribute to positive emotions in terms of organizational life? How do positive communicative events at work contribute to positive upward spirals? How does emotional contagion work in terms of positivity and how might this influence meaning making? Why do praise, reward, and appreciation mean so much to workers and what cultural forces might be behind the importance of these to workers? What is the state of our current knowledge about communication and positivity at work?

Theme 5 Career and Personal Life Sustainability

Returning to the overarching theme of “the good life” and the role that the meaningfulness of work has in constructing a good life, this section centers on ways to research, challenge, and design meaningful career and personal life sustainability. This theme has three parts. First, work-and-life communication scholarship and everyday discussions typically prioritize work over other life considerations. In this preconference theme, the focus is on the sustainability of career, as the theme and structure that underlie and make coherent the work that people do, and of personal life, as the value of friendship, family, leisure, volunteering, spirituality, and other activities. Yet it is not simply sustainability but ways to fuse and transcend career and personal life intersections that requires attention from communication scholars. Second, the emphasis is on design as a process for achieving the good life and meaningfulness. Design is the architecture of and processes within and across career and personal life. Design can be predictive, adaptive, visionary, and/or transformative in its problem setting and solving capacities. Transformative design engages inner and outer environments in ways that create alternative stories from which designers choose. Designers construct visions of valued futures, of which the good life would be prominent. Finally, this preconference theme does not assume that everyone has an equal chance and choice to achieve the good life.

Participants are invited to submit short papers that address the following questions: How can individuals, potentially living dilemmatic lives amidst agency and constraints construct meaningful and “good” work lives? How can our interpretations of meaningful careers and personal life sustainability get defined and redefined in today’s turbulent work environments? How can we sustain work-life balances that transcend personal gains and embody holistic mindfulness that recruits partners, family members, community, and others as co-scripters of a good life?

Due Date: March 1st, 2014

Sponsored by:
Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, USA
DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Management Communication Quarterly

CFP 2nd Latin Am ICA conf Brazil 2014

2nd Latin America ICA Conference
Dialogues between Tradition and Contemporaneity in the Latin America and International Communication Studies (University of Brasilia, 26-28 de March, 2014)

ICA

Call for Papers
The Graduate Program in Communication of UNB and the International Communication Association (ICA) are pleased to invite you to submit papers for the 4th Latin American Conference ICA. Two forms are accepted, papers to WGs and proposition panels.

Deadline for submissions of papers and panel proposals: Until 15th January, 2014
Notification of acceptance: 29th January, 2014
Registration deadline at reduced fees: Until 5th February, 2014
Conference: 26-28 March, 2014

Registration will be open from November 30, 2013

Conference Chair: Luiz C. Martino
The organizing committee: Fernanda Martineli, Fernando Paulino, Liliane Machado, L.C. Martino e Sérgio de Sá.
Partners: ALAIC, SBPJor, INTERCOM, ABRAPCORP

CFP Things to remember conference

Things to Remember: Materializing Memories in Art and Culture
International Conference, Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands)
June 5-6, 2014

CALL FOR PAPERS

Confirmed Keynote Speakers
Dr Dylan Trigg, University College Dublin
Dr. Celeste Olalquiaga, independent scholar

Call for Papers:
Memory matters. It matters because memory brings the past into the present, and opens it up to the future. But it also matters literally, because memory is mediated materially. Materiality is the stuff of memory. Meaningful objects that we love (or hate) function not only as aide-mémoire but as memory itself.

The international conference Things to Remember: Materializing Memories in Art and Culture aims to explore a sustained focus on the materiality in and of memory. Such a focus helps to understand memory as a vibrant process, by analysing the active, creative and popular forms of remembering and forgetting. At the same time a materialist focus entails recognising certain forms of agency in material objects. As Bill Brown argues, a culture constitutes itself through its inanimate objects: ‘culture as it is objectified in material forms’. In this conference we want to draw cultural memory into the discourse of ‘new materialism’, inquiring how we remember with and through things. Here we avoid simple dualisms by foregrounding the intersections between the material and immaterial, natural and cultural, living or inert. Things make us remember (and forget), yet we also use things to bring about remembrance or forgetfulness. We therefore argue that memory is both mental and material.

The conference foregrounds the materiality of memory by investigating the vital relations between past and present, absence and presence, and remembrance and object. We thus interrogate the material transfers through which cultural memories of the past are expressed and circulated in art, media and popular culture. These transfers produce, re-present and transform mediated memories, literally giving shape to them in words, images, and objects. The conference pays as much attention to how we remember, create and re-create memories as to what we remember.

Cultural memory is taken as both an active process and a dynamic practice. In such processes and practices of remembering, objects and things are endowed with meaning, agency and affect. As Bergson put it poetically, recollection is like ‘a fold in a material’. This raises the question how cultural memory plays a role in the social and cultural life of objects. Or, vice versa, what is the role that material things and objects play in ‘doing’ memory? That role will entail a study of the interaction between the materiality of memory, its affective nature, and its ideological frameworks. The conference will explore how memory unfolds time in its objectified materializations, both looking forwards and backwards, and realizing the affective dimensions of the here and now.

This conference will be centred on the following questions: What kind of memory-work do objects do? How does materiality mediate memory, for the individual and for society? What is the role of memory and forgetting in the social and cultural life of objects? Or vice versa, what is the role that material things and objects play in constructing memories? How do art objects and practices bring the past in the present? And how do they open up possibilities for a different future? How is the object endowed with meaning, affect and agency through the recollections attached to it?

We are particularly interested in: analyses of what is at stake in the complex processes of remembering and forgetting, of recollecting and disremembering, of amnesia and anamnesis that make up cultural memory; studies of how memory, object and affect are contingent on one another in their relation to time, both looking forwards and backwards; and explorations of how art, media and popular culture, in producing material memories, may produce a relevant experience for the spectator, visitor, listener or reader.

The conference aims at covering a wide range of artistic disciplines: fine arts, architecture, literature, music, cinema, theatre, digital media and fashion. We welcome proposals for papers as well as for three-paper panels.

Possible topics can include but are not limited to:
Thing-memory
Art as a memory trigger
Literary and artistic interventions in cultural forgetting
Consumer culture as planned obsolescence
The consumption of the past in contemporary fashion
Remembering forgotten writers and artists
The production of presence and absence
The persistence of the historical past
Theories of matter, thing, and object
Trauma and materiality
Discarded and recycled objects
Souvenirs, gifts, kitsch objects
Toys, models, and miniature objects as things of memory
Ruins and material remains of the past
The internet of things as a technology of memory
The preservation, conservation and presentation of (in)tangible cultural heritage
Virtual ‘matter’: The presence (and absence) of the material in digital art and media
Embodied / (multi)sensory / kinesthetic memory
The musealization and monumentalization of the past through material objects
…

Our previous successful conferences resulted in two book publications:
Technologies of Memory in the Arts, edited by L. Plate & A. Smelik
(Palgrave/Macmillan, 2009).
Performing Memory in Art and Popular Culture, edited by L. Plate & A.
Smelik (Routledge, 2013).

Deadline for paper proposals: January 7, 2014

Please submit your proposal for a 20-minute paper; or for a panel session of three papers through the conference website.

Conference committee:
Marguérite Corporaal, Vincent Meelberg, László Munteán, Liedeke Plate, Anneke Smelik, Lianne Toussaint, Wouter Weijers

Contact information:
thingstoremember@let.ru.nl

CFP Globalization: Texts, Performances, Practices

Call for Papers

Globalization: Texts, Performances, Practices
Type: Cross-Disciplinary International Conference
Institution: Department of Communication, Saint Louis University
Location: Madrid (Spain)
Date: 24.–26.4.2014
Deadline: 16.12.2013

__________________________________________________

The depth and breadth of what we regularly reference as globalization is still expanding. At the same time, in most moments, we as subjects are situated in palpable, immediate, super-organic localities. This and other paradoxes demonstrate that, however much “globalization” has become a widely circulated buzzword, we are still probing what it means for subjects in everyday terms.

Across three days, participants from all over the globe will reflect on the many registers in which the “structuring structures” of globalization play out as the conference assays to unpack “what’s going on.” While the event will be hosted by a Communication department, the organizers welcome cross-disciplinary effort.

Some specific areas of interest to the Organizing Committee include:

Globalization, on Screens Everywhere:
– Media, Technology, and Society
– The Practice of International Journalism
– Digital Journalism
– New Media: New Subjects?
– Film & Television as International Couriers
– International Political Economy of Media

Critical Intercultural Communication:
– Globalization and Subjectivity
– Culture, Identity & Mobility
– Tourism in Practice
– Glocalization and Cultural Heterogeneity
– Fluidity and Hybridity
– Performing Globalization
– Post-Colonial & Diaspora Studies
– New Cartographies

Global Organizations:
– Nations/TransNations
– The Confrontation with Neoliberalism
– The Corporation
– Human Rights & NGOs
– Modes of Protest

To be considered as a presenter, please email the following by 16 December 2013:
(1) Your name and title
(2) Institutional affiliation
(3) A title and abstract of your work (200-400 words)
(4) four “key words”

The conference’s designated language will be English in all its variants.

Keynote Addresses:
– Radha S. Hegde, New York University: “Migrant Bodies and the Politics of Recognition”
– Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths/University of London: “Mediated Public Spheres: The Problem of Politics and Dream of Democracy”

Contact:
Department of Communication
Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus
Avenida del Valle 34
E-28003 Madrid
Spain
Email: madrid.comm.conference2014@gmail.com

Comm conf of the Americas 2013

PC12: IX Communication Conference of the Americas (FELAFACS-NCA)

Wed, 11/20/13: 9:00 AM  – 6:00 PM
Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, DC
Room: Jefferson – Mezzanine Level

In 2010, the National Communication Association (NCA) and la Federación Latinoamericana de Facultades de Comunicación (FELAFACS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish a long-term partnership and promote connections among communication scholars throughout the Americas. These international connections enable NCA members to share perspectives on communication research, teaching, and practice, and encourages new avenues for collaboration throughout the continent.In order to maintain and further develop these connections, we are organizing the NCA preconference: IX Communication Conference of the Americas (FELAFACS-NCA) to be held in Washington, DC. The aim of this preconference is to cultivate the international connections across communication scholars from Latin America, the United States, and Canada. This preconference supports NCA’s vision to further international connections that enable members to share their projects, perspectives and experience in field of communication research, teaching, and practice.The goal of this preconference is to promote dialogue among communication scholars throughout the Americas, to share perspectives on communication research, teaching and practice, and to encourage new avenues for collaboration.  

Some of the topics we will be broadly discussing at the conference are: our role in the development of professional communicators in the Americas, and photographic journalism and mass media in social memory and politics.  We highly encourage you to join us afterwards for an informal dinner networking and discussion, even if you cannot attend the whole conference.

Chair
Federico Varona, San Jose State University

Respondent(s)
Agrivalca Canelón, Universidad Católica Andres Bello
Ricardo Carniel Bugs, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona
Vanesa Muriel Amezcua, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro
Luis Felipe Gómez, San Jose State University
Jessica Retis, California State University, Northridge

Nordisco 2014

Nordisco 2014, the Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction
November 12-14, 2014
University of Jyväskylä, Finland

The Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction (NorDIsCo) was established in 2010 to bring together researchers and doctoral students in the Nordic and Baltic region who investigate discourse and interaction from different disciplinary perspectives.

After two successful meetings in Aalborg (2010) and Linköping (2012), it is now our pleasure to host the third Nordic and Baltic conference at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). The conference will be organized by the Department of Languages and the Centre for Applied Language Studies in collaboration with the Finnish Association for Applied Linguistics (AFinLA) November 12-14, 2014.

The conference will highlight research on the organization, structures and constitution of texts, talk, discourse and social interaction and provide a forum for discussion and debate across disciplinary boundaries. The theme of this third conference is Discourse, communities and identities in the North.

Hosted at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), Nordisco 2014 welcomes contributions on any aspects of discourse and social interaction, particularly with respect to discourse, communities and identities in the North.

We encourage participants to explore, from the vantage point of their own research, one or more of the following questions:
*How can discourse studies help us understand developments in today’s communities in the North?
*What kinds of theories, methods, tools and technologies are needed to better understand changing identities and the challenges of communities?
*How can discourse studies help understand, inform, advice and intervene in the lives of communities to promote improved communicative practices?

We invite contributions from different and diverse fields of enquiry, including – but not limited to – discourse studies, conversation analysis, discursive psychology, critical discourse analysis, interaction analysis, rhetoric, narrative analysis, social semiotics, multimodal discourse analysis, gesture studies and communication activism.

Venue and date
The conference will be hosted by the Department of Languages and the Centre for Applied Language Studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, on November 12-14, 2014.

Programme
The conference will consist of two plenary presentations, panel sessions, parallel paper sessions and a plenary round table discussion with contributions from leading researchers representing different domains of discourse studies.

Elizabeth Lanza (Oslo) and Anna Lindström (Uppsala) are plenary speakers, and Paul McIlvenny (Aalborg), will chair a round table on the future of discourse and interaction studies in the Nordic region. More information about the round table will be given in the second Call for Proposals.

Submissions
We invite submissions for panel sessions and paper presentations. Panel sessions consist of several thematically related papers to be scheduled in 90 or 180 minute slots. Paper presentations are organized in parallel sessions with 30 minute slots that include discussion time. We will consider abstract proposals for concluded research projects as well as work-in-progress. If you wish to submit an abstract for consideration by the Scientific Committee, please visit the conference website for more detailed information on the submission process.

The online submission system will open in January 2014. The deadline for proposals for panel sessions is on February 28 and for individual paper presentations April 30, 2014.

Language
Presentations can be given in English or in a Nordic language (if preferred). Please indicate your language preference when you submit your abstract.

Review procedure
Abstracts will be reviewed for quality, relevance, topicality and originality by the Scientific Committee.

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Nordic Network Intercultural Comm conference

Separation vs. integration: Challenges of bridging cultural contrasts
20th Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication Conference

The 20th NIC symposium is organised by the Institute of Germanic, Romance and Slavonic Languages  and Literatures, University of Tartu and will be held on 28- 30 November 2013 in Tartu, Estonia. Conference call has been extended to 1 November 2013.

This conference welcomes papers from all areas of intercultural communication but aims to focus on the issues of separation and integration that have always been on the agenda in the Baltic States but have become particularly acute and sensitive for the last twenty years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Two cultures, Russian and Estonian have co-existed for more than two hundred years starting from the early 18th century when the Russian Empire gained control over Estonian lands by winning the war with Sweden.  Since then, numerous generations have had the opportunity to deal with the issues of separation and integration. Unfortunately, mainly due to political reasons, the integration process has not been as successful as expected.   This is where we found our inspiration for the main theme of the conference. We believe that via cooperation and discussion among intercultural communication researchers and practitioners we may manage to find solutions to problems faced by culturally different communities living side by side on a daily basis in any part of the world.  We also believe that power issues and negotiations over power are relevant to the problems involved in intercultural communication in such situations.

Therefore, we welcome contributions from all academic disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, political science, media and communication studies, business studies, organisational studies, educational studies, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. We are particularly interested in case studies or theoretical papers which address issues of separation, assimilation, marginalisation and integration, as well as (discursive) power negotiations.

One of the main focuses of the Nordic Network for Intercultural Communication (NIC) is to enhance cooperation among Nordic and Baltic researchers exploring the field of intercultural communication. The main NIC activity for the last two decades has been the organisation of the annual international conference on intercultural communication, open to participants from all over the world.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
*Krista Vogelberg, Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature
*Irina Koksharova, MA, Member of the Conference Organising Committee

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CFP Superdiversity conference Birmingham

CALL FOR PAPERS
Superdiversity: theory, method and practice in an era of change
International Conference, Birmingham 23-24 June 2014

(DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: 10th DECEMBER 2013)

Keynote Speakers include:
*Professor Jan Blommaert, Babylon Centre for the study of Superdiversity, University of Tilberg, The Netherlands.
*Professor Peggy Levitt, Wellesey College, USA.
*Professor James Nazroo, The Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research, University of Manchester, UK.
*Professor Gill Valentine, University of Sheffield, UK
*Professor Steven Vertovec, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen, Germany

With the unprecedented speed, scale and spread of global migration, academics have an important role in developing new methods, advancing theoretical understanding and producing empirically informed knowledge about the emergence of superdiversity.

Invitation to submit
The Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) at the University of Birmingham are organising the first international interdisciplinary conference on superdiversity. The conference will be held at University of Birmingham on the 23rd and 24th June 2014. It will feature invited plenaries, academic panels and a policy roundtable on topics at the forefront of the superdiversity research agenda. The aim of the conference is to map the state of the art in knowledge on superdiversity and to draw an agenda for future research.

We welcome academics from a broad range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, social policy, geography, linguistics, history, psychology, economics, medicine, demography, politics, and development studies, policy makers and practitioners to submit innovative papers, panel proposals or posters on any aspect related to superdiversity. Doctoral researchers are welcome to submit their work. The conference will be an opportunity for meeting fellow PhD students and senior academics working on superdiversity.

The conference will include parallel sessions on:
*Migration processes, transnational practices, and globalization
*Patterns and experiences of space and place
*Interchanges, interactions and encounters
*Immigration regimes, rights and belonging
*Discrimination, segregation and inclusion
*Hybridity, representations and belonging
*Communication, language and media
*Policy, planning and service delivery
*Research methods and approaches
*Markets, finance and opportunity
*Art, culture and history
*Faith, religion and spirituality
*Health and healthcare
*New demographies

Submission Guidelines
Abstracts should be submitted electronically, using the on-line submission link – http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/superdiversity-institute/events/2014/06/call-for-papers.aspx – by 10th December 2013.
*Submissions for presentations should include an abstract of a maximum of 250 words.
*Submissions for panels should include the names of three speakers and a Chair, an overview abstract of 250 words and an abstract for each associated paper of 250 words.
*Poster submissions can describe in 250 words or less key themes and approaches to be included in the poster.

Acceptance decisions will be communicated week beginning the 24th February 2014.

Presentation Format: The selected papers will be grouped by themes. There will be parallel sessions, with three presentations in each session. Each presentation will last 20 minutes and followed by 10 minutes discussion.

Deadline for papers: Panel speakers are expected to submit full papers (pdf files) by 30th May 2014.

Conference publications: delegates will be offered the opportunity after the conference to submit their papers for consideration to be included in an edited book and/or journal special edition.

Other: Travel and accommodation expenses should be covered by the participants. However, there will be a limited number of registration fee bursaries for participants under exceptional circumstances.

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CFP Migration, Media and Intercultural Dialogue

Call for Papers
Migration, Media and Intercultural Dialogue
Conference 25th and 26th November 2013
Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility, Barcelona, Spain

While migration often poses the question of cultural difference, diverse forms of media play a key role in enabling representation, thus forging modes of communication. Through a focus on the role of media, this conference will explore the extent to which the latter bridges cultural differences in contexts of migration and facilitates intercultural dialogue.

Keynote speakers:
Iain Chambers, Professor of Cultural and Postcolonial Studies, Oriental University of Naples, Italy
Kevin Robins, Professor of Sociology, City University, London, UK

Further abstracts are sought which focus on a range of issues, both theoretical and empirical, which relate to: cultural diversity and difference, how media can mobilize societies and cultures, and the role of media in triggering migration, and connecting migrants to their homelands. This is an interdisciplinary conference. Contributions are welcomed from anthropologists, cultural theorists, economists, linguists, political theorists, sociologists, and anyone examining relevant questions.

Two events will follow the conference in which participants are welcome to participate:
– Roundtable discussion with Immigrant Press Journalists in Barcelona, organized in collaboration with Casa Asia on November 25, 2013
– Training workshop on PhD research methods organized in collaboration with CIDOB on November 27, 2013

The conference will take place at the offices of UNU-GCM, located at:
Sant Manuel Pavilion, Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site, c/ Sant Antoni Maria Claret, 167, 08025-Barcelona, Spain.
Please note that there is no financial assistance available for travel or accommodation.

Submission information:
Abstracts for papers should be of maximum 500 words, and sent along with a biographical note of maximum 150 words to: Tendayi Bloom.
Abstracts for panels should be of maximum 500 words. Prospective conveners should include a biographical note of maximum 150 words for each convener and should provide a list of questions the panel will address, with a short sentence about each panel member, where known. This should be sent to: Valeria Bello.
The deadline is 5pm CET Friday 18th October 2013 (response by 24th October).

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CFP Civic dialogue conference

CFP Civic Dialogue and Leadership Conference
Texas A&M, April 3-6, 2014

Texas A&M University

Civic dialogue is both a process and a product.  As process, it indicates how multiple groups and individuals engage in persuasion, conversation, and argumentation in the context of civil society and politics.  But as product, it is something to strive for through sometimes “uncivil” acts, often in the face of powerful opposition.  Thus, civic dialogue is at the same time a means of engagement and a desired endpoint.   The tension between process and product is particularly acute in contemporary political culture in which the proliferation of polarizing discourse in our public sphere and in organizations presents a challenge for politicians, citizens, and organizations who wish to take a leadership role.  But whether as process or product, civic dialogue always stands in relationship to acts of rhetorical leadership that mobilizes people to act in concert toward a common aim.  This conference will bring together rhetoric, leadership, and organizational communication scholars to explore and analyze civic dialogue and leadership in political and organizational contexts. Scholars will present papers on civic dialogue and leadership in different contexts including: democratic deliberation, social movements and protest, workplace democracy, corporate social responsibility, ethics and leadership practice, the presidency, and diversity and difference.

One goal of the conference is to draw together both established and junior scholars (including graduate students) who are interested in civic dialogue and leadership. Therefore, the conference will feature both plenary speakers and contributed paper presentations. Plenary and contributed papers and responses will be competitively selected to appear in a planned edited conference volume.  A second goal of the conference is to draw together a group of interdisciplinary scholars who are interested in civic dialogue and leadership; therefore the conference will feature the work of both rhetorical and organizational communication scholars. We are pleased to announce that Professor John Murphy will deliver Texas A&M University’s annual Kurt Ritter Lecture in Political Rhetoric during the conference.

Scholars interested in contributing a paper to the conference should submit a one-page abstract to:

Dr. Jennifer Jones Barbour
Department of Communication
Texas A&M University
4234 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843

Or email your submission (emailed submissions encouraged) Deadline for abstract submissions is December 15, 2013; notifications of acceptance will go out January 1, 2014; completed papers are due March 1.