CONFERENCE INVITATION AND CALL FOR PAPERS
Networking East and West: Communications, Commerce, Culture
For many centuries, the East and the West have been entangled in dense networks of communications and commerce. Yet only in our current age of globalization, influenced by a generation of media theorists shaped by the emergence since the 1970s of digital media, has it become customary to interpret these networks as a distinctive social relationship with a pervasive and enduring influence on culture, economics, politics, and international relations. For these theorists, media is more than a representation: in addition, and more fundamentally, it is an institutional practice laden with cultural meaning.
Media scholars in Asia, Europe, Australia, and North America from disciplines that include but are not confined to history, sociology, political science, literature, anthropology, geography, and media studies share a commitment to increasing our understanding of these networks so as to enhance mutual understanding, foster a common research agenda, and nurture an academic community that lowers cultural barriers. To promote this goal, a conference on the theme of “Networking East and West: Communications, Commerce, Culture” will be convened in Renmin University, China, on July 11 -12, 2014. The papers in this conference explore the conflicts, commonalities, and contrasts that have shaped communications networks linking East and West, with a focus on China, the Pacific Rim, and the United States in the period between the mid-nineteenth century and the Second World War. The call for papers is intended to encourage submissions on a broad range of topics from various disciplinary perspectives. Possible topics include: journalistic ethics, technology transfer, telegraphy, print culture, and media theory. Papers need not be explicitly comparative, though all should address the conference theme.
Specific details about the conference are as follows:
I. Conference Title: “Networking East and West: Communications, Commerce, Culture”
II. Hosts: Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban); Confucius Institute at Columbia University
III. Organizer: School of Journalism and Communication, Renmin University, China
IV. Co-organizers: Columbia Journalism School, Fudan Journalism School
V. Theme: the conflicts, commonalities, and contrasts that have shaped communications networks linking East and West
VI. Venue: Beijing, China
VII. Date: July 11-12, 2014 (Registration deadline: July 10, 2014)
Participants should send the texts of their proposed papers by June 1 to the organizing committee at mediaculture2014@163.com. Successful proposals will be announced on June 15. Participants are responsible for their own transportation and accommodation expenses.
Contact (U.S.):
Prof. Richard R. JOHN
Tel: (+1) 212-854-7837
Contact (China):
Dr. CHANG Jiang
Tel: (+86) 139-1151-1157
Further Details:
1. The proposed paper can be written either in English or Chinese.
2. The paper’s content shall be relevant to the conference theme.
3. English-language papers shall be 6,000-10,000 words long; Chinese-language papers shall include 8,000-12,000 characters.
4. Papers will include: title, name and introduction of the author, abstract, key words, main body, annotations, etc. For the Chinese-language papers, authors are required to supply an English-language title, abstract and keywords. There is no such requirement for English-language papers.
5. All citations shall be formatted as endnotes in accordance with the conventions described in The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS).
6. Proposals shall be sent to the organizing committee before June 1, 2014 in Microsoft Word format (.doc/ .docx).
His work on intercultural language education engages with the roles curriculum design and classroom tasks play in the development of intercultural communicative competence, most recently in situations of conflict and extended crisis. He is also interested in the interaction between intercultural language education and professionalism in domains such as medicine and tourism. He is the author of An Intercultural Approach to English Language Teaching (Multilingual Matters, 2003, second edition 2022), Intercultural Language Activities (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and (with Peih-ying Lu) of English in Medicine: An Intercultural Approach to Teaching Language and Values (Multilingual Matters, 2012). He has authored and co-authored numerous articles and book chapters, including (with Wendy Anderson and Alison Phipps) explorations of intercultural language learning and telecollaboration. He was editor of the journal Language and Intercultural Communication between 2004-9. While he works in Asia, he also has strong links with Brazil, where he has been President of the BRAZ-TESOL Special Interest Group on Intercultural Language Education.
