Category: Publication opportunities

CFP Professional Communication, Social Justice, and the Global South

CALL FOR PAPERS
Professional Communication, Social Justice, and the Global South
Guest editors:
Gerald Savage, Illinois State University, Emeritus Faculty, USA
Godwin Y. Agboka, University of Houston Downtown, USA

Professional communicators are working all over the world. They practice in business, industry, government, charitable non‐profit organizations, non‐governmental organizations, and intergovernmental organizations. And yet, nearly all of the research on international professional communication has focused on corporate contexts in the “developed” world. Consequently, international technical communication practice and research tends to focus on barely more than half of the world’s nations included in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Index. These are nations ranked as “very high” or “high” on the human development scale. Only a few nations ranked as “medium” receive much notice—China, Thailand, Philippines, and South Africa are the most prominent.

Many of the nations regarded as “low” on the Human Development Index are sites of transnational corporate activity, of which a significant amount involves various kinds of resource development of questionable benefit to the people of those nations. However, a number of NGOs throughout the world pay close attention to the unfair, unjust, and environmentally detrimental activities of exploitative transnational corporations among indigenous and marginalized populations. These NGOs’ work includes research, legal action, and extensive documentation. Many transnational corporations also document their development and other business activities in sensitive areas of the world, some of them for purposes of accountability for their efforts at corporate social responsibility, others for purposes of denying or whitewashing egregious activities.

Only a handful of studies in professional communication, published over the past fifteen years, have addressed these issues (Agboka, 2013a, 2013b; Dura, Singhal, & Elias, 2013; Ilyasova & Birkelo, 2013; Vijayaram, 2013; Smith, 2006, 2012; Walton & DeRenzi, 2009; Walton, 2013; Walton, Price, & Zraly, 2013). This is especially troubling, considering that a wide range of other professions have given extensive attention to their roles in development activities among unenfranchised populations—such professions as engineering, medicine, agriculture, economics, business management, computer science, and geography. Professional communication scholars and practitioners have taken great pride in the part played by communication professionals in all of these fields, but too little research/ scholarship in professional communication has kept pace with the global social consciousness these other fields have demonstrated for many years regarding the impacts of their work beyond the industrialized Global North. This special issue attempts to address this need.

For this special issue we seek articles, commentaries, teaching cases, and reviews focusing on research studies, corporate, NGO, or government documentation relating to fair practices, environmental and social justice, and human rights in what is variously referred to as the Third and Fourth Worlds, Developing Countries, or the Global South. “Global South” and “Fourth World” are terms intended to include populations that are not necessarily in the southern hemisphere and that also do not include only nation states. Thus, the terms can include populations within “First World” nations, including the U.S. We especially seek proposals from scholars and practitioners who are indigenous to Global South populations or whose work connects with or affects populations in the Global South. The issue will also include several interviews with practitioners who are working in or with Global South populations.

Suggested topic areas include, but are not limited to:
• Intercultural research that takes place in Global South contexts
• Localization and translation for audiences in Global South sites
• Intersections of globalization and localization, and their associated challenges
• Workplace practices that impact specific Global South contexts
• Ethics in the context of the Global South
• Corporate, NGO, or other organizations’ documentation practices in Global South
contexts
• Curriculum design perspectives that address Global South perspectives
• The complexities of cross‐cultural collaborations between Global South and Global
North team members or among teams distributed across Global South cultures.
• Crisis communication in the contexts of the Global South
• Social justice implications of technology deployment and uses in the Global South

Proposals to be developed into
• Original research articles of 5,000 to 7,000 words of body text.
• Review articles of 3,000 to 5,000 words of body text.
• Focused commentary and industry perspectives articles of 500 to 3,000 words of body text.
• Teaching cases of 3,000 to 5,000 words of body text (deadline for submissions of manuscript proposals is February 15, 2015).
Submission procedures:
• Cover page containing your name, institutional affiliation, and email address.
• Prepare the cover page and manuscript with 1.5 line spacing and Times New Roman, 12‐point font.
• 500‐word proposal for original research articles, review articles, and teaching cases; 250‐word proposals for focused commentary and industry perspectives.
• All submissions will be reviewed by at least two readers, whether you are submitting a research article, a review article, industry perspective article, or teaching case.
• Submit via email to Gerald Savage or Godwin Agboka
• Proposals should be sent as a .docx, .doc, or .rtf file attached to an email message with the subject line: “Proposal for Special Issue on Professional Communication, Social Justice, and the Global South.”

Schedule
• Submission deadline for manuscript proposals: February 15, 2015
• Notification of proposal acceptances: March 15, 2015
• Submission deadline for first drafts of full manuscripts: June 15, 2015
• Submission deadline for revised drafts of manuscripts: November 1, 2015
• Expected date of publication: February 28, 2016.
Journal Editors: Rosário Durão & Kyle Mattson
Website: http://www.connexionsjournal.org/>www.connexionsjournal.org
connexions • international professional communication journal (ISSN 2325‐6044)

References
Agboka, Godwin Y. (2013a). Participatory localization: A social justice approach to
navigating unenfranchised/disenfranchised cultural sites. Technical Communication
Quarterly, 22(1), 28‐49.
Agboka, Godwin Y. (2013b). Thinking about social justice: Interrogating the international in international technical communication discourse. connexions: international professional communication journal, 1(1), 29‐38.
Dura, Lucia, Singhal, Arvind, & Elias, Eliana (2013). Minga Peru’s strategy for social change in the Peruvian Amazon: A rhetorical model for participatory, intercultural practice to advance human rights. Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication and Globalization, 4(1), 33‐54.
Ilyasova, K. Alex, & Birkelo, Cheryl (2013). Collective learning in east Africa: Building and transferring technical knowledge in livestock production. In Han Yu & Gerald Savage (Eds.), Negotiating Cultural Encounters: Narrating Intercultural Engineering and Technical Communication (pp. 103‐121). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Smith, Beatrice Quarshie (2006). Outsourcing and digitized work spaces: Some implications of the intersections of globalization, development, and work practices. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 49(7), 596‐607.
Smith, Beatrice Quarshie (2012). Reading and Writing in the Global Workplace: Gender, Literacy, and Outsourcing in Ghana. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.
Vijayaram, Vaishnavi Thoguluva (2013). Learning curve. In Han Yu & Gerald Savage (Eds.), Negotiating Cultural Encounters: Narrating Intercultural Engineering and Technical Communication (pp. 61‐80). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.
Walton, R., & DeRenzi, B. (2009). Value‐sensitive design and health care in Africa. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 52, 346‐358.
Walton, R. (2013). How trust and credibility affect technology‐based development projects. Technical Communication Quarterly, 22, 85‐102.
Walton, R., Price, Ryan, & Zraly, Maggie (2013). Rhetorically navigating Rwandan research review: A fantasy theme analysis. Journal of Rhetoric, Professional Communication and Globalization, 4, 78‐102.

CFP Internationalizing Information & Communication Design

Call for Proposals
Special Issue on “Internationalizing Information and Communication Design”

Communication Design Quarterly (CDQ), the peer reviewed publication of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)’s Special Interest Group on the Design of Communication (SIGDOC) is soliciting article proposals for an upcoming special issue that will examine how aspects of culture, language, nationality, and globalization affect information and communication design in international and intercultural contexts. This special issue will be published in November of 2015, and the guest editor is Kirk St.Amant of East Carolina University.

SPECIAL ISSUE DESCRIPTION
Until relatively recently, the idea of designing interfaces, informational materials, and instructional content for international audiences was seen as an “extra” or additional process reserved for multinational corporations. Today, it has become a near imperative for almost any organization.  But developing effective materials for individuals from different nations and cultures is no easy task. Rather, doing so requires an effective knowledge of how individuals from different cultures and nations
– Use various technical and informational products
– Access and share information and ideas via different technologies
– Perceive and evaluate different aspects of information and communication design
For individuals working in the areas of information and communication design, these factors are central to developing materials that effectively meet audience expectations and are used as intended.

The question thus becomes: How can information and communication design be effectively extended to international contexts?

The entries in this special issue will seek to answer this question.  In so doing, the articles published in this issue will constitute a resource for examining and understanding information and communication design issues and practices in global contexts.

POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR THIS SPECIAL ISSUE
The guest editor invites proposals for papers on applied research or theory, case histories/studies, commentaries, teaching approaches, and annotated bibliographies that address issues and questions including
– How do aspects of culture, language, and national identity affect expectations associated with information and communication design?
– What theories, models, or approaches can help us better understand and address cultural factors affecting expectations of information and communication design in international contexts?
– What technological factors (e.g., access to the Internet, uses of hand-held devices, and perceptions of social media) do we need to consider in relation to information and communication design in international contexts?
– What constitutes “best practices” or “effective practices” for internationalizing information and communication design, and why are such practices effective?
– How should information and communication designers work with translators and localizers to create more effective materials for international audiences?
– What international legal or policy factors need to be considered (and addressed) when designing materials for users located in other nations?
– What kinds of research should information and communication designers do – and on what topics should their research focus – to better understand the expectations of users from other cultures and in other nations?
– How should – or can – information and communication designers expand ideas and practices associated with usability, user experience design, and user testing to develop effective materials for users from other cultures and in other nations?
– How should educators re-think or revise the teaching of information and communication design to better prepare students to create effective materials for international audiences?
Individuals are invited to submit proposals that try to answer these – or related – questions or ideas in order to further our understanding of how to expand information and communication design practices to global contexts.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Proposals should be between 250-300 words in length and are due by 1 February 2015.  Proposals should be sent to Kirk St.Amant

All proposals should include:
– The submitter’s name, affiliation, and email address
– A tentative, descriptive title for the proposed article
– A summary of the topic/focus of the proposed article
– An explanation of how the proposed topic/focus connects to the theme of the special issue
– An overview or outline of the structure of the proposed article (i.e., how the author plans to address the identified topic within the context of the proposed article)

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
The schedule for the special issue is as follows:
1 February 2015 – Proposals due
5 February 2015 – Decisions on proposals sent to submitters
5 April 2015 – Initial manuscripts due
5 May 2015 – Reviewer comments to authors
15 June 2015 – Revised manuscripts due
1 July 2015 – Final publishing decisions to contributors
November 2015 – Publication of special issue

CONTACT INFORMATION
Completed proposals should be sent to Kirk St.Amant
Questions about proposal topics or about the focus of this special issue should be sent to Kirk St.Amant

CFP Do-it-yourself Utopia

CFP: DIY Utopia

Across contemporary activism, art, and popular culture, there appears to be a flowering of utopian imaginings.  More self-conscious than past movements, today’s are often playful, whimsical, and ironic, but are still entirely earnest.  Artists create idealized maps of existing cityscapes, activists archive small, individual ideas for the future, while others generate crowd-sourced manifestos or grandiose mock-ups of worlds that do not yet exist.  All seem to have grown out of a similar Do-It-Yourself ethos and alternative culture.

The mushrooming Do-It-Yourself subculture is one that has developed largely in opposition to mainstream consumer culture.  It encompasses a wide variety of activities, from cooking, to crafting, to farming, leading to the growing visibility of anarchist knitting circles and underground supper clubs.  On the one hand, it is easy to dismiss the hipster preciousness around many such endeavors, but the DIY movement also has a political bent, positioning itself as an alternative to the dominant culture of conspicuous consumerism, corporate mass production, and ecological destruction.  It is this wider subculture that seems to have sparked the utopian imaginings that are the subject of the proposed collection.

These utopian projects take a variety of forms, from fine art to activism to viral video to open-source web collaboration.  Similar to the other D.I.Y. pursuits, their starting point is often a desire to fill in elements that one might feel are missing from mainstream culture or political life.  Far removed from the rigidly prescriptive utopian movements of the past, these projects tend to be characterized by a sense of play, a self-referential wink, or a desire for each participant to make it his/her own.  Utopia here may not be seen as ultimately attainable, but as an opportunity to pose the question “what if?”

In examining a number of individual case studies, this anthology will be positioned to consider a variety of broader questions:

*Does the trend represent evidence of political optimism and will, a feeling that if the world does not exist as one wishes, that one can begin to build it in miniature form?  Or does it represent a retreat from politics, as communities (and individuals) turn inward?

*How do these movements dovetail with or contrast the utopian/dystopian narratives produced by film and television?

*How do they overlap with or differ from past utopian movements?

*Ultimately, what does the phenomenon, taken as a whole, tell us about the contemporary moment?

If interested, please submit a 500-word abstract and short bio to Amber Day by December 21, 2014.  Notification of selection will be shortly thereafter.  Full articles are due by May 1, 2015.

Amber Day
Associate Professor
Literary and Cultural Studies Department
Bryant University

CFP Social Networking in Cyber Spaces by European Muslims

Call for Papers: Social Networking in Cyber Spaces: European Muslims’ Participation in (New) Media
29 May 2015
KU Leuven University, Belgium

Keynote Speakers:
*Vít Šisler – Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague, Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture, Managing Editor of CyberOrient, a peer reviewed journal of the virtual Middle East.
*Heidi Campbell – Associate Professor at the Department of Communication  and an Affiliate Faculty in the Religious Studies Interdisciplinary Program at Texas A&M University. She studies religion and new media and the influence of digital and mobile technologies on religious communities.[5] Her work has covered a range of topics from the rise of religious community online, religious blogging and religious mobile culture within Christianity, Judaism and Islam, to exploring technology practice and fandom as implicit religion and religious framings within in digital games.

Key words: Social Networks and Media, Social Movements, Networking, European Muslims, Transnationalism, Cyber Communities, iMuslims

The increasing growth of the Internet is reshaping Islamic communities worldwide. Non-conventional media and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming more popular among the Muslim youth as among all parts of the society. The new channels of information and news attract new Muslim publics in Europe. The profile of the people using these networks range from college students to Islamic intellectual authorities. Such an easy and speedy way of connecting to millions of people across the globe also attracts the attention of social movements, which utilize these networks to spread their message to a wider public. Many Muslim networks and social movements, political leaders, Islamic institutions and authorities use these new media spaces to address wider Muslim and also non-Muslim communities, it is not uncommon that they also address and reach certain so-called radical groups.

Much attention also has been given to the use of social media technologies and their ability to spark massive social change. Some commentators have remarked that these connection technologies, ranging from smartphones to Facebook, can cause revolutionary digital disruptions, while others have even gone so far as to suggest that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter may have incited the Arab Spring. During the Arab Spring or Revolutions, the role of social media as an important and effective tool that had a political force to mobilize people, has been commonly acknowledged. Zeynep Tüfekçi of the University of North Carolina quotes that, “Social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new sources of information the regime could not easily control and were crucial in shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success.” However, many scholars argue today that the reason of the revolutions were not social media, they also commonly agree that information dispersion, whether by text or image, was pre-dominantly managed through social media. Hence similar arguments were made in part of the Gezi Protests that took place in Turkey, in the late spring of 2013, where the protesters declared themselves journalists as they spread images and information through social media; such information they claim was censored by the mainstream media.

While many researches have focused primarily on the Internet that has played a role in Muslim radicalization, there is less emphasis on the Internet that is also being utilized to encourage Muslims to advocate for gender equality, citizenship and human rights within an Islamic framework, more generally. The social, political and cultural participation of Muslims via Internet open new discussions topics and research areas on Muslims living in Europe. Discussions groups, Facebook communities and all other cyber activism are interlinked with the debates on public sphere and citizenship. The never ending space of cyber activism transform the old debates on Islamic knowledge, authority, citizenship, Muslim communities and networks. The way that this transformation comes out is that young Muslims who are familiar with online platforms, use these spaces to enter debates and get a be-it informal space to present and represent their identities, ideologies, aspirations and even solutions. These platforms can offer the periphery voices to raise their experiences with stereotypes and marginalization. According to some scholars, bloggers and internet forums challenge the traditional media landscape by contributing to public constructions of Islam. The cyber space not only offers internet-natives platforms to argue about social problems but it also allows them to ask questions and find immediate and updated answers to problems concerning their own religious obligations and ethical concerns. Social media provides information accessible to Muslims all over the world, who can connect. It also provides them spaces to argue about belonging to a minority religion of a country they are a citizen of, and how to balance their cultural-religious sensibilities with their citizenship duties.

During this workshop we want to address the politics of identity construction and representations of Muslims in Europe through having a look at the updated mediascape based on but not limited by following headlines:
1. Muslim networks and movements in Western Europe : Formation of transnational communities
There are current debates about the links Muslims in Europe have with Muslims around the globe, and whether these links create a separate global Muslim identity in contrast to an integrated European identity. There is also the debate as to whether such links create a passage to radicalism. This section focuses on how Muslims in Europe “link” with other Muslims and Muslim groups across the globe. It looks into how Muslim networks across the globe influence Muslims in the West in terms of integration, social-political participation, education, etc. It also looks into how these groups influence each other, and how they reflect on issues concerning Muslim in Europe and across the globe.

On a second level it ask the following questions; how do communication technologies create a new transnational Muslim community? How are transnational Muslim communities regardless of ethnic differences created through the use of mass media and social media? How is Islamic discourse spread through mass media, how is an Islamic thought developed and dispersed through social (mass) media? How do virtual communities bring about social change? What are the dynamics between Muslim intellectuals, mass media, and knowledge dispersion? What are the relationships between diaspora’s and online networking?

2. Social networking and Muslims in the West
This section focuses on how Muslims connect online to learn more about their religion, for online dating/marriage, to share experiences of stereotyping/victimization/racism/islamophobia, to present/represent their ideology. It also looks into how through social media, Muslims create a space of debate, construct and share aspirations-imaginaries-products. How is consumerism among Muslims affected by shared images on these networks? How does the common sharing of certain video’s and texts, create a global common culture among Muslim youth?

3. (Social) Media and Participation: Muslims in Europe
This section focuses on how social media and the press influences political tendencies of Muslims in Europe. How do Muslims construct a sense of belonging and political responsibility in Western Europe, and does social media and the press have an effect on these phenomena? How does media create a common sense of awareness and how does this awareness in the global and local scene have an impact on their social participation? How do Muslim charity organizations function within the sphere of media and social media?

Tuition Fees
Presenters and participants are expected to pay the costs of their travel and accommodation. The organizers have a reduced prize from hotel ‘La Royale’ in Leuven.
The tuition fees to attend the workshop will be arranged as follows:
Speakers and delegates: 50€. The registration fee includes a conference dinner and refreshments.

Outcome
*A proceedings book of the workshop with ISBN code will be printed and distributed in advance of the workshop itself.
*Within six months or a maximum 1 year of the event, an edited book will be produced and published by the GCIS with Leuven University Press, comprising some or all of the papers presented at the Workshop, at the condition that they pass a peer review organized by the publisher. The papers will be arranged and introduced, and to the extent appropriate, edited, by scholar(s) to be appointed by the Editorial Board. Copyright of the papers accepted to the Workshop will be vested in the GCIS.

Selection Criteria
The workshop will accept up to 20 participants, each of whom must meet the following requirements:
– have a professional and/or research background in related topics of the workshop
– be able to attend the entire programme

Since the Workshop expects to address a broad range of topics while the number of participants has to be limited, writers submitting abstracts are requested to bear in mind the need to ensure that their language is technical only where it is absolutely necessary and the language should be intelligible to non-specialists and specialists in disciplines other than their own; and present clear, coherent arguments in a rational way and in accordance with the usual standards and format for publishable work.

Timetable
1. Abstracts (300–500 words maximum) and CVs (maximum 1 page) to be received by 10th January 2015.
2. Abstracts to be short-listed by the Editorial Board and papers invited by 20th January 2015.
3. Papers (3,000 words minimum – 5,500 words maximum, excluding bibliography) to be received by 10th March 2015.
4. Papers reviewed by the Editorial Board and classed as: Accepted – No Recommendations; Accepted – See Recommendations; Conditional Acceptance – See Recommendations; Not Accepted, by 20th March 2015.
5. Final papers to be received by 15th April 2015.

Workshop Editorial Board
Leen D’Haenens, KU Leuven
Johan Leman, KU Leuven
Merve Reyhan Kayikci, KU Leuven
Saliha Özdemir, KU Leuven

Workshop Co-ordinators
Merve Reyhan Kayikci, KU Leuven
Saliha Özdemir, KU Leuven
Mieke Groeninck, KU Leuven

Venue
KU Leuven University

The international workshop is organized by KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies. It will be entirely conducted in English and will be hosted by KU Leuven Gülen Chair in Leuven.

Papers and abstract should be sent to Merve Reyhan Kayikci.

For more information please contact:
Merve Reyhan Kayikci
KU Leuven Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies
Parkstraat 45 – box 3615
3000 Leuven

CFP Communication Yearbook 40

Communication Yearbook 40
A Publication of the International Communication Association
Editor: Elisia L. Cohen
Deadline: February 15, 2015

CY 40 is a forum for the exchange of interdisciplinary and internationally diverse scholarship relating to communication in its many forms. Specifically, we are seeking state-of-the-discipline literature reviews, meta-analyses, and essays that advance knowledge and understanding of communication systems, processes, and impacts. Submitted manuscripts should provide a rigorous assessment of the status, critical issues and needed directions of a theory or body of research; offer new communication theory or additional insights into communication systems, processes, policies and impacts; and/or expand the boundaries of the discipline. In all cases, submissions should be comprehensive and thoughtful in their synthesis and analysis, and situate a body of scholarship within a larger intellectual context. For CY 40, the editorial board also welcomes essays that advance knowledge and understanding of communication research methodologies and applications.

Details
*Submit manuscripts electronically via a Word attachment to Elisia L. Cohen, Editor.
*Submissions for CY 40 will be considered from January 1, 2015 through February 15, 2015
*Use APA style, 6th edition
*Include a cover letter indicating how the manuscript addresses the CY 40 call for papers
*Prepare manuscripts for blind review, removing all identifiers
*Include a title page as a separate document that includes contact information for all authors
*Following Communication Yearbook’s tradition of considering lengthier manuscripts, initial manuscript submissions may range from 6,500 to 13,000 words (including tables, endnotes, references).
*Incomplete submissions not adhering to the above journal guidelines will be returned to authors for revision.

For more information about CY 40 or this call for submissions, please contact Elisia L. Cohen, Editor.

CFP Translation and International Professional Communication

CFP Special issue of Connexions
Translation and International Professional Communication: Building Bridges and Strengthening Skills

Guest editors:
Bruce Maylath (USA)
Ricardo Muñoz Martín (Spain)
Marta Pacheco Pinto (Portugal)

Deadline for submissions: April 10, 2015. See the complete call for papers for additional details.

The globalization and the fast mobility of today’s markets—aiming to serve as many heterogeneous settings and audiences as possible—have posited a growing need for high quality products and optimal performance in nearly all areas of everyday life. Specialists in communication play an important, albeit often hidden, role in these processes. Translators and other international professional communicators operate as mediators to facilitate understanding across global, international, national and local contexts through diverse communication channels. Translating today often involves several agents with different roles, responsibilities and skills. This entails creative work, various innovative procedures, and collaborative networks in highly technological, distributed environments. All these agents can be seen as text producers with an increasing expertise in the tools and skills of their trades to find, manage, process, and adapt information to target audiences.

Despite disperse attempts at acknowledging the importance of approaching professional communication as translation or as involving translation-related skills, translation often remains invisible both in the literature and in the training of (international) professional communicators. The extant literature in Communication Studies that actually addresses translation usually tends to emphasize, and concentrate on, localization issues, and it often draws from functional approaches to translation as production of a communicative message or instrument.

In Translation Studies, on the other hand, there is an increasing awareness of the need to tend bridges to Communication Studies in research. However, more dialogue seems necessary to fully grasp the implications and commonalities in all areas of multilingual professional communication, not the least that they are usually ascribed peripheral roles in business, technical, and scientific endeavors.

The emerging figure of the multitasked professional communicator has brought translation as part of the document production process to a different level of discussion. It is drawing increasing attention to translators’ profiles and training as competent communicators and vice versa, thus showing that the role translation plays in international professional communication, and the role of international professional communication in translator training cannot be downplayed. This issue of the connexions journal seeks to build bridges of cross-disciplinary understanding between international professional communication scholars and practitioners and translation scholars and practitioners. It aims to foster debate around the role of translation as a special kind of international professional communication and also as an integral part of other (international) professional communication instances.

CFP Joy and Sorrow of Food

Call for papers
The Joy and Sorrow of Food: An American Story

Food sustains life. We eat to satisfy hunger, but hunger often reaches beyond the physical realm to emotional, ethnic, and cultural dimensions. Not only do we eat to fuel our bodies, we eat to celebrate, entertain, and to fill voids in our lives. We eat to comfort, to occupy time, and to experience variety. Since food is fundamental to all forms of life, it is a compelling, central point for investigations of issues ranging from privilege, identity, ritual, tradition, memory, and the body across time and place.

For this issue we seek diverse perspectives that investigate the joys and sorrows of food within United States populations that have been influenced and/or impacted Europe. We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary papers that draw from cinema, music, document, visual and material culture, history, literature, philosophy, and mass media.

The European Journal of American Culture (EJAC) is an academic, refereed journal for scholars, academics and students from many disciplines with a common involvement in the interdisciplinary study of America and American culture, drawing on a variety of approaches and encompassing the whole evolution of the country.

Articles should be 6,000 to 8,000 words, inclusive of endnotes. EJAC uses Harvard style. We can include unlimited black-and-white images and figures. If it is essential that your image or images be in color, please notify us. Please submit an abstract by January 1, 2015 to the editors below.  Manuscripts will be due on March 31, 2015.

Guest Editors for the Food Issue
Caryn E. Neumann, Miami University, 4200 North University Blvd, Middletown, OH 45042
Lori L. Parks, Miami University, 1600 University Boulevard, Hamilton, OH 45011
Jennifer P. Yamashiro, Miami University, 1600 University Boulevard, Hamilton, OH 45011

CFP Culture, Migration & Health Communication in Global Context

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Culture, Migration, and Health Communication in the Global Context

Editors:
Dr. Yuping Mao, Assistant Professor
Department of Media and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed, Associate Professor
Department of Communication, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Proposal Submission Deadline: January 15, 2015

Overview of the Book:
With the globalization of the world, there is increasing migration happening across geographic regions within a country or across different countries. The migrant populations keep some of their original cultures with them that influence their communication about health outcomes. Meanwhile, migrant populations are constantly exposed to and adopting cultural values and practices in their host countries or regions, which gradually alter their health related communication and behaviors. On the one hand, migrants’ health communication and behaviors have become an important social topic in many countries especially in North America and some European countries with a relatively long history of having immigrants from other countries. On the other hand, in countries like China, urbanization accelerates migration within the country, primarily with economically and socially disadvantaged population migrating from rural to urban areas. Both international and internal migration bring new challenges to public health systems. Our edited book aims to critically review theoretical frameworks and literature, as well as discuss new practices and lessons related to culture, migration, and health communication in different countries.

Scope and Recommended Topics:
We invite chapters that critically review the strengths and limitations of widely applied theoretical frameworks such as assimilation, acculturation, cultural adaptation, culture-centered approach, cultural safety, cultural competency, and intercultural sensitivity. The review of those theoretical frameworks should be embedded in public health and health communication contexts.

Taking a communication perspective, this edited book will examine how differences among different cultural communities relate to health communication at interpersonal, group, and societal levels. We are interested but not limited to chapters on the following topics:
* Health communication disparities among immigrant groups
* Health information diffusion among migrant groups
* Social support and migrant groups’ health communication

This edited book will also discuss how content and format of media in combination with other social factors such as social capital and social networks influence individuals’ health beliefs and behaviors. For instance, we are interested in receiving book chapters on the following topics:
* Comprehensive literature on media effects on migrants’ health behaviors
* Media coverage and public discourse on migrants’ health
* Media campaigns and migrant population

Health communication is always situated in certain social, political, historical, and cultural contexts. This book addresses a few important contextual factors that practitioners and researchers need to be aware of in research, practice, and policy making. As such we also solicit stimulating health communication cases on immigrants’ health to be included with in-depth analysis of their unique contexts.

Target Audience:
The target audience for this book will consist of upper-level undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members and practitioners in both communication studies and health sciences, as well as their respective allied fields such as media studies, telecommunications, journalism, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, medical science, nursing, public health, psychology/psychiatry, and medical informatics. In addition to speaking to an academic audience, authors are encouraged to write so as to provide valuable information and resources to practitioners, administrators, and policy makers working in the health sector.

Submission Guidelines:
Chapter proposals should include the following components:
1.  A title page with contact information for all authors;
2.  A 750-1200 word (including references), single-spaced  extended abstract clearly explaining:
*  The purpose and the contents of the proposed chapter; and
*  How the proposed chapter relates to the overall objectives of the book;
3.  A working bibliography – a list of potential resources for your chapter done in APA style (6th edition); and,
4.  A brief biographical statement (maximum 200 words) written in the third person containing the following information:
*  Current position and affiliation;
*  Highest degree held, field, and institution granting that degree; and,
*  Current area of research and/or current research project.

Submission Format and Procedures:
Please e-mail your title page, 750-1200 word extended abstract, working bibliography, and brief biographical statement (maximum 200 words) as a Word attachment (combine all files) to Dr. Yuping Mao and Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed no later than January 15, 2015. Full chapters should be between 6,000-8,000 words, including references.

Important Dates:
Chapter Proposal Due: January 15, 2015
Notification of Acceptance, and Chapter Submission Guidelines: March 15, 2015
First Draft of Full Chapters Due: July 15, 2015
Review Result Returned: September 15, 5
Revised Draft of Final Chapters (as needed) Due: November 1, 2015

NOTE: All written work should be prepared in English and conform to APA style (6th edition). Submitted work must not have been previously published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere. The editors will review all complete chapter proposals; however, there is no guarantee of eventual publication.

CFP Critical Thinking in Multilingual/Intercultural Education

Call for chapters
Abstracts by 15th Dec. 2014
Demystifying Critical Thinking in Multilingual and Intercultural Education
Edited by Fred Dervin (University of Helsinki, Finland) & Julie Byrd Clark (Western University, Canada)
To be published by Info Age Publishing in 2016
BOOK SERIES: Contemporary Language Education 


Following a very successful volume on reflexivity in multilingual and intercultural language education (Routledge, 2014), the editors of this new volume wish to tackle the burning issue of Critical Thinking (CT). CT is often said to be a key skill of 21st century education and is very much used as a mantra by educational institutions without always defining it. The literature contains hundreds of definitions of CT but there is no consensus on a single definition. Thus ‘my CT’ does not always correspond to ‘your CT’.

One of the most basic definitions of CT could be: “The ability to interpret, analyse and evaluate ideas and arguments” (Fisher, 2011). In a study on views held by academics about CT, T. Moore (2013) found six definitional strands: CT (i) as judgment; (ii) as skepticism; (iii) as a simple originality; (iv) as sensitive readings; (v) as rationality; (vi) as an activist engagement with knowledge; and (vii) as self-reflexivity. One thing is for sure: CT involves developing certain dispositions (probing), skills (cognitive and meta-cognitive) and habits of mind (Costa & Kallick, 2009). Some scholars are interested in the reasoning process behind CT, others the outcomes. Yet again there is no agreement in global scholarship and practice about its components or simply its definition.

Recently the idea of CT has been criticized for at least two reasons. First CT can feel too negative for some, leading to equating CT with mere adversely criticizing others. According to Fisher (2011) some scholars have thus proposed to call it ‘critico-creative thinking’ to insist on its positive, imaginative aspects. Second CT has often been criticized for being too Western, to contain too many Western norms. In their 2011 article entitled Critical thinking and Chinese university students: a review of the evidence, Jing Tian and Graham David Low discuss the apparent lack of Chinese students’ CT skills. They question the usual argument that Chinese culture does not allow ‘criticality’ and show that the students’ previous learning experiences have an influence on their level of CT. CT is often used as a way of comparing educational ‘cultures’ – some have more of it than others – thus leading to unfair ethnocentric and homogenizing judgments (Holliday, 2010).

How do we then define this contested disposition, skill and habit of mind in order to make it useful? Is it possible? Can we work from definitions of CT that avoid creating hierarchies between learners and their ‘cultures’? Whose conceptions of critical thinking could we use to do so? Can we once and for all avoid falling into the trap of giving the privilege of CT to the ‘Western world’? In other words can CT be demystified?

This volume concentrates on the context of multilingual and intercultural education. Potential authors are welcome to consider the following questions:
–       What constitutes a critical thinker in multilingual and intercultural education in the 2010s? What dispositions, skills and habits of mind are needed? (Students, teachers, teacher educators and researchers)
–       How can CT contribute to renewing multilingual and intercultural education? What alternative models of CT can be used to enrich multilingual and intercultural education?
–       Can CT be taught and learnt? If so, how and in what ways and under what kinds of conditions?
–       If CT exists then what is uncritical thinking in multilingual and intercultural education?
–       Can digital technologies help to promote CT in multilingual and intercultural education?
–       The issue of assessing CT is problematic. Yet can CT be assessed summatively or formatively in multilingual and intercultural education?

Interested authors please send a 300-word abstract to the editors Fred Dervin & Julie Byrd Clark by 15th Dec. 2014. Full chapters should be ready by 1st Sept. 2015.

CFP Communication and Ethnic Conflict

Call for Chapter Proposals on Communication and Ethnic Conflict

This is a call for submissions of proposals for chapters to include in a collection about Communication approaches to Ethnic Conflict. Chapter proposal submission requires a 500-1100 word abstract by October 31, 2014. If you have interest please contact the editors or submit a proposal online.

Editors:
Steven Gibson (Northcentral University, USA)
Agnes Lucy Lando (Daystar University, Kenya)

The book, titled Impact of Communication and the Media on Ethnic Conflict will be published by IGI-Global and will present scholarly research on various approaches to how communication studies, media studies and information systems tools can model, reflect and guide understandings of national and international experiences of ethnic conflict. The included chapters will be interdisciplinary, with cultural studies and media studies as two included frameworks. Proposals may focus on a variety of aspects, including (but not limited to):
*Issues in ethnic relations
*The role of identity in conflict
*Genocide case studies and analysis
*Racial and ethnic impacts on conflict
*Conflict resolution programs
*Religious or sectarian conflict case studies
*The effect of media on international relations
*The role played in conflict by information systems
*How media reflects ethnic differences
*Simulated approaches to conflict and conflict resolution
*Communication technology’s role in ethnic relations
*Case studies in ethnic relations