Sangita Shresthova Profile

Profiles

Dr. Sangita Shresthova is Associate Research Professor of Communication and Co-PI of the Civic Imagination Project at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.

Sangita ShresthovaShe is a writer, researcher, scholar, speaker and practitioner with expertise in mixed-methods research, media literacies, media and parenting, popular culture, civic imagination, and globalization.  Her recent publications include three co-authored books: Practicing Futures: The Civic Imagination Action Handbook, Transformative Media Pedagogies, and Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change. Sangita is one of the creators of the Digital Civics Toolkit, a collection of resources for educators and teachers to support youth learning. Her creative work has also been presented in venues around the world including the Pasadena Dance Festival, Schaubuehne (Berlin), the Other Festival (Chennai), the EBS International Documentary Festival (Seoul), and the American Dance Festival (Durham, NC). She is also a faculty member at the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change in Austria.

A Czech-Nepalese child of the final years of the Cold War, Sangita grew up between Prague and Kathmandu. Her childhood was shaped by hostile visa policies and travel restrictions. In reaction, she has since taken the opportunity to call many cities home (including Brussels, Boston, London, Kandy, Ahmedabad, and Berlin). She relishes any opportunity to draw on her mixed race/cultural background and routinely keeps track of multiple time zones. She is still most comfortable when her carry-on is packed and believes home is a place where there is someone waiting for you; right now that is Los Angeles.

Work for CID: Sangita Shresthova serves on the CID Advisory Board, and is the author of ICD Exercises #3: Mix, Mix, Remix: Drawing on Pop Culture Stories to Inspire Intercultural Dialogue, and Voices from the Field #4: On Cross-Cultural Parenting, Media Use, and Intercultural Dialogue. In addition she participates in an expert group organized by the Center.

Leeds Trinity U: International Mobility Officer (UK)

“JobInternational Mobility Officer, Leeds Trinity University, Leeds, England, UK. Deadline: 3 November 2023.

Leeds Trinity University has in recent years developed an international profile and grown a number of substantial international partnerships. They are now seeking to appoint an International Mobility Officer to work within the Global Engagement Office to maximise student inbound and outbound mobility through exchange and study abroad and play a key role in further strengthening our international activity.

This is an exciting opportunity to play an important role in the promotion and coordination of international opportunities to staff and students, and act as central point of contact to our staff and international partners for all enquiries. This position would suit someone with international office experience in Higher Education, either in international recruitment, mobility or study abroad, who is looking to broaden their knowledge and take a leading role in all international work at Leeds Trinity University.

The successful candidate will have significant experience in providing guidance on international opportunities to both incoming and outgoing students in a Higher Education environment. They will also have excellent communication and organisational skills, specifically a proven ability to deliver presentations, be self-motivated and able to independently as well as part of a team.

This role will be located at Leeds Trinity University campus in Horsforth, Leeds. Through an agile working framework, there will also be the option to spend some time working remotely, which will be discussed further with candidates at interview.

This advert will close as soon as a suitable number of applications have been received. So, if you’re interested in this opportunity, apply now.

US Department of State: Alumni Coordinator (Portugal)

“JobAlumni Coordinator/Established Opinion Leaders Assistant, US Embassy, Lisbon, Portugal. Deadline: none listed; announcement posted 4 October 2023.

The Alumni Coordinator and EOL (Established Opinion Leaders) Exchanges Assistant works under the direct supervision of the Established Opinion Leader Specialist and has no supervisory responsibilities. Coordinates the Mission’s exchange programs for EOL audiences including individuals and organizations such as think tanks, professional associations, civil society organizations, academic institutions. Designs, plans and implements a broad range of activities to maintain contact with alumni of U.S. Government exchange programs and official alumni groups and organizations.

EXPERIENCE: Minimum of three (3) years of experience in a multilingual, multicultural, or multinational work environment with project management, marketing, public relations, communication, or education duties as a significant part of the job required.

LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY: Level 4 (Fluent) speaking/reading/writing in English and Portuguese.

UNESCO: Multiple Positions (Multiple Countries)

“JobMultiple positions, UNESCO, based in multiple countries. Deadline: 31 October 2023.

UNESCO is currently advertising multiple positions, not only in France but around the world:

Education Programme Specialists are responsible for programme and project work, advice, research and knowledge management, networking, partnerships and resource mobilization for the Education Programme of the UNESCO Office in that country.

 

CFP Comparative Law and Language Journal (Italy)

“Publication

Call for Papers for Comparative Law and Language Journal. Deadline: 4 November 2023, abstract only.

Online peer-reviewed academic journal Comparative Law and Language (CLL) is dedicated to giving scholars a forum to increase interest in and scientific debate on the relationship between law and language in and within various national and supranational legal systems from a comparative perspective. Due to the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary nature of the journal, contributions from linguists and academics in any other relevant subject of the social sciences are also invited.

The fields of comparative law and language are intricately intertwined, and numerous studies have already concentrated on this vast area of study. In this regard, they encourage papers on micro and macro comparison studies, viewed via the prism of language, also considering the linguistic nature of the legal occurrences, as well as how language influences and shapes the society legal framework.

The current call for papers welcomes essays from both experienced academics in the field of the journal’s general theme as well as from younger researchers.

They are particularly interested in the following topics:

  • Comparative law; History and legal language; Language and legal rhetoric; Language and philosophy of law.
  • Legal language; Legal translation; Legal linguistics; Law and non-linguistic signs; Legal special vocabulary; Regulation of language use.
  • Language rights; Minority languages and the law; Regulation of linguistic diversity and linguistic minorities.
  • Bilingual and multilingual legal systems; Language and legal interpretation; Vagueness in language and in law; Language legislative drafting; Language and drafting of contracts; Multilingual legal drafting; Multilingualism practices in the courtroom.
  • Environmental law and the transition to sustainability in comparative and linguistic perspective.
  • AI, language, and legal comparison; Natural language and artificial language.

The languages accepted are English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, and those accessible to Editorial Board members.

 

Dialogue for Intercultural Understanding

“Book Notes

Maine, F., &  Vrikki, M. (Eds.). (2021). Dialogue for intercultural understanding: Placing cultural literacy at the heart of learning. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.

Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (so available as open access), this book looks potentially relevant to CID followers.

This book is a result of an extensive, ambitious and wide-ranging pan-European project focusing on the development of children and young people’s cultural literacy and what it means to be European in the twenty-first century, prioritizing intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding.

It includes the following chapters, among others:

  • Intercultural Education for the Twenty-First Century: A Comparative Review of Research by Chrysi Rapanta and Susana Trovão

  • Social Responsibility Through the Lens of an Agenda
    for Cultural Literacy Learning: Analyses of National EducationPolicyDocumentation by Sandra Kaire ̇, Lilija Duobliene ̇, and Irena Zaleskiene ̇

  • Explorations of Linkages Between Intercultural Dialogue, Art, and Empathy by Tuuli Lähdesmäki and Aino-Kaisa Koistinen

  • Using Wordless Picturebooks as Stimuli for Dialogic
    Engagement by Fiona Maine and Beci McCaughran

  • Creative Ways to Approach the Theme of Cultural
    Diversity in Wordless Picturebooks Through Visual Reading and Thinking by Marina Rodosthenous-Balafa, Maria Chatzianastasi, and Agni Stylianou-Georgiou

  • Dialogue on Ethics, Ethics of Dialogue: Microgenetic Analysis of Students’ Moral Thinking by Talli Cedar, Michael J. Baker, Lucas M. Bietti, Françoise Détienne, Erez Nir, Gabriel Pallarès, and Baruch B. Schwarz

  • Engaging Teachers in Dialogic Teaching as a Way to Promote Cultural Literacy Learning: A Reflection on Teacher ProfessionalDevelopment by Riikka Hofmann, Maria Vrikki, and Maria Evagorou

  • Educating Cultural Literacy with Open Educational
    Resources: Opportunities and Obstacles of Digital Teacher Collaborations by Elisabeth Mayweg-Paus and Maria Zimmermann

Bowling Green State U: Institute for the Study of Culture & Society Research Associates

Professional OpportunitiesInstitute for the Study of Culture and Society Research Associate, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA. Deadline: rolling.

The ICS Research Associate position is meant to provide meaningful opportunities to independent scholars and allow them access to institutional knowledge, university databases, and other opportunities to continue and advance their work. Adjunct faculty, visiting scholars, and independent scholars may apply for these courtesy appointments with ICS. Recipients will serve in this position for one semester, with potential to continue for one academic year. ICS is committed to increasing opportunities for scholars from BIPOC, disabled, first-generation, and other minoritized backgrounds. They strongly encourage scholars from underrepresented or marginalized communities to apply for this position.

This is a “courtesy appointment” meaning it is unpaid. In exchange for a campus email, office, and library privileges (but not salary), research associates are expected to participate actively in the campus community.

RiceBreaker for ICD

Intercultural Pedagogy

Spry, Amber D. (2023). The #RiceBreaker: Facilitating intercultural dialogues in the classroom by engaging shared experiences. Journal of Political Science Education, 19(2), 195-204.

Amber Spry has invented a very cute icebreaker using discussion of how different students in a class cook rice in order to spark intercultural dialogues. It should be a good starting point for other instructors.

The activity asks students to answer a straightforward question: “how does your family or your culture cook rice?” By using the example of a simple ingredient found across the globe, the activity demonstrates how students can hold different perspectives on the same topic based on their own experiences, and models for the class how to approach conversation throughout the semester when perspectives on a given topic may vary. This activity provides an example of how a classroom icebreaker can be used in a way that facilitates dialogue, promotes participation, and models intellectual respect.

Her starting point is Political Science, but it seems likely to work for those in other disciplines as well. For example, it has already been adapted for the foreign language classroom by Sahai Couso Díaz on Language Panda.

If you prefer to listen to a podcast, Spry has been interviewed on the topic for radio station KCRW: Using a ‘ricebreaker’ to start a conversation about cultural identity.

Hughes & Bartesaghi Guest Post: Disability as Intercultural Dialogue

Guest Posts
Disability as Intercultural Dialogue. Guest post by Jessica M. F. Hughes & Mariaelena Bartesaghi.

Ethnomethodologist Carolyn Baker argues that culture is not a pre-made context for action to unfold, but rather an ongoing moral order of categories and categorization, where locally produced categories become “locked into place” (2000, p. 99). This is how we understand—and are able to talk about—disability in terms of culture, as an assemblage of voices, bodies and actions within a contingent and shifting social order(ing). Just as Bakhtin (1986) tells us that there is no first speaker, but rather language as coordination over time and amidst utterances in relation, disability can only mean in terms of what we are able to (co)produce it as meaning. In our book, Disability in dialogue (Hughes & Bartesaghi) contributors set out on empirical projects designed to trouble the categories of disability within several cultural frames: geographical settings, diagnostic accounts, political action, crisis events, and everyday occurrences.

Inasmuch as disability is a culture, an ordering of relations and identity projects, of what is and might be possible, of what is historically entrenched and institutionally regulated, then disability is also an intercultural doing. This is the case not merely in the exchanges between a culture of able bodiedness to which disability owes its constitution, but between the multiple and diverse identity positions of those who are incumbent within the culture of disability. These exchanges are dialogic through and through, for they always mirror, borrow, and often oppose each other. In Shotter’s words (2015), these dialogues are occasions for attunement (p. 8) and intercultural betweenness.

Analyzing disability discourses means appreciating dialogic tensions, the centripetal and centrifugal forces at work, the constant interplay between dialogue and monologue. And it means listening to the diverse voices that, as Bakhtin remarked, are everywhere and always in relation.

Download the entire guest post as a PDF.

Hong Kong Polytechnic U: Several Positions (Hong Kong)

“Job2 Positions at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Deadline: Varies by position.

  1. Assistant Professor in Area Studies and Intercultural Communication. Deadline: 2 January 2024.

The Department of English and Communication is now inviting applications for the position of Assistant Professor. Priority will be given to applicants whose research expertise and teaching experience are within the Department’s key research areas, especially on the intersection between culture, language, and professional workplaces. Other areas of specialisation such as Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Mixed-Methods Research will also be strongly considered. Experience in teaching languages such as Spanish, French, or German, and European Studies will be a plus.

2. Professor / Associate Professor / Assistant Professor in Bilingualism and Communication. Deadline: 7 November 2023.

The Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies now seeks to strengthen its impact in Bilingualism and Communication as a broadly defined interdisciplinary area of academic studies, in keeping with the latest theoretical frameworks in Corporate Communication that are informed by exemplary business practices in associated industries worldwide. They aspire to develop academic leadership and groom young researchers to excel in Bilingual Corporate Communication (BCC), where “bilingual” is construed as not only distinct varieties of Chinese and English and the associated cultures specific to the local communities, but also other regional languages and cultures (e.g., Japanese and Korean, among others).