Middle Tennessee State U: Intercultural Comm (USA)

“JobAssistant Professor of Intercultural Communication, Department of Communication Studies, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN. Deadline: October 30, 2019.

Seeking a colleague who is prepared to teach courses in the Culture and Social Influence concentration including Intercultural Communication and Diversity in Communication, as well as major core courses including Communication Theory, Introduction to Human Communication, Quantitative or Critical Methods, and Fundamentals of Communication (GE public speaking course). Secondarily, candidates who could also contribute to the Organizational Communication concentration, engage in social media research, and/or are familiar with digital and new media pedagogies are especially encouraged to apply.

Johns Hopkins U: Institutions of Democracy Under Stress (USA)

“JobOpen Rank Faculty, Institutions of Democracy Under Stress, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. Deadline: November 15, 2019, or until filled.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University seeks faculty (or nominations of faculty) for endowed professorships at the rank of Associate or Full Professor (soon-to-be-tenured Assistant Professors with exceptional records of scholarship can also be considered) in any discipline who focus on the institutional and organizational dimensions of democracy under stress, particularly as related to questions of civic engagement and inclusive discourse. We define these terms broadly and seek scholars from a range of disciplines, including but not limited to scholars who study the dynamics of states; state contexts; political, civic, social, and economic organizations and institutions; social movements; and social networks, as well as their role in shaping, interacting with, constraining, making possible, and challenging the realization of democracy in global contexts or the U.S.

The SNF Agora Institute is a new, $150M multi-disciplinary initiative that integrates research, teaching, and practice to strengthen global democracy by improving and expanding civic engagement and inclusive dialogue, and by supporting inquiry that leads to real-world change. Housed in the university’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the SNF Agora Institute at JHU will serve as a leading forum bringing together experts from a range of fields—including but not limited to political science, sociology, history, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and ethics. All SNF Agora faculty will be full members in a department at Johns Hopkins University and at the SNF Agora Institute.

NOTE: There are also current openings for faculty in Challenges of Multi-Ethnic Democracy, Race, Inequality and Social Cognition/Political Psychology. 

Monash U: Dialogue Research (Australia)

“JobMultiple positions for faculty, postdocs, and PHD students in Dialogue Research, The Laboratory for Dialogue Research, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Deadline: October 31, 2019.

The Faculty of Information Technology is establishing a new research group, The Laboratory for Dialogue Research (LDR) led by Professor Phil Cohen. The LDR has close partnerships with Monash’s new HCI Group, its renowned Centre for Data Science, the Engineering School, and with numerous universities in Australia and worldwide. Importantly, the plan is to engage with interested industry, philanthropic, and government partners on problem, data, and tool selection and development of scalable approaches. LDR’s Director is Professor Phil Cohen, an AAAI Fellow and internationally known pioneer in natural language dialogue, multi-agent systems, and multimodal interaction.

They cordially invite the interest of outstanding academics who want to join this world-class team to deliver the highest quality teaching and research that will shape the future of AI for conversational assistants, human-robot interaction, customer service, and many other application domains.

Multiple Faculty Openings in LDR are available at a Level B Lecturer (equivalent to Assistant Professor in North America), Level C Senior Lecturer (equivalent to Associate Professor in North America), and Level D Associate Professor (equivalent to Professor in North America) with a preference for expertise in the area of natural language processing (semantic parsing, generation).

Applications of interest from other areas of natural language processing or multimodal interaction that could contribute to dialogue research are also strongly encouraged. The successful candidate will join a rapidly expanding multidisciplinary group in the above areas. When applying, please indicate your area of specialisation.

For details, please download the Laboratory for Dialogue Research Flyer.

CFP Global Studies Conference 2020 (Canada)

ConferencesCall for Papers: 13th Global Studies Conference: Globalization and Social Movements: Familiar Patterns, New Constellations? Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 4-5 June 2020. Deadline: 4 November 2019.

The last decade saw an intensification of social movement activism across the world. In the Global North, widespread discontent with austerity following the 2008 financial collapse gave rise to the Occupy and Indignados movements. In the Global South, political struggles against neoliberalism have been articulated primarily as protests against its institutional embodiments, especially the World Bank and the IMF and their policies of structural adjustment. Other campaigns mobilized against political oppression (e.g., the Arab Spring), racism (e.g., Black Lives Matter), and sexism (e.g., Me Too). Meanwhile, the Tea Party Movement and now Alt Right have shaped activism on the political right. In some mobilizations, such as Gilets Jaunes in France, left and right-wing influences criss-crossed in often contradictory ways. The fact that all these groups are both manifestations of and responses to various aspects of globalization is nothing new. Earlier mobilizations, such as the global justice movement, epitomized by the Zapatistas in Mexico, also expressed global identities and used the technologies of globalization while challenging the dominant version of the process. As a matter of fact, social movements and international non-governmental organizations worked across borders even in the era when state sovereignty was rarely questioned and politics seemed to make sense almost exclusively in national terms. INGOs, whose number has increased exponentially from a few in the nineteenth century to tens of thousands today, are often viewed as indicators of the state of globalization, expanding rapidly when the global system is on an upward trajectory and declining in significance when globalization is on the defensive. This conference aims to explore those and other manifold and often contradictory relationships between social movements and global processes.

The CMMi Press: A New Initiative

“Publication

The CMMi Press will become the publishing arm of the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution.
CMMi Press

The Institute is committed to making better social worlds through paying particular attention to the quality of the communication patterns in which we participate. The CMMi Press will publish books that promote this approach with the intent of inspiring better communication practices for making social worlds we would all want to live in.

Their first publication, Making Better Social Worlds: Inspirations from the Theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning, has just been published. Robyn Penman and Arthur Jensen have written this book as a companion volume to the Cosmopolis2045 website and it serves as a fitting flagship for the new press promoting the making of better social worlds. Penman and Jensen are also planning a second volume on A Cosmopolitan Sensibility.

If you have a publishing idea or a manuscript in preparation that you think will fit the aims of the Press, please contact Robyn Penman, commissioning editor.

U Oulu GenZ Visiting Scholar Grants (Finland)

International GenZ visiting scholar programme, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. Deadline: 2 December 2019.

The GenZ profiling project introduces a new visitor programme that funds two forms of research mobility. First, its aim is to invite international and established scholars to spend a research period at the University of Oulu and take part in the activities of the GenZ project and the visitor’s host unit. Second, it offers Oulu-based researchers a possibility to visit universities and research institutes abroad.

The applicants’ research profile needs to be based on social sciences and humanities and integrally connected to the core themes in the GenZ project.

The length of the visit – for both incoming and outgoing visits – can be between two weeks and six months. The grants cover travel expenses and accommodation costs, excluding salary.

NOTE: Next deadline is May 31, 2020.

CFP Media Literacy Research Symposium (Portugal)

ConferencesCall for papers: 3rd International Media Literacy Research Symposium, Universidade Lusofona do Porto, Portugal. Deadline: 15 November 2019.

Media literacy is a growing field with a need for developing and increasing the research within it.   With each conference, we hope to shorten the present gap by filling it with works from current scholars, new researchers, graduate students, educators and others who have a vested interest in opening this field and moving it forward from all over the world.

Strand 1: Critical Media Literacy

Papers/Presentations in this strand will explore the growth of critical media literacy from various perspectives.

Strand 2: Disinformation/Civic Media Literacy

Papers/Presentations in this strand will explore the opportunities that media literacy provides for lifelong education in politics, public & private spaces exploring the notion of the active citizen and outcomes.

Strand 3: Digital Citizenship/Policy and Training

Papers/Presentations in this strand will explore creating media literacy policy in the area of digital citizenship, social media, Internet safety, cyberbullying and cybersecurity.

Kamali-Chirani: Does Intercultural Dialogue Matter?

“BookKamali-Chirani, Fatemeh. (2019).  Does intercultural dialogue matter? The role of intercultural dialogue in the foreign cultural policy of Iran and Germany. Berlin: Lit Verlag.

Fatemeh Hippler (birth name: Kamali-Chirani) examines intercultural dialogue as part of the foreign relations between Germany and Iran. She asks: “What role has intercultural dialogue played with regard to the foreign cultural policy of Iran and Germany towards each other, and why?” (p. 18).

Perhaps the most important quote from the book is this, from page 158, because it applies to all contexts, not just Iran-Germany exchanges:

It is necessary but not sufficient to offer dialogue; it is also necessary that the other side accepts to join the dialogue.

Kamali-Chirani first describes the foreign cultural policy of each country, and then presents details of a series of specific organizations and projects intended to further intercultural dialogue. In Iran, the most typical terms are “interfaith dialogue” and “dialogue among civilizations,” whereas Germany often uses “European-Islamic cultural dialogue.” This section is arranged by organization attempting dialogue, populated with quotes from the main actors. She gained remarkable access, up to and including the separate forewords by Mohammad Khatami (former President of Iran, known for promoting dialogue among civilizations as a goal) and Kurt-Jurgen Maas (former Secretary General, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations).

In the end, Kamali-Chirani concludes that “Intercultural dialogue was an instrument of political goals, not a goal by itself” (p. 198). Her final thought: “participants mostly agree that it was worth the effort, and that they should continue. This author, after spending five years of research on the topic, tends to agree.”

Georgetown U in Qatar: Director, Center for International/Regional Studies (Qatar)

“JobDirector of the Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University in Qatar, Doha, Qatar. Deadline: November 1, 2019 or until filled.

Georgetown University in Qatar invites applications for the position of Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS). Established at GU-Q in 2005 CIRS is dedicated to the academic study of regional and international issues through promoting dialogue and the exchange of ideas, research and scholarship, and engagement with national and international scholars, practitioners, opinion-makers, activists, and the wider community. To date CIRS has launched over 40 major research initiatives, published numerous books with university presses, and has established itself as a leading academic research center working in and on the Gulf region and the greater Middle East.

This is a senior administrative position at GU-Q. Candidates should be established scholars with outstanding academic credentials suitable for appointment as a senior core faculty member at GU-Q, including a distinguished record of scholarship and teaching, and a background in political science, international affairs, history, or a relevant social science discipline. In addition to full time directorship of CIRS, the candidate will have a reduced teaching load of 1 course per semester. Candidates must also demonstrate familiarity with the history and politics of the Gulf and the larger Middle East. Candidates with broad understanding of American Higher Education, and previous administrative experience as a department chair or as the director of a research program, institute, or center are particularly encouraged to apply.

U Missouri: Asst Prof in Identity, Diversity & Communication (USA)

“Job

Assistant Professor of Identity, Diversity and Communication, Department of Communication, University of Missouri, Colombia, MO. Deadline: November 11, 2019.

The Department of Communication at the University of Missouri invites applications to fill a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level beginning August 2020. The Department is interested in candidates who can contribute to and help build our Identity, Diversity, and Communication area. Applicants may have research and teaching interests in identity and communication, diversity and communication, intercultural or multicultural communication, communication and culture, intergroup communication, difference and disparities in communication, and/or other related areas. The Department is particularly interested in candidates with research interests that intersect with additional areas in the department: political communication, interpersonal and family communication, organizational communication, health and crisis communication, and/or mediated communication.