On March 5, 2012, I had the chance to meet with scholars at two different universities in Taiwan. Drs. Jung-huel Becky Yeh and Pei-Wen Lee are in the Department of Speech Communication at the Shih Hsin University in Taipei. Dr. Yu-Sheng Li is part of the Department of Computer and Communication Engineering at the Ming Chuan University, with campuses both in Taoyuan and Taipei.
back: Drs. Li and Lee front: Drs. Leeds-Hurwitz and Yeh
We spent a delightful evening in Taipei eating local delicacies, and discovering common research interests as well as many potential future connections. I look forward to continuing the conversation with all three in the near future.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Between talks in Dunedin and Brisbane, I had a chance to visit the University of Melbourne and meet a few faculty members there. On February 15, 2012, I met with Dr. Ingrid Volkmer, Director of the Media and Communication program at the School of Culture and Communication there. In addition, I met with Prof. Nikos Papastergiadis, Professor in the same school. Both are extremely active scholars, producing particularly interesting research (follow the links provided for details). We found potential future connections, and I look forward to following up on the conversations.
The buildings at the University of Melbourne are like those elsewhere in the city in that they are eclectic in design, often combining multiple elements in ways I have not seen previously. A pleasure to see!
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz,Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On February 29, 2012, I presented “Intercultural weddings and the simultaneous display of multiple identities” to the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore.
My thanks to Dr. Vivian Hsueh-hua Chen for organizing the event, and to her colleagues and graduate students who showed up even though my visit fell during a break in classes. While there I had lunch with Dr. Chen and several members of her research team (Gina Cordero-Rahman and Zhou Qiongyuan), met her colleague, Dr. Brenda Chan, and received a tour of the outstanding media facilities at the School. (The photo above shows Drs. Chan, Chen, and Leeds-Hurwitz, as well as Gina and Qiongyuan. The one below shows Drs. Chen and Leeds-Hurwitz.) I walked away with lots of notes about potential connections to be made to researchers here, and look forward to continued contact in the future.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On February 24, 2012, I spent a day at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. My visit was sponsored by the School of Journalism and Communication, and included a formal presentation entitled “Interactional Resources for the ‘Problem’ of Intercultural Communication,” a lunch with faculty and graduate students, a data session on “Complex Constructions of Social Identity,” and a faculty dinner.
My thanks to Dr. Sean Rintel for organizing the entire event, and to Prof. Cindy Gallois for originally encouraging me to visit Brisbane. I met lots of new scholars, including Dr. Richard Fitzgerald, Dr. Shuang Liu, and Dr. Aparna Hebbani, and reconnected with Dr. Joan Mulholland, who created a quilted banner for the Language and Social Interaction division of the International Communication Association just as the division was being established in the mid-1990s.
One of the unexpected surprises was the extent to which the day’s activities were attended not only by faculty and graduate students from other Schools within UQ but also several from either nearby Griffith University and the Queensland University of Technology, and even a visitor from Linköping University in Sweden who was in town to present at QUT.
Over the weekend, there was time for a tour of the area with Sean Rintel and Cherie Gregoire, including some of the many parks in Brisbane, where the water dragons are so accustomed to humans they let us get very close for photos – this dragon is nearly 3 feet long and only about 2 feet away from me.
Ed Reynolds, a PhD student in the department, videotaped my morning talk. When the video is available, I’ll add a link here.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On February 7, 2012 I presented “Integrating new technologies into higher education pedagogy in the United States: What problems do they solve? What problems do they create?” at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand.
My thanks to Dr. Masataka Yamaguchi, of the Department of Languages and Cultures, for organizing my talk, Prof. Simon Ryan, Head of that department, for hosting a faculty lunch, and David Paterno, a graduate student in Communication, for managing the logistics of my stay.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Masataka Yamaguchi, David Paterno
For those who have not yet visited Dunedin, the entire area is just stunning. I had the opportunity to see albatrosses, blue penguins, fur seals, and had a possible wild kiwi sighting on campus at Knox College. There are high cliffs at the edge of the ocean both north and south of Dunedin, and in center city is Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On November 20, 2011 I presented “Learning to walk like a local: Applying Goffman’s theory of face to pedestrian behavior” at the National Communication Association convention held in New Orleans, LA. My co-author for the paper was Prof Yves Winkin, Director of the Institut Français de l’Education in Lyon, France, and we divided up the presentation. My thanks to Prof. Beth Haslett for organzing the panel, and inviting us to participate.
While at NCA I met with several members of the Advisory Board of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue (Profs Donal Carbaugh and Barbara Hines) as well as the Center’s Technology adviser, Dr. Brenda Berkelaar, and the President of the Council of Communication Associations, Prof. Patrice Buzzanell. I also met with dozens of scholars about the Center, participated in business meetings for several divisions of NCA and, of course, attended sessions. A number of those who participated in the NCA Summer Conference on Intercultural Dialogue in 2009 were at NCA, and I had a chance to talk with at least half a dozen. Several people made very good suggestions for additions to the website – so look for what’s new in the coming months!
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On November 8, 2011, I presented a talk entitled “Intercultural weddings and the simultaneous display of multiple identities” to the Escola Superior de Educação de Coimbra, Politécnico de Coimbra, Portugal.
On November 9, 2011, I presented another talk entitled “Constructing a community of practice around the scholarship of teaching and learning: The role of centers for teaching excellence” to the Centro de Inovação e Estudo da Pedagogia no Ensino Superior, also part of the Politécnico de Coimbra.
My host was Dr. Susana Gonçalves, Director of the Centro de Inovação e Estudo da Pedagogia no Ensino Superior (Center for Innovation and Higher Education Pedagogy) at the Politécnico. After the talk, Susana, her colleague Mark Carpenter, and Dr. Maria João Pinto Cardoso, the Vice President of the Politécnico, made time for lunch and followup conversation about future activities.
My thanks to Susana for inviting me to come to Coimbra, and to Mark and his wife Carmo, for offering me and my husband gracious hospitality at their home for our few days in Coimbra. Mark and Susana made time to give us the grand tour of the old city.
While in Coimbra, I had time to meet with Dr. Nancy Duxbury, a Canadian scholar I had not seen in several years, currently part of the Research Group on Cities, Culture and Architecture, a project of the Centro de Estudos Scoials at the Universidade de Coimbra.
I look forward to future connections with all of these colleagues.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On September 26, 2011, I presented a talk entitled “’A Curious Mixture of Passion and Reserve’: Understanding the Etic/Emic Distinction” to Prof. Christine Develotte‘s doctoral seminar at the Institut Français de l’Éducation, which is part of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France. Other faculty who participated in the discussion were Prof. Jacques Cosnier, and Dr. Nicholas Guichon. The presentation described a manuscript in preparation with Christina Hahn (a recent Master’s student at the University of Duisberg-Essen, Germany) and Prof. Jane Jorgenson (University of South Florida). My thanks to Prof. Develotte for organizing the event and to the students for being a great audience.
On October 13-14, 2011, I was one of the respondents to a panel at Journées d’étude ViSA, presenting a paper entitled “A Metacomunicative perspective on the ViSA group analysis of data.” I am also on the Conseil scientifique of ViSA (Vidéos de situations d’enseignement et d’apprentissage), so in addition to participating in the 2 days of activities, I was part of the group discussing next year’s event and other future plans. My thanks to Andrée Tiberghien for again including me in ViSA. Other researchers who are involved are too numerous to mention as this is a group of several dozen scholars across France, with additional participants from Switzerland and Spain.
On October 17, 2011, I presented “Integrating new technologies into higher education pedagogy in the United States: What problems do they solve? What problems do they create?” as a public lecture at IFE. Prof. Denis Bédard (from the University of Sherbrook, Canada) was the other international speaker. My thanks to Profs. Catherine Loisy and Eric Sanchez for organizing the event, and to the participants for excellent questions.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On September 21-22, 2011 I participated in the UNESCO Experts Meeting on Intercultural Competences at their headquarters in Paris. My thanks to Dr. Katérina Stenou, on this Center’s Advisory Board, for including me.
The goal of the meeting was to respond to a series of regional reports (prepared by Drs. Milena Dragicevic Sesis of Belgrade, Serbia; Alejandro Grimson of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Prue Holmes formerly of New Zealand but now in Durham, UK; Melissa Steyn of Cape Town, South Africa; and Magdi Youssef formerly of Egypt, but now in London, UK) and the synthesis of these prepared by Dr. Darla Deardorff (North Carolina, USA). The other respondents were Drs. Noureddine Affaya (Rabat, Morocco), Eric Cattelain (Bordeaux, France), Yolanda Onghena (Barcelona, Spain), Hanna Schissler (Berlin, German), and Yves Winkin (Lyon, France). On the second day we were joined by a large group of UNESCO Chairs on Interreligious Dialogue for Intercultural Understanding.
We were too busy working to take photographs, but the next day I had time to see the exhibit “Go West!” (a collaboration between artists in Paris and Texas) at UNESCO headquarters.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
On June 1, 2011 I presented a talk to a large group of mostly students, entitled “From Generation to Generation: Maintaining Cultural Identity over Time” at the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan.
On June 2, 2011 I presented a faculty workshop entitled “Writing the Social History of Language and Social Interaction Research.” Before this event we had a faculty lunch at a local restaurant, where my husband and I were introduced to traditional Okinawan delicacies. Pictured below are (back row): Professors Madoka Kanemoto, Katsuyuki Miyahira, Kenji Yoshida and (front row): Professor Hiroko Onaha, me and Professor Yasusada Uechi , all of the Department of Languages and Cultures at the University of the Ryukyus.
Then, on June 3, 2011 I presented a talk to faculty (although many students also attended), co-sponsored by the Okinawa Society for Foreign Language and Literature, entitled “Socially Constructing Communication.” My thanks to Prof. Yasusada Uechi , President of the Society, for serving as the connection to the group, and to Prof. Masuo Kataoka, Vice President, for making the introduction on behalf of the Society.
After the talk we had a faculty dinner, including Professors Madoka Kanemoto, Miki Shibata, and Katsuyuki Miyahira, as well as one student representative, Nina Arakaki.
My thanks to Prof. Katsuyuki Miyahira for organizing all of these events, for inviting my husband and me to his home for dinner with his wife, Yaeko, and son, Yuta, and for the extended day exploring Okinawa, including Ryukyu-mura and the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium.
Prof Miyahira, Prof Leeds-Hurwitz
Thanks are also due to Prof. Madoka Kanemoto for a tour on a different day to Shikinaen Royal Garden and Shurijo Castle, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. And to multiple graduate students: Samantha May and Yuko Naka for their guidance to local fabrics and shopping opportunities, and Yuta and Charlie for the airport runs.
Okinawa was the last stop in Asia, and it was a delightful ending. I look forward to continued conversations with many of the faculty and students I met there.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 