Category: Events

Coalition for Language Education: Going Local in Language Education (UK)

EventsGoing local in language education: Cities as sites for cross-sectoral connection, Coalition for Language Education, UCL, East London, UK, 28 March 2026.

Cities are multilingual.  At home, at work, in community life and across a range of media, people learn, switch & blend languages and ways of speaking in both routine and creative ways.  But can we do more in education to cultivate and capitalise on this linguistic energy and expertise? We can’t ignore rising xenophobia and hostility to difference, alongside declining provision in modern languages, massive underfunding in ESOL, overwhelming neglect in EAL and heritage/community languages, and the siloed fragmentation of language education more generally.  Even so, we have ‘Cities of Languages’ in the UK, and the DfE’s Curriculum & Assessment Report calls on “local authorities, multi-academy trusts and schools to explore the potential benefits of a coordinated approach in their local areas”.  So in what ways can cities serves as sites for regenerating language education?

This one-day event brings people together from schools, universities, adult education, community organisations and policy to consider how cities can act as spaces for language development and cross-sector collaboration. Through case studies, structured discussions and cross-sector dialogue, we will look at what it means to organise locally for languages, exploring the principles emerging for locally driven, inclusive and critically informed strategies for language.

U Pennsylvania: The Fabrication of Borders (USA and Online)

EventsThe Fabrication of Borders: Tailoring and Cartography in Early Modern Europe, lecture by Emanuele Lugli, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA (in person and online), 12 February 2026.

In early modern Europe, fashion and cartography shared far more common ground than is usually acknowledged. Popular costume books, much like geographical atlases, helped shape emerging ideas of nationhood, while maps disseminated notions of local dress across the world. Yet despite these shared aims, the connection between the two fields has gone largely unnoticed. This talk argues that this overlooked convergence is precisely where fashion, as we understand it, first took shape. Fashion is not simply the expression of the self through clothing, nor merely the perpetual recycling and trivializing of cuts; it is a specific mode of engaging with dress—one deeply shaped by early forms of nationalism.

U Pennsylvania: The Performance of Translation (USA)

EventsThe Performance of Translation: Journeys in Afro-Diasporic Women’s Modernisms by Rose (Rosie) Poku, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 27 January 2026.

Rose (Rosie) Poku (she/her) is a joint PhD candidate in Africana Studies and Comparative Literature & Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. She is pursuing two certificates in GSWS (Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies) and CETLI (Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Innovation) as well. Rosie earned her Bachelors of Arts from Smith College in 2022, where she graduated summa cum laude as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. Her research interests broadly lie in Black women’s diasporic and transnational feminist writings and performances of the early twentieth century. Rosie engages with Afro-diasporic texts written in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. Her work has been generously supported by organizations such as the Fontaine Fellowship, the Social Science Research Council, the Haskins Grant, and Penn’s Global Dissertation Grant. Rosie has a passion for teaching and pedagogy, and she is a recipient of the 2025 Penn Prize for Excellence in Teaching by Graduate Students.

UCL International Centre for Intercultural Studies Seminar Series: Intercultural Creativity (UK)

EventsUCL International Centre for Intercultural Studies Seminar Series: Intercultural creativity: Exploring the potential offered by intercultural creativity as praxis, Spring 2026.

11 Feb, 5-6pm Dr Gloriana Rodriguez Alvarez, Kings College, London
A World Where Many Worlds Fit: Indigenous Knowledges and Intercultural Creativity

18 March, 5-6pm Dr Jessica Bradley, University of Sheffield
Making and re-making everyday lives: Practitioner experiences in participatory arts and wellbeing spaces

7 May, 1-2pm Dr Cristina Ros i Solé, Goldsmiths, University of London
Beyond the glass-cabinet view of cultures: using objects to re-arrange the world

14 May, 1-2pm Prof Phan Le Ha, Honorary Professor, UCL IOE
Engaging Intercultural Creativity through Multiple Selves and Doors

In Conversation With
28 April, 5-6pm Dr Giuliana Ferri in conv. with Dr Ashley Simpson
Re-thinking the Collective and the Community in Interculturality

CMM Institute Webinar: What if We Didn’t Have to Agree? Preserving Relationships While Communicating Across Differences

EventsCoordinated Management of Meaning Institute Webinar: What if We Didn’t Have to Agree? Preserving Relationships While Communicating Across Differences, 10 December 2025, 11 am Eastern US Time (UTC-5).(Online).

In the middle of a holiday season, many dread the seemingly inescapable arguments, hurt feelings, and tension that can arise. With this in mind, Ilene Wasserman and Arthur Jensen will share creative, relational approaches to navigating conversations with loved ones about potentially polarizing and divisive topics. Together, with webinar participants, they will explore possibilities for finding coordination even without coherence.

In communication, each moment is a chance to practice curiosity and compassion- two foundational elements for the continued co-creation of better social worlds. Now, more than ever, each of us must understand our own ability and responsibility to act mindfully into our relationships.

In preparation for the webinar, they invite you to reflect on recent conversations with friends and family members where disagreement occurred. Please consider the following: (1) Where did the conversation start? (2) What did the conversation feel like? and (3) Where did the conversation end?

International House Association: Pathways to Peace: Lessons in Reconciliation (Hybrid)

EventsGlobal Forum Series: Pathways to Peace: Lessons in Reconciliation, International House Association, 2025-26.

The newly founded International House Association is pleased to announce the new Global Forum Series. For the 2025-2026 Global Forum Series, the theme will be Pathways to Peace: Lessons in Reconciliation. The Global Forum will convene leading thinkers, scholars, and practitioners to discuss one of humanity’s most profound challenges and greatest hopes: the ability to reconcile after conflict. Through this series, the audience will hear from diplomats, historians, philanthropists, and others who witnessed and shaped these turning points in history. They will also highlight the role of International Houses around the world in the reconciliation of conflict. Join these upcoming events to connect with a global community and participate in cultural exchanges. All events will be live-streamed for global audiences.

The first event was A Conversation with President Alar Karis, President of the Republic of Estonia on Innovation and Digital Transformation, Geopolitical Challenges, and National Security on NATO’s Eastern Border, held 27 October, at the University of Chicago. Future events include:

U Bergen: Africa-Europe Research Collaborations (Norway)

EventsAfrica-Europe Research Collaborations, University of Bergen, Norway (Hybrid), 3 December 2025. Registration deadline: 20 November 2025.

This event draws inspiration from the Africa Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations, with a keynote address exploring its vision and impact. Members of the Global Partnerships Working Group within the Coimbra Group will present collaborative examples from several European universities. The University of Bergen will present its own initiatives aligned with the symposium’s theme. In addition, there will be a separate session on collaboration with Sudan. The event will conclude with a panel debate on the future of Africa-Europe research collaborations.

This symposium is organized by Global Challenges, one of three priority areas at the University of Bergen, and the Global Partnerships Working Group of the university network Coimbra Group.  The event is organised in collaboration with The Southern African – Nordic Centre (SANORD) network at University of Bergen and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.

Taos Institute: Strategies for Opening Master Conflict Narratives (Webinar)

EventsStrategies for Opening Master Conflict Narratives, Pulsating Practices: Constructionism in Action, Taos Institute (Webinar), 5 November 2025, 1-2:30 EST.

With Sara Cobb (Director of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, USA)

Persistent conflicts, such as wars, the rise of fascism, political and social conflicts over colonialism, marginalization, climate change, race, etc., depend on “master narratives” that keep the parties prisoner to their own logics, their descriptions of histories, and their vision of possible futures. We see master narratives at work, constructing the world, from the local to the global level, in personal conflicts where families fracture over their ideological differences, in communities divided by race, in professional settings where “merit” seems to challenge “diversity” and vice versa, in political settings where “science” is in opposition to “belief,” and of course, in violent conflicts. Indeed, the more persistent the conflict, the more power master narratives have, to maintain the conflict by sealing themselves off from re-interpretation or evolution. From this perspective, conflict transformation or even conflict evolution depends on opening master narratives to new logics/descriptions.

This webinar offers a strategy for evolving master narratives via the development of “proximate narratives.” Drawing on case examples, we will define ”proximate narratives” and explore how they can function to open new pathways for conflict transformation. Finally, we will practice the development of proximate narratives in our own master narratives and explore our experience of this process, sharing insights, for our collective learning.

Taos Institute: Crafting Peace Through Autoethnography (Webinar)

EventsDialogue with the Author: Crafting Peace Through Autoethnography, Reflexive Pedagogies for Navigating Difficult Times, Taos Institute (Webinar), 24 October 2025, 12-1:30 EDT.

With Susan Riva (Switzerland),  Sheila McNamee (USA) and Robin Cooper (USA).

Crafting Peace by Susan Riva book cover

With a foreword by Sheila McNamee and an afterword by Robin Cooper—both scholars from the Taos Institute—the book Crafting Peace Through Autoethography: Reflexive Pedagogies for Navigating Difficult Times is grounded in a social constructionist perspective and offers a reflective framework for navigating complexity in higher education.

In this work, Riva introduces the Transformational Learning Model and feature students’ Transformagram Portfolios—creative, personal expressions of their transformative learning journeys. She also shares how her online courses provide a safe and supportive virtual space for accompanying students through deeply experiential and reflective processes.

At Creighton University, her conflict resolution course uses personal conflict narratives to connect lived experience with theoretical frameworks. Students craft story mandalas and engage with autoethnography as a social science method, deepening their understanding of conflict, identity, and personal transformation.

Taos Institute: Facilitating Participant Dialogues in Research (Webinar)

EventsFacilitating Participant Dialogues in Research, Pulsating Practices: Constructionism in Action, Taos Institute, NM, USA, (Webinar), 8 October 2025, 10-11:30 EDT.

With Norma Romm (University of South Africa) and Francis Akena Adyanga (Kabale University, Uganda).

The Taos Institute invites you to join this webinar where Norma and Francis showcase how, as professional researchers, they have worked alongside research participants with the intent that fruitful constructions can be dialogically generated via the research process. The examples will indicate how research participants can participate in reconstructing ways of living together in relation to their expressed concerns.

The research setting that will constitute the prime example in this webinar was Francis and Norma’s effort to intervene in peace-building between farmers and pastoralists in the context of land disputes in Northern Uganda. Through focus group facilitation, participants came to discuss new options for their co-existence and were appreciative of how the research process contributed to this.

The webinar will also refer to another example in Northern Uganda where participants in a community were distressed by the practices of certain foreign-owned companies and mobilized resistance. As part of their dialoguing around their (relatively successful) efforts, they offered re-constructions of the notion of “development”. Finally, Francis and Norma will point to research in South Africa exploring Indigenous practices for advocating food sovereignty (as a counterpoint to globally dominant narratives around “food security”).

The webinar will invite audiences to reflect upon (and discuss) their roles as professional or lay researchers in shaping social and ecological life.