Center for Intercultural Dialogue

CFP Conflict Mediation and Leadership

Call for Papers
Conflict Mediation and Leadership: Critical Reflections on Management and Banal Culturalism
for Volume 7, Studies in Intercultural Mediation, Peter Lang Publishers, Frankfurt
Editors: Dominic Busch and Claude-Hélène Mayer

Do mediation and leadership go together? And if they do, how do they?

During the past years, the discourse in mediation sciences and practices turns increasingly to the question how mediation is and can be used in management and leadership contexts. Research and popular publications do not only see mediation as an exclusive practice in managing, resolving and transforming conflicts, but also as a tool which can be used in managing and leading individuals, employees and organisations. Some voices seem to view concepts of mediative leadership or management-by-mediation as the new and future concepts of leading people and organisations. Other voices are highly critical that this is possible. Hardly any scientific research exists on mediation, management and leadership, their interrelationships, models, theories and practices.

In parallel, mediative strategies are frequently considered as particularly suited for a constructive management of conflict in intercultural settings. Traditionally, research on intercultural mediation has tended to rely on the assumption that people from different cultural backgrounds will prefer different modes of disputing as well as managing conflicts. More recently, critical scholars have pointed out that cultural research on these premises is based on Western ethnocentric assumptions shaping even Non-Western cultures according to the West’s ethnocentric imaginations of what is to be seen as the cultural other. Earlier research that now is frequently judged as culturalist had tended to over-generalize and to interpret anything that had been emerged in research on the basis of pre-fabricated cultural assumptions. This tendency can be found in people’s everyday discourse in Western societies, too: Here, people from other countries are consequently interpreted on the background of their assumedly foreign and different culture. What here can be termed as culturalizations in fact must be seen as an act of systematic and blurred discrimination and even racism. Leaders in international organizations here have to face the challenge of deconstructing culturalist organizational discourse – in conflict management in particular. Conditions of a constructive management of culturalisations can be subsumed under the notion of intercultural sustainability.

Volume 7 of Studies in Intercultural Mediation aims at advancing international research, practice and development of mediation theory and practice in the context of leadership. The purpose of this volume is to provide new insights and ideas into theories, practices, methods and techniques of mediation and leadership in the face of discursive culturalizations and the responsible management of cultural affiliations. It aims at contributing to the deeper understanding of conflict resolution processes in individual, cultural, organisational and societal leadership contexts.

We hereby invite abstract/chapter submissions that relate to the theoretical, empirical and practical exploration of mediation and leadership from various cultural perspectives. Authors are invited to contribute to theory, model building and practice regarding mediation and leadership in culturalist perspectives. Questions we would like to tackle in this volume are – but are not limited to – the following:
*What is the basic understanding of mediation and leadership?
*How can processes of culturalization and its responsible management in mediation and leadership be described?
*What mediation, management and leadership theories and practices apply?
*How can the concept of intercultural sustainability narrowed and elicited in regard to mediative leadership?
*What forms of mediative leadership may emerge in the lights of critical cosmopolitanism?
*Which concepts do exist in leadership with regard to conflict resolution and mediation?
*How does mediation theory and practice fit with management and leadership theories and practice, such as participative, servant, autocratic, spiritual, or charismatic leadership?
*What does empirical mediation and leadership research say in terms of the connection of these concepts in various cultural contexts?
*How do concepts such as mediative leadership or management-by-mediation contribute to the discourses on mediation, leadership and management?
*Which opinions exist with regard to the interlinkages of mediation and leadership in theory and practice.

A publication of the planned volume is scheduled for August 2016. Contributors with proposals and works in progress aiming for publication are welcome to contact the editors.

Please submit an abstract of a max. of 250 words until 15 September 2015.
Submissions will be reviewed and feedback will be provided on 1 November 2015.
Upon invitation, full articles should be submitted until 1. March 2016. Articles should not exceed 6.000 words in length excluding references.

The official language of this volume is English. Please use the reference system according to the Harvard Style. Please send your abstract until 1 August 2015 to one of the editors:
Prof. Dr. Dominic Busch, Universität der Bundeswehr, München
Dr. Claude-Hélène Mayer, University of South Africa

U.S. Mission to the European Union Funding Opportunity

The U.S. Mission to the European Union (USEU) is soliciting proposals for projects aimed at increasing understanding of U.S. foreign policy and economic priorities related to the EU; supporting U.S. goals of advancing economic growth in both regions and worldwide; and furthering U.S.-EU understanding and cooperation on our shared cultural, political and economic values, particularly democracy, rule of law, and human rights. USEU will award several cooperative agreements for projects to be carried out between September 2015 and December 2016. Section I: Funding Opportunity Description The U.S. Mission to the European Union (USEU) Public Affairs Section is soliciting proposals for projects aimed at increasing understanding of U.S. foreign policy and economic priorities; supporting U.S. goals of advancing economic growth in both regions and worldwide; and furthering U.S.-EU understanding and cooperation on our shared cultural, political and economic values, particularly democracy, rule of law, and human rights. Applicants should be legally recognized non-profit, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), think tanks, or academic institutions that comply with U.S. and EU requirements and have a proven track record of developing and implementing programs in the EU environment.

Sponsor: United States Department of State (DOS), Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Closing Date for Applications: Jul 10, 2015
Estimated Total Program Funding: $180,000
Award Ceiling: $60,000
Award Floor: $10,000

CFP Audiovisualtopia: A Conference on the Contemporary Screen Scene (Madrid)

Audiovisualtopia: A Conference on the Contemporary Screen Scene
Hosted by Saint Louis University – Madrid, Spain

CALL for PAPERS: One hundred twenty years after the Lumiere Brothers’ Arrival of a Trainat Ciotat Station / L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat and about 60 years after the insinuation of television into living rooms across the industrialized world, contemporary societies are saturated with audiovisual culture. More recently, the rise of widely affordable techno-substrates for production (digital photography) and exhibition (youtube, proliferating film festivals) are clearly enabling toward the “democratization” of audiovisual sophistication, such that the committed college sophomore can readily produce polished short films. In other words, there is much to celebrate!

In this milieu, one may also ask whether “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – or whether we are imbibing from the proverbial “old wine in new bottles”. That is, even as more audiovisual material is now produced in more places with more participants, film and TV (as industries, as texts) continue to be contested on the terrain of whether they largely challenge or affirm the prevailing status quo. The conference seeks to assess where we are now in a world awash with moving/narrativized images in which everyone (“everyone”) participates as producer and audience. Beyond the celebratory impulses, where are the continuities and discontinuities with the past as concern production and reception of audiovisual materials? What transformative politics are enabled, suppressed, or ambiguated in the current environment vis-à-vis film, TV and new media? The conference (re)considers where the pillars of screen studies (production, promotion, genre, stardom, auteurs, identity) are now situated for the ostensible disruptions of the contemporary milieu.

Specific areas of interest to the conference:
-Identity and Film/TV
-New Technological Substrates (for Production/Distribution/Reception)
-Festival & Award Culture
-World/Nation/Region on Screen
-Documenting Reality
-Short Films
-Co-production
-Screen Pedagogy
-Political Economy of Film & TV
-Genre Benders
-Auteurism
-Stardom
-Promotion of Audiovisual Material
-Fans

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Núria Triana Toribio, University of Kent, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT SPECIFICATIONS: 150-250 words. Include (A) Name(s) & Affiliations of Authors(s) and (B) 5 Keywords
CONFERENCE EMAIL ADDRESS: screen_studies@yahoo.com
DUE DATE for ABSTRACTS: Saturday 27 June 2015

STEERING COMMITTEE: The committee empanelled to judge the “Audiovisualtopia” conference abstracts consists of the following members: Christopher A. Chávez (University of Oregon at Eugene, USA); Brian Michael Goss (Saint Louis University-Madrid Campus, Spain); Mary Rachel Gould (Saint Louis University, USA); Pamela Rolfe (Saint Louis University-Madrid Campus, Spain); Arne Saeys (University of Antwerp, Belgium)

Key Concept #67: Rhizome by Fay Yokomizo Akindes

The next issue of Key Concepts in intercultural Dialogue is now available. This is KC67: Rhizome by Fay Yokomizo Akindes. As always, all Key Concepts are available as free PDFs; just click on the thumbnail to download.

Akindes, F. Y. (2015). Rhizome. Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 67. Available from https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/publications

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue publishes a series of short briefs describing Key Concepts in intercultural Dialogue. Different people, working in different countries and disciplines, use different vocabulary to describe their interests, yet these terms overlap. Our goal is to provide some of the assumptions and history attached to each concept for those unfamiliar with it. Prior concepts are available on the main publications page. As there are other concepts you would like to see included, send an email to the series editor, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. If there are concepts you would like to prepare, provide a brief explanation of why you think the concept is central to the study of intercultural dialogue, and why you are the obvious person to write up that concept. Feel free to propose terms in any language, especially if they expand our ability to discuss an aspect of intercultural dialogue that is not easy to translate into English.

CFP IJOC (Un)civil Society in Digital China

Call for Proposals
International Journal of Communication (IJoC)
Special Journal Issue – (Un)civil Society in Digital China

Special Editors
Min Jiang (Ph.D.), Associate Professor of Communication Studies, UNC, Charlotte, USA

Ashley Esarey (Ph.D.), Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada

Rationale
Civil society’s role in furthering democratization and the development of a public sphere has long attracted scholars whose work has traced the historical roots of civil society in China and celebrated its emergence offline and online. While decades of economic reforms have empowered myriad civil society organizations, volatile contention has arisen among social groups along ideological, class, ethnic, racial and regional fault lines. Uncivil exchanges, amplified by the Internet and social media, often work at cross purposes and fail to produce consensus or solutions to public problems. These disputes, and the underlying social/political/cultural schisms, threaten to undermine constructive citizen engagement and the promise of civil society in China. They also challenge the notion of a unified civil society standing in solidarity against a monolithic, authoritarian state.

Consider the following examples of new sociopolitical contention:
o The Internet flame war between Han Han and Fang Zhouzi that delegitimized the notion of “public intellectual” in China
o Left-Right debate among China’s intellectual communities that spill over into street brawls
o Vigilantism and breaches of privacy (i.e., instances of “human flesh search engine” and the Guo Meimei Red Cross scandal)
o Online conflicts between “haves” and “have-nots” amidst extreme inequality
o Virtual contention between Han and ethnic minorities over the status of Tibet and Xinjiang
o Racial discourse on mixed-race Chinese and immigrants
o Clashes over Taiwan’s “sunflower movement” expressed on the Internet
o Divergent online opinions about the “umbrella movement” in Hong Kong

This special section invites contributors to unpack the multilayered, multidimensional reality and contradictions that define the Chinese Internet, focusing on the big-picture ramifications of online contention. With a population of nearly 650 million, Chinese Internet users are more diverse than the tech-savvy, liberal elites who first went online two decades ago. The groups active online today include politically conservative, nationalistic, apathetic, and even reactionary individuals. They also evince complicated attitudes towards the state, business and other demographic segments. The complex make-up of Chinese civil society and the nature of its self-representation thus challenge, on the one hand, an idealized notion of civil society that is independent from the private sphere, government and business, and on the other, the implicit assumption prevalent in Chinese Internet studies of a liberal subject demanding social justice, media freedom and political reform.

Questions for contributors:
o What are the characteristics of Chinese civil society? What is its potential or limitations? Does the proliferation of the Internet in China necessarily empower civil society in China? Is the opposite possible?
o Is civil society always civil? Can it be uncivil, fractious and even reactionary? How does the Chinese Internet amplify or mitigate (un)civil tendencies? To what extent is online public debate or collective action becoming more fragmentary, working at cross purposes, or resulting in “echo chamber” effects and polarization? Do nationalistic, jingoistic and even reactionary forces overwhelm and dominate “civil” discourse?
o Are the “uncivil” tendencies of the Chinese Internet inevitable in a society composed of increasingly diverse groups? To what extent do commercial and state institutions influence uncivil tendencies online through intervention or even manipulation? What roles do powerful Internet businesses and elite personalities play?
o Under what circumstances might incivility online prove advantageous for political or social change?
o What evidence do we have for (un)civil society in China? Examples might include the formation of informal groups and formal organizations, discourses, and their intersection with collective action, social movements, and other social behavior.

Contributions to this special section will map a spectrum of key actors, issues, and orientations of a contentious civil society that has been submerged under a larger body of research on China and established democracies that assume state-society confrontation and fail to explore intra-societal tensions. Collectively, the contributions promise to produce a theoretically-interesting and empirically rich body of work that expands and deepens Chinese Internet research dominated by work focused on such topics as Chinese Internet censorship and propaganda, online activism, civic associations, deliberation and online culture. Insights generated from this special issue will in turn inform and advance research on civil society by debating its essence and examining the conditions conducive or unfavorable to its growth, with implications going beyond China. Although contributions will emphasize what polarizes Chinese society and sometimes seem to tear it apart, we welcome contributions that analyze the prospects for rising above incivility, bridging sociopolitical schisms, and building consensus without compromising self-expression and personal security.

Affiliated Conference
We encourage interested contributors to attend the 13th Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC) that includes as its theme “(un)civil society in digital China.” The conference will be held at the University of Alberta, Canada on May 27-28, 2015. The deadline for submitting paper abstracts (400 words) for the conference is February 15, 2015.

Proposed Schedule for IJoC Submissions
Abstract Deadline July 1, 2015
Notice of Abstract Acceptance August 1, 2015
Full Paper Deadline January 1, 2016

Paper Guidelines
o Abstracts submitted for pre-screening should be less than 500 words. Please send your abstract to Min Jiang and Ashley Esarey.
o Submitted papers will go through double-blind peer review.
o The maximum word count is 9,000 words (including the abstract, keywords, images with captions, references, and appendices, if any). Submitted full papers are not guaranteed acceptance.
o Formatting of the special section follows Author Guidelines of the International Journal of Communication (IJoC). Articles will be returned to authors if not APA (6th edition) compliant.

CFP Research About Communication

CALL FOR PAPERS
Research about Communication: History, current situation and prospective
Special issue of DISERTACIONES: Anuario Electrónico de Estudios en Comunicación Social
Edited by Manuel Martínez Nicolás (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain) and Miguel Vicente Mariño (Universidad de Valladolid, Spain)

Deadline for submitting full articles: 15/10/2015

The scientific research of communication has experienced during the last 25 years a pronounced expansion. During this period, it has not only reinforced its scholarly institutionalization (proliferation of university programmes, strengthening of scientific societies, launching of specialized journals…) but it has also increased its position within Social Sciences and Humanities, as far as it fully deals with one of the key features of current societies: the analysis and comprehension of the digital and communications revolution. Connected to this renewed energy, lately one can perceive a growing interest to address a reflexive approach towards the scholarly community itself, in order to analyse their scientific practices and epistemological options, to reveal its knowledge interests, to evaluate the outcomes it is producing, to account of the institutional devices influencing in research tasks or to highlight the strengthens and weaknesses that define the scientific study of communication.

There is no doubt that the reflexive attitude is an indicator of maturity within a scientific community. Moreover, it is the required path to follow in order to meet your own identity and, even more, to gain a certain degree of recognition in the general scientific field. Communication research has benefitted during the last years from the heuristic value of this reflexive approach, as the proliferation of projects dealing with the analysis of the conducted research, generally labelled as “metha-research” studies, as they synthetize the predominant objects of study, methods and theoretical approaches in the field or in their specific domains. Besides these type of publications, usually focused on the current research, there is a growing interest in renewing the history of studies about communication. Under the International Communication Association (ICA) sponsorship, and in collaboration with the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and the European Communication Reseach and Education Association (ECREA), London hosted the conference New Histories of Communication Studies in June 2013, putting forward an ambitious agenda for a comparative historiography and opening a great scholarly avenue for establishing and consolidating international networks and common projects. The recent joint project between ECREA and ALAIC (Asociación Latinoamericana de Investigadores de la Comunicación) to edit a volume titled Connecting paradigms: Communication studies in Latin America and Europe, where the editors ask for contributions “including a historical perspective, a detailed analysis of the current debates and future proposals”, indicates that this agenda has already started its development in specific actions.

DISERTACIONES proposes this special issue to strengthen this reflexive approach, and invites the scholarly community to send their contributions, preferably as empirical studies, helping to increase the knowledge about the field of Communication Research, and covering, among others, the following aspects:

1. The scientific production in this field, in order to identify the predominant objects of study, topics and problems; the theoretical and methodological approaches; the authors, schools and traditions; the research outputs and the contributions to the progress of the scientific knowledge about communication, etc.

2. The main features and the internal structure of the scientific community of communication researchers: research groups, networks and scholarly relations, institutional and educational profile and background of researchers, epistemological and paradigmatical adscriptions, etc.

3. The socio-institutional context in which the scientific labour is inserted, empashizing the organization of research (universities, specialized centres, companies), the public scientific policies, the funding programmes for research, the regulation to access teaching and researching opportunies (accreditation processes, system of rewards, etc.), the influence of the social and historical contexts in the research practices, etc.

4. The process of secondary institutionalization of Communication Research, particularly referred to the scientific societies (constitution, roles, functions, activities, organization, etc.), scientific journals (procedures, criteria, etc.), publishing companies and book series.

All these features of Communication Research can be approached from diverse disciplinary strategies and perspectives. Hence, within the analysis of the scientific production one can find both quantitative studies (bibliometrics, content analyses) and critical evaluations about results and contributions regarding specific domains and topics (political communication, audience/reception studies, organizational communication, etc.). Additionally, the inquiry about scientific communities, socio-institutional contexts and secondary processes of institutionalization welcome contributions from a wide array of social sciences, such as Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Economy, Etc.). Transversally, all these aspects can be approached from a historical perspective, both in terms of dealing with certain moments or periods in the past and in revisit their evolution across time and space.

El Anuario Electrónico de Estudios en Comunicación Social “Disertaciones” es una publicación arbitrada e indizada, editada conjuntamente entre la Universidad de los Andes de Venezuela (Departamento de Comunicación Social de la ULA Táchira, Grupo de Investigación Comunicación, Cultura y Sociedad y Laboratorio de Investigación Educativa Simón Rodríguez (LIESR)) y la Universidad Complutense de Madrid de España (Grupo Mediación Dialéctica de la Comunicación Social MDCS). En la última evaluación de Latindex, Disertaciones fue indizada cumpliendo un 100% de los criterios de calidad tomados en cuenta por este índice regional.

CFP Communication for Social Change (Singapore)

Call for Papers
COMMUNICATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: INTERSECTIONS OF THEORY AND PRAXIS
Organized by: Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), National University of Singapore
Event: 8 January 2016
Deadline for submissions: 28 July 2015

In 2011, it was estimated that one billion people in the world lived on less than $1.25 a day, and that 22,000 children die each day due to poverty (World Bank, 2015; UNICEF, 2009). Global inequality continues to exist on a remarkable level, exacerbated by globalization, enactment of neoliberal regimes, and global economic restructuring that widens the gap between the rich and poor (Dutta, 2008). This has led to widening inequality and health disparities among marginalized and disenfranchised communities both in the global South and in developed countries. Against this backdrop, many communication scholars have been vested in social change work, attempting to address these problems from a communication standpoint. Within the field of communication, critical scholars have
brought attention to globalization processes and modernization projects that continue to reify structural violence and the erasure of subaltern voices from mainstream discourse under the guise of ‘aid’ (Dutta, 2008, 2010). There is a growing pool of communication scholars who reject top-down prescriptions of definitions of poverty and its solutions, and instead recognize the role of culture and structure in forming the contextual base for understanding experiences of subalternity in one’s everyday life (Airhihenbuwa, 1995; Dutta & Basu, 2008; Lupton, 1994). Within this paradigm, communication scholars seek to work with subaltern communities to foster participatory spaces for listening and dialogue, with the larger goal of social change and structural transformation. In
their negotiations of culture and structure with their material and symbolic experiences of marginalization, we see the emergence of narratives from the ground which actively challenge and resist structures that have communicatively erased the lived experiences of subaltern communities. It is within these alternative narratives and rationalities that social change is articulated in culturally meaningful ways.

The broad goal of this conference is to explore the intersections between theory and praxis in social change communication. This conference brings together communication scholars, both experienced and new, to share, dialogue, debate, and discourse on the future of social change in the discipline. The conference is also envisioned as a platform to build solidarity among people working within the academic-activist spectrum – for them to share their lived experiences in the field and to encourage young scholars in the field of communication to actively partake in social change scholarship. Finally, the conference also acts as an invitational space to celebrate novel and alternative ways of communicating for social change. Hence, this presents a unique opportunity for communication scholars around the world to come together and contribute to the intellectual space in which communicative practices are embodied and enacted in the sites of oppression and resistance and told through academic engagement, theorizing the ways in which communication can solve social problems.

We invite submission of papers that address communication and issues of social change, both theoretically and empirically, in different national contexts, pertaining to social change in the margins from around the globe.Heeding this conclusion, and based on the context and scope of
communication for social change, the following questions include, but are not limited to:
1. How are issues of social change theorized by communication scholars?
2. How do emerging alternative theories and frameworks in communication address various kinds of disparities?
3. How do communication scholars approach social change?
4. How can widening health disparities be addressed communicatively?
5. What is the role of self-reflexivity for communication scholars?
6. How do culture, community engagement, and communication intersect for social change?
7. What are the emerging innovations in research using the culture-centered approach?
8. How do communication scholars negotiate culture, structure, and/or agency in envisioning social change and social justice?
9. How do theory and praxis intersect in social change communication? What are the roles of academics and activists within this paradigm?

PAPER SUBMISSION:
Paper submissions must include a title, an abstract (max 300 words), full paper not exceeding 30 pages double-spaced (5,000-8,000 words), and a brief biographical sketch (max 150 words). Please submit your papers by 28 July 2015 to contact@care-cca.com. Please see paper submission format below. Successful applicants will be notified by the first week of October 2015. Selected papers will be developed and included in a book chapter series.

Participants are encouraged to seek funding for travel from their home institutions. Based on the quality of paper, full funding is available for two successful applicants that are developing-country researchers. Full funding would cover air travel to Singapore by the most economical means plus accommodation for the duration of the conference. Participants that qualify for full funding will be informed by early October 2015.

Conference Convenor
Professor Mohan J. Dutta
Head of Department of Communications and New Media & Director of the Center for Cultured-Centered Approach to Research And Evaluation (CARE), National University of Singapore

Key Concept #66: EMI by Ali Karakas

The next issue of Key Concepts in intercultural Dialogue is now available. This is KC66: English Medium Instruction (EMI) by Ali Karakas. As always, all Key Concepts are available as free PDFs; just click on the thumbnail to download. Lists organized chronologically by publication date and number, alphabetically by concept in English, and by languages into which they have been translated, are available, as is a page of acknowledgments with the names of all authors, translators, and reviewers.

Karakas, A. (2015). English medium instruction. Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue, 66. Available from: https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/key-concept-emi.pdf

The Center for Intercultural Dialogue publishes a series of short briefs describing Key Concepts in Intercultural Dialogue. Different people, working in different countries and disciplines, use different vocabulary to describe their interests, yet these terms overlap. Our goal is to provide some of the assumptions and history attached to each concept for those unfamiliar with it. As there are other concepts you would like to see included, send an email to the series editor, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz. If there are concepts you would like to prepare, provide a brief explanation of why you think the concept is central to the study of intercultural dialogue, and why you are the obvious person to write up that concept.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Glenn Geiser-Getz Fulbrights (Russia and Ghana)

I served as a Fulbright Fellow for the fall semester of 2000 through the end of the spring semester of 2001 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Although I applied for a teaching fellowship, I included scholarly plans in my application and I conducted research while serving in Russia.

I found the application process pretty straightforward. My impression is that they are looking for scholar-teachers who have a great interest in travel and other cultures. I also believe that (at least when I applied) they were interested in people who were flexible and willing to adjust to the dynamics of other places and peoples. Finally, I think they value people who are interested in a true exchange, who are not only interested in learning something new but in sharing alternate ways of being, thinking, and doing with others. My teaching (especially of argumentation and debate) and my scholarship (which involved ethnographic interviews) required my student and faculty hosts to adjust their thinking about higher education and research. However, I also took great care to learn from them and to absorb and appreciate the culture that surrounded me.

My primary assignment was at St. Petersburg State University in the Department of International Journalism, although I am more a rhetorical scholar than a mass media or journalism scholar. I was not able to secure a sabbatical from my home institution because the application process at my campus was so different from the Fulbright application process. However, I was able to get educational leave without pay and health insurance through COBRA (the cost of which was reimbursed by my institution when I returned). I deducted all of my work-related living and transportation expenses and as a result paid less in tax than I normally would. My wife quite her elementary teaching job and joined me on the trip. In the end, the trip reduced our income but it was definitely worth it. I rank my experience as a Fulbright Scholar the third most significant experience of my life (behind my education and my marriage/children).

There were plenty of challenges during my time in Russia and some strange miscommunications, but it was all part of the rich variety of experiences I had during that year. As a result of connections with the state department and various educational and cultural organizations, I had the opportunity to teach in many cities outside of St. Petersburg. I taught college students, high school students, journalists, other college faculty, elementary and secondary teachers, and community members. I taught in gymnasiums, churches, public libraries, community centers, hotels, and (of course) college buildings. I enjoyed a great deal of travel by train to countries including Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and others.

I also received a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to Ghana, but that is a whole different story. It was a month-long study trip, so I was more a student and researcher than a teacher. But it was an awesome experience as well! I encourage anyone to consider applying.

Glenn Geiser-Getz, Ph.D.
East Stroudsburg University
Department of Communication Studies
5/26/15

CFP Research in France through Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme

Associate Research Directors (DEA) | First call for proposals 2016
Deadline : June 22th, 2015

Created in 1975 upon the initiative of Fernand Braudel, in collaboration with the French Secretary of State for Universities, Department for Higher Education and Research, the DEA Programme (Directeurs d’Études Associés, or Associate Research Directors) is the oldest international mobility programme at Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme. It provides funding to invite international scientific experts from across the globe for one or two months and enables them to carry out work in France (field enquiries, library work and archives).

Participation requirements
The programme is intended solely for professors and senior researchers with a PhD, or equivalent, working in institutions of higher education and research.
Applicants must be no older than 65 at the time of their stay.

Benefits
A monthly allowance of 3 300 € is awarded for transport and stay expenses. In addition, FMSH provides support for visa applications and logistics (accommodation and access to libraries).

Applications and deadline
Applications must be sent before June 22th 2015.

Content of the application
*A curriculum vitae (with date of birth)
*A list of scientific publications
*A research project (4 pages minimum) with the dates of stay, and a bibliography
*A letter of support by a French researcher is welcome
*Applications should be sent via our online platform

Once on the platform, in your online application for DEA, please select for the year of the call : 2016 and for the session of the call : June 2015.

For further information or if you encounter difficulties, contact Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme. candidatures.dea@msh-paris.fr

After a scientific expertise of the research projects, decisions regarding invitations are made by a commission made up of the administrator, scientific directors of the FMSH, as well as various specialists.

Results will be communicated directly to applicants by the end of October 2015.

The research stay must start no later than November 1st 2016.

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