CFP Multilingual Awareness and Multilingual Practices (Netherlands)

ConferencesCall for proposals: Multilingual Awareness and Multilingual Practices (MAMP19), 28-29 October, 2019, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Antwerp, the Netherlands. Deadline: 31 August 2019.

The conference considers all aspects of the linguistic and sociolinguistic competences and practices of bi-/multilingual speakers who cross existing social and linguistic boundaries, adopting or adapting themselves to new and overlapping linguistic spaces. Organizers invite papers in all areas of research in bi-/multilingualism, whether or not linked directly to the overarching conference theme, including, but not limited to, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, clinical linguistics, education, bi-/multilingual societies.

Communication Styles (by Country)

Resources in ICD“ width=The Centre for Intercultural Learning has created a set of explanations of communication styles and other cultural information published on the Global Affairs Canada website.

These descriptions cover not only Canada, intended to be helpful to those traveling to that country, but dozens of other countries, presumably mostly for Canadians traveling abroad. Topics range from what is typically addressed in a first conversation with someone (for Canada, “what do you do?” meaning in terms of work or occupation) to relationship-building (“meals are good spaces for building rapport”).

The Centre for Intercultural Learning is part of the Canadian Foreign Service Institute of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.

Creatour: Creative Tourism Dynamics (Portugal)

ConferencesCREATOUR 3rd International Conference: Creative Tourism Dynamics: Connecting Travellers, Communities, Cultures and Places, October 23-25, 2019, Faro, Portugal. Registration open until September 15.

CREATOUR’s third International Conference, Creative Tourism Dynamics: Connecting Travellers, Communities, Cultures and Places will include Charles Landry(UK), Jafar Jafari (USA/Italy), Greg  Richards (Netherlands), Alexandra Gonçalves (CinTurs – UAlg, Portugal) and Nancy Duxbury (CES – UC, Portugal), as keynote speakers. Also noteworthy are the creative tourism showcase, with the participation of the CREATOUR pilots; the public screening of the CREATOUR documentary (director: Nuno Barbosa); and the creative experience with social dinner; among other activities. You can also participate in the post-conference activity “‘Married’ maize porridge: from market to table”, on October 26th, organized by Tertúlia Algarvia (CREATOUR pilot) and activities organized by Loulé Criativo.

Ruins by Steven Darian

Guest Posts

Ruins: A guest post by Steven Darian.

Darian writes: “If you really want to understand another culture, you must immerse yourself in it, especially if that other culture existed long long ago. You must feel yourself into the life, even if it is from a thousand years ago.

Here are a few places I’ve been to and have tried to feel my way into the soul of: the fabled city of Gaur, where the Ganges River joins the Brahmaputra, on its journey down to Calcutta, and the famous clay soldiers of Xi’an. I’ve called the piece RUINS.”

These pieces are from Darian’s forthcoming book The Wanderer: Travels & Adventures Beyond the Pale, appearing fall 2019 and published by Linus Learning.

Read the entire excerpt.

SDSU: Asst Prof of Communication, Differences & Disparities (USA)

“JobAssistant Professor of Communication, Difference, & Disparities, School of Communication, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA. Deadline: October 1, 2019.

The School of Communication at San Diego State University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position specializing in Communication, Difference, and Disparities at the rank of Assistant Professor, to begin Fall 2020.

The selected candidate will demonstrate expertise in the study of communication, difference, and disparities particularly concerning historically marginalized groups. The selected candidate will be responsible for teaching related courses such as Intercultural Communication and others addressing difference and disparities at the undergraduate and graduate level. Also, the selected candidate will contribute to at least one of the research centers or institute housed within the School of Communication (i.e., Center for Communication, Health, and the Public Good; Center for the Study of Media and Performance; and Institute for Dialogue and Social Justice).

U Oulu Postdocs: Smart Communication (Finland)

PostdocsTwo 2-year postdoctoral researcher positions in the project Smart Communication: The situated practices of mobile technology and digital literacies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Finland. Deadline: 25 September 2019.

The ”Smart Communication” project is interested in mundane technology use and possible changes in social skills brought about by new communication technologies. Based on video recordings and multimodal conversation analysis, it suggests an empirical and micro-analytic approach to the situated use of mobile technologies (smartphones, tablets, etc.) in everyday face-to-face encounters. The project aims at the comparison of two different stages of digital socialization, i.e., deep digital socialization (young adults), and late digital socialization (elderly adults), in order to grasp possible age-related differences in technological skills and practices, as well as to describe how people engage with new technologies, regardless of their age or culture.

The successful applicants are invited to develop a research project focusing on everyday uses of mobile devices and related social practices in various types of face-to-face encounters. In close collaboration with the team members (currently the principal investigator, Florence Oloff, and one doctoral researcher), the applicants will contribute to the systematic study of linguistic, embodied and material resources that participants mobilize when using mundane technologies in co-presence. In the spirit of a cross-generational and cross-linguistic approach, the project team is to build up a comparable data set. Therefore, the postdoctoral researchers’ projects will ideally complement the already ongoing research as regards specific age groups and/or languages (currently, the project comprises one ongoing doctoral dissertation on young adults / Russian).

CFP Cities as Communicative Change Agents

“PublicationCall for Chapters: Urban Communication Reader vol. IV – Cities as Communicative Change Agents, co-editors: erin daina mcclellan (Boise State University), Yongjun Shin (Bridgewater State University), Curry Chandler (University of Pittsburgh). Deadline: September 30, 2019.

The editorial team seeks contributors to join Urban Communication Reader IV: Cities as Communicative Change Agents. This edited volume continues the trajectory established by previous Urban Communication Readers in assembling communication perspectives on issues related to urban dynamics, public life, and space and place scholarship. Editors welcome chapter proposals employing any research methodology or theoretical framework.

Change is a defining aspect of the urban condition. As cities face unique challenges, they attempt to evolve, adapt, and lead the world into an uncertain future, especially as the age of artificial intelligence and other digital technologies attempt to make cities more “efficient.” Today, the world is facing climate change, wealth inequality, housing crises, food shortages, and global mass migration; cities are at the heart of these problems and their solutions. Thus, urban communication research continues to function in proposals for urban change that remain both important and salient. Urban communication scholars are well-poised to examine both these change initiatives and the crises such changes continue to address.

ACLS Fellowships and Grants

2019-20 ACLS Fellowship and Grant Competitions now open. Deadlines: various, by program, starting September 25, 2019.

ACLS has announced the opening of their 2019-20 fellowship and grant competitions. Information about this year’s programs is available online, and the online application system is now accepting applications for many of these fellowship and grant opportunities.

ACLS offers programs that promote the full spectrum of humanities and humanistic social science research and that support scholars from the advanced graduate student level through all stages of the academic career.

CFP Communicating Across Differences

“PublicationCall for chapters: COMMUNICATING ACROSS DIFFERENCES: An Anthology of Intercultural Communicative Practices in the 21st Century. To be edited by Lena Chao & Cynthia Wang. Deadline: September 15, 2019.

In recent years, our society has become increasingly divisive socially, culturally, politically, and geographically. Just in the US alone, we have seen a rise in conflicts based on differing as well as emerging identities, political views, cultural origins, nationalities, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Chao and Wang are asking for essays and research articles/chapters that address the ways in which intercultural communication seeks to understand communicative practices and strategies between different and uniquely situated groups of individuals and communities. What are the potentials and limitations of intercultural communication practices and rhetoric as different people from different cultures, backgrounds, and sociopolitical understandings attempt (or not) to bridge divides and understand each other? More specifically, we are interested in how intercultural communication research intersects with a wide array of concepts including (but not limited to):
– Race, race relations, and power
– Immigration
– Nationality
– (Dis)ability
– Gender and sexuality
– Religion
– Ethnic identity
– Intergroup conflict
– Media representation and stereotypes
– Social media and digital cultures
– Social movements

Please submit a 500-word abstract to Cynthia Wang by September 15th, 2019. Full drafts will be due by February 1, 2020. If you have any questions, please feel free to email her.

CFP Monolingualism & Multilingualism (Netherlands)

ConferencesCall for Papers: AILA 2020 (World Congress of Applied Linguistics) Symposium: S169: Tensions between monolingualism and multilingualism across university contexts, 9-14 August 2020, Groningen, The Netherlands. Deadline: September 16, 2019.

Organizers Maria Kuteeva (Stockholm University), Niina Hynninen (Helsinki University) and Kathrin Kaufhold (Stockholm University) invite submissions to two half-day sessions focusing on two major themes:

1) Discourses of monolingualism and multilingualism, and
2) Stakeholders’ perceptions of monolingualism and multilingualism.

The symposium aims to explore language perceptions and practices in multilingual university settings focusing on:
• tensions between discourses of monolingualism versus multilingualism;
• the dialectics between perceiving and experiencing languages as separable objects and translingual practices; and
• language-regulatory mechanisms and practices involving different stakeholders.

NOTE: There are another 16 symposia planned for this conference on various aspects of multilingualism.