Tag: Italy

Photo Contest for Best Faces of integration

Photo ContestThe digital photography contest ‘Scatti d’integrazione’ (‘Shots of integration’), launched by Modavi (non-profit organization) as part of the project ‘I LIKE ITALIA: i volti dell’integrazione’ (‘I LIKE ITALY: the faces of integration’).

Designed to raise awareness among Italian high school students on the phenomenon of social integration, it is open to all young people, both natives and immigrants of first and second generation, and will award the best pictures that portray moments of inclusion and intercultural issues. Participation closes April 24, 2015.

Critical Studies on Food in Italy (Summer 2015)

Gustolab Institute Center for Food and Culture is offering:
CRITICAL STUDIES ON FOOD IN ITALY
in cooperation with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
DURATION 5-WEEK Full Immersion Summer Program
WHEN 18 MAY 2015 – 20 JUNE 2015
WHERE Rome Italy
The program is open to all majors, and all students, degree-seeking or not.

https://vimeo.com/gustolabinstitute

COURSES OFFERED
Critical Studies on Food Culture (3 credits)
Food media, communication and trends (3 credits)
Food, Nutrition and Culture in Italy (3 credits)
Elementary Italian Language UMASS ITAL 110 (3 credits)
Italian Lexicon for Food Studies (3 credits)

If you have any questions or to request an application, please write to info@gustolab.com

EIUC job ad: E.MA. Programme Director (Italy)

The European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC) is seeking a qualified individual for the position of E.MA Programme Director for the academic year 2015/2016. The position, which is being posted at the level of university professor or senior researcher, involves a combination of teaching, organisation, and various academic and practical responsibilities connected with the E.MA programme. Working under the instructions of the E.MA and EIUC governing bodies and in cooperation with the EIUC Secretary General, the candidate selected will assume primary responsibility for the academic coordination of the E.MA programme and the E.MA secretariat a.y. 2015/16. He or she will furthermore be involved in the development of new academic and research-based activities in the context of the EIUC.

Functions and tasks
The E.MA Programme Director will work as member of the permanent EIUC staff, based in Venice – the Lido. Tasks will include the following:

To coordinate the advanced planning of the E.MA programme;
To oversee in the daily management of the E.MA programme – including the first semester field trip, which in recent years has been going to Kosovo – with a view to maintaining the excellent standards and academic coherence of the first semester courses;
To establish advance contact with academic responsibles, lecturers and experts, and assist the academic responsibles and other lecturers in carrying out the scientific and educational programme;
To supervise and coordinate Teaching Assistants in the performance of their tasks;
To supervise  the work of the E.MA secretariat
To supervise the internship programme and the fellowship programme
To organise and teach seminars introducing one of the core disciplines (law, political science, international relations) of the E.MA programme;
To set up and lead working groups and workshops incorporated in the academic programme;
To oversee the assessment of student assignments;
To exercise a proactive role in identifying and rectifying problems of an academic nature;
To take a proactive role in the development of additional academic activities in the context of the EIUC; this may include initiating and facilitating research collaboration, academic publication, and the organisation of training courses, seminars and conferences.

Qualifications
Doctorate in a relevant discipline (e.g. law, political science, international relations), teaching experience, good publication record, team-working ability, administrative experience. Excellent knowledge of English.

The selected candidate will be expected to take up the position no later than beginning of September 2015. Salary negotiable, depending on qualifications. Deadline for sending applications is March 15th, 2015.

Please send a cover letter and a curriculum vitae in English to Florence Benoit-Rohmer, EIUC Secretary General, Monastery of San Nicolò, Riviera San Nicolò 26, Venezia-Lido 30126, Italy, by email  and in cc to Claudia Zanchi.

Gonzaga-in-Cagli Project

Gonzaga University has announced that the Gonzaga-in-Cagli Project is now available to undergraduate as well as graduate students from any university.  This will be the 12th year of the International Media Project in Cagli, Italy. Students can earn up to six graduate or undergraduate credits in communication and leadership in this cultural immersion project that stresses media convergence.  We would like you and your students to consider this summer. Recently one of our projects was featured in the American Journalism Review. We say “Go Out a Tourist and come back a World Citizen.”

The program includes instruction in language and culture as well as photo, video, web design, writing and blogging.  Class begins in Florence and moves to historical Cagli in the Apennine Mountains.  The program also includes a day trip to the beautiful Renaissance city of Urbino, and there is free “weekend travel”  Dates are June 8 – June 24, 2015.  The program has won several awards and is considered one of the best buys in Study Abroad.

The deadline for application is February 1, 2015.  Please contact me if I can provide any additional information.

Professor John S. Caputo
Gonzaga University

CFP Communication History Conference (Venice)

CFP Bridges and Boundaries: Theories, Concepts and Sources in Communication History: An International Conference in Venice, Italy – September 16-18, 2015

The deadline for abstract submission is January 10, 2015.

Organizer: Communication History Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA History)

Co-Sponsor: Centre for Early Modern Mapping, News and Networks (CEMMN.net) – Queen Mary University of London

Fernand Braudel in his seminal essay History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée pointed out that many academic disciplines/fields which study different aspects of social life inevitably encroach upon their neighbors, yet often remain in “blissful ignorance” of each other. Braudel and others have repeatedly called for historians and social scientists to overcome their deep ontological and epistemological differences in order to work together.

Despite much progress in this regard, communication history remains one of the fields where profitable interdisciplinary dialogue can still take place. Being aware of this need, the Communication History Section of ECREA invites researchers who focus on various aspects of the history of communication, media, networks and technologies (broadly defined), to come together with two main aims: 1) to explore the bridges and boundaries between disciplines; 2) to exchange ideas about how communication history is being done and how it might be done, while emphasizing theories, concepts and sources beneficial to their research, as well as emerging trends and themes.

A three-day conference will take place in Venice, one of the great hubs of early modern communication, at Warwick University’s seat in Palazzo Pesaro Papafava. The opening keynote address will be delivered by Professor Mario Infelise, a leading scholar of early modern print and journalism and the head of the graduate program in the Humanities at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari. Instead of traditional panels and papers, the conference aims to foster dialogue among scholars of various disciplines through topically organized round-tables, master classes, and countless opportunities for informal discussions.

The organizing committee invites scholars to submit abstracts (max. 400 words) in which they address one of the main themes listed below and outline a short intervention that they might contribute to a round table on that theme. Such interventions should focus mainly on theoretical or methodological approaches, issues and experiences that the speaker has engaged with in his/her research. Historical case studies can be presented only so far as they contain a high degree of historiographical/theoretical significance. Interdisciplinary roundtable sessions will be organized in which participating scholars will also discuss questions raised by a chair and the audience, based on these proposals.

The deadline for abstract submission is January 10, 2015. The conference registration fee will be 140 euro and participants will be asked to cover their own travel expenses. Abstracts should be submitted through the conference website: http://ecreahistoryvenice2015.wordpress.com.

Main Themes:
(1) Theories and Models
Grand theories or meta-narratives often have at their core information networks and communication technologies. To what extent are theoretical premises advocated by scholars such as Braudel, Innis, McLuhan, Habermas, Luhmann, Benedict Anderson, Lefevbre – and more recently by Hallin and Mancini, Castells, Gitelman, Simonson, Mosco, Hendy, Hesmondalgh, F. Kittler, Fickers – applicable in historical inquiry? How has your own research in communication history been inspired by such concepts and theories?

(2) Space and Place
Communication networks and information technologies are always embedded in a material setting that can foster or hinder certain communication practices, call into being new forms of exchange, and drive technological development. What is the place of the geographical imagination in current communication history research? How valuable are the ideas of ‘place’ and ‘space’ in historical research? What are the current trends within the field of historical geography that can advance our understanding of communication history?

(3) News and Networks
How valuable is the idea of ‘the network’? What were the technologies that historically mediated the spread of information through networks? Who participated in networks used in advancing what Bourdieu later called cultural capital? To what extend did such networks contribute to the rise of public opinion and the public sphere? Can we talk about historical continuities between the early modern republic of letters and what Castells later popularized as the network society?

(4) Alternative Media
In order to understand communication history as a long-term, inclusive process, which alternative media or communication technologies (besides the familiar ‘mass media’ of the 20th century) need to be considered, and how? Possibilities might include migration flows, civic and religious ceremonies, theatre, preaching, fashion, the visual arts or architecture. What kinds of methodological or theoretical implications does their consideration carry?

(5) Sources and Methods
The progressive digitization of archives and libraries is opening access to primary sources for increasingly wider circles of scholars. What are the advantages and challenges raised by this development? To what extent do issues of materiality matter particularly to the realm of media and human communication research? What are the most relevant sources that you use for your own research?

(6) ‘New’ Media
At one time, even the oldest communication technologies were looked upon as suspicious novelties. Socrates famously condemned writing; the introduction of print may have been hailed by some as a ‘revolutionary’ enterprise – a term now often applied also to the digital age. What are the lessons that scholars can learn from studying critical periods during which one dominant technology is replaced by a new mode of communication? How do such lessons serve our understanding of the phenomenon called new media?

Organizing Committee:
Rosa Salzberg, PhD – University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Gabriele Balbi, PhD – Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
Juraj Kittler, PhD – St. Lawrence University, USA

CFP Protest Participation in Variable Communication Ecologies (Italy)

Protest Participation in Variable Communication Ecologies: Meanings, Modalities and Implications

Call for papers to the upcoming Information, Communication and Society Symposium (24-26 June 2014, Sardinia, Italy) titled ‘Protest Participation in Variable Communication Ecologies’. Deadline for abstracts: 30 January 2015.

For more information please visit the conference website or get in touch via social media (@protesteco; Facebook).

Contemporary collective action, social movements, civic and political protests are characterized by a growing complexity of actors, contents, repertories, contexts, and effects. Grappling with the implications of late modernity, scholars worldwide have reflected on the cross-fertilization of individual practices and collective mobilizations. They have foregrounded unconventional forms of engagement, through reflexive, expressive and embodied acts of dissent cutting across the cultural, political, and social domains, in persistent as well as increasingly transient modes of  organisation and belonging. Within this field,  some accounts graft social  media as an independent variable that would mitigate the democratic deficits of mass-mediated and institutionalised politics. Others would warn of the power imbalances and the inequalities in participation particularly social media reinforce or heighten.

Keynote speakers
Lance Bennett (University of Washington, USA)
Natalie Fenton (Goldsmith College, University of London, UK)
Zizi Papacharissi (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
Bev Skeggs (Goldsmith College, University of London, UK)

Seeking to kindle an imagination that situates social media in lived experience and practice, this conference intends to unpick the history and the present of linkages but also of any signs of a conscious uncoupling of network technologies, broadcasting media and physical places where protest participation is enacted. In doing so, we aim to tackle the significant challenges posed to democratic politics, social theory and research by resultant variable communication ecologies.

The organizers invite theoretical reflections and empirical analyses tracking continuities and changes in protest participation arising in the blurred lines between social media, broadcasting media and physical places. In particular, the conference welcomes contributions that address the following questions:

*What forms of civic/uncivic protest participation are (de)activated in contemporary communication ecologies?
*What are the effects of these different forms of participation on institutional politics, political culture, civic education, collective identities and the media?
*Which structural – both societal and technological – elements of contemporary communication ecologies enable, accentuate or discourage protest participation?
*Which type of content converges and is hybridized in the practices of protest participants, of protest-covering media or of the organizations that are targets of protest?
*Which forms of exclusion are being overcome or heightened in the communication ecologies where protest participation is instantiated?
*What are the conceptual challenges ahead of us? As we query communication ecologies, do concepts old and new, e.g. “mediatization”, “convergence”, “remediation”, “boundary publics”, “connective action” continue to be analytically informing for mapping the nature and meaning of participation in protest as well as in the civic life beyond it?
*Which methodological obstacles arise for research oriented towards analysing protest participation in variable communication ecologies? And how do we overcome them?

We invite 500 word abstracts that outline the envisaged potential to tackle such questions in innovative ways. Abstracts should be accompanied by a 100-word biography of the presenter(s) together with contact details. Abstracts/biographies/contact details should be sent to protest_ecologies@uniss.it.

Proposals will be reviewed on a rolling basis by the scientific committee. The final deadline for submission is 30th January 2015. Without compromising scientific standards, the Conference aims for a wide geographical representation of scientists. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out at the earliest opportunity and no later than March 2015.

Following the conference, participants will be invited to submit their papers for consideration by the journal iCS – Information, Communication & Society  which will dedicate a special issue to the conference proceedings. At that time, contributions will also be invited to an edited collection.

Summer International/Intercultural and Backpack Journalism Program

Summer International/Intercultural and Backpack Journalism Program

For the eleventh summer Gonzaga University Master’s in Communication and Leadership Program is offering its Summer International/Intercultural and Backpack Journalism Program. Open to all graduate students or graduating seniors, the program begins in Florence and then moves into the Apennine Mountain medieval city of Cagli, where students in the Cagli Project are assigned to develop multi-media storytelling projects. Time is spent in class, in the field researching and producing stories, and in the lab completing assignments and coordinating the elements of each story. This year there are five specific course modules: Intercultural Communication, Italian language and culture (these modules include Journaling), Profile Writing, Photography, and Digital Design. The program also includes a day-trip to Urbino and free weekend-travel.   Because of the setting of this program, students will have a unique opportunity to learn how to access a foreign culture and to acquire practical language skills rapidly by using an immersion technique. The ability to assimilate quickly and to hone in on another culture¹s values are indispensable tools for anyone preparing for a career in a field where globalization and intercultural communication are becoming increasingly important. At the micro level, students will learn how “to read” another culture on its own terms — thereby eliminating cultural bias.  At the macro level, students will be ready to become facilitators in the intercultural dialogue that the modern world requires.This program is open to graduating seniors and graduate students.  The Program costs include 6 graduate credits, hotels and apartments, in county transportation, some meals, technology, and closing exhibition.   The summer session is June 8– June 24, 2015, with online content pre and post Italy. For more information contact Dr. John Caputo. To see the work of former students and years go to:
http://www.gonzagaincagli.com  For details of the MA and descriptions of the program along with an application go to the main webpage.

CFP Communication History conference (Italy)

CFP: Bridges and Boundaries – Theories, Concepts and Sources in Communication History
An International Conference in Venice, Italy – September 16-18, 2015

Organizer: Communication History Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)
Co-Sponsor: Centre for Early Modern Mapping, News and Networks (CEMMN.net) – Queen Mary University of London

Fernand Braudel in his seminal essay “History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée” pointed out that many academic disciplines/fields which study different aspects of social life inevitably encroach upon their neighbors, yet often remain in “blissful ignorance” of each other. Braudel and others have repeatedly called for historians and social scientists to overcome their deep ontological and epistemological differences in order to work together.

Despite much progress in this regard, communication history remains one of the fields where profitable interdisciplinary dialogue can still take place. Being aware of this need, the Communication History Section of ECREA invites researchers who focus on various aspects of the history of communication, media, networks and technologies (broadly defined), to come together with two main aims: 1) to explore the bridges and boundaries between disciplines; 2) to exchange ideas about how communication history is being done and how it might be done, while emphasizing theories, concepts and sources beneficial to their research, as well as emerging trends and themes.

A three-day conference will take place in Venice, one of the great hubs of early modern communication, at Warwick University’s seat in Palazzo Pesaro Papafava. The opening keynote address will be delivered by Professor Mario Infelise, a leading scholar of early modern print and journalism and the head of the graduate program in the Humanities at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari. Instead of traditional panels and papers, the conference aims to foster dialogue among scholars of various disciplines through topically organized round-tables, master classes, and countless opportunities for informal discussions.

The organizing committee invites scholars to submit abstracts (max. 400 words) in which they address one of the main themes listed below and outline a short intervention that they might contribute to a round table on that theme. Such interventions should focus mainly on theoretical or methodological approaches, issues and experiences that the speaker has engaged with in his/her research. Historical case studies can be presented only so far as they contain a high degree of historiographical/theoretical significance. Interdisciplinary roundtable sessions will be organized in which participating scholars will also discuss questions raised by a chair and the audience, based on these proposals.

The deadline for abstract submission is January 10, 2015. The conference registration fee will be 140 euro and participants will be asked to cover their own travel expenses. Abstracts should be submitted through the conference website.

Main Themes:
(1) Theories and Models
Grand theories or meta-narratives often have at their core information networks and communication technologies. To what extent are theoretical premises advocated by scholars such as Braudel, Innis, McLuhan, Habermas, Luhmann, Benedict Anderson, Lefevbre – and more recently by Hallin and Mancini, Castells, Gitelman, Simonson, Mosco, Hendy, Hesmondalgh, F. Kittler, Fickers – applicable in historical inquiry? How has your own research in communication history been inspired by such concepts and theories?

(2) Space and Place
Communication networks and information technologies are always embedded in a material setting that can foster or hinder certain communication practices, call into being new forms of exchange, and drive technological development. What is the place of the geographical imagination in current communication history research? How valuable are the ideas of ‘place’ and ‘space’ in historical research? What are the current trends within the field of historical geography that can advance our understanding of communication history?

(3) News and Networks
How valuable is the idea of ‘the network’? What were the technologies that historically mediated the spread of information through networks? Who participated in networks used in advancing what Bourdieu later called cultural capital? To what extend did such networks contribute to the rise of public opinion and the public sphere? Can we talk about historical continuities between the early modern republic of letters and what Castells later popularized as the network society?

(4) Alternative Media
In order to understand communication history as a long-term, inclusive process, which alternative media or communication technologies (besides the familiar ‘mass media’ of the 20th century) need to be considered, and how? Possibilities might include migration flows, civic and religious ceremonies, theatre, preaching, fashion, the visual arts or architecture. What kinds of methodological or theoretical implications does their consideration carry?

(5) Sources and Methods
The progressive digitization of archives and libraries is opening access to primary sources for increasingly wider circles of scholars. What are the advantages and challenges raised by this development? To what extent do issues of materiality matter particularly to the realm of media and human communication research? What are the most relevant sources that you use for your own research?

(6) ‘New’ Media
At one time, even the oldest communication technologies were looked upon as suspicious novelties. Socrates famously condemned writing; the introduction of print may have been hailed by some as a ‘revolutionary’ enterprise – a term now often applied also to the digital age. What are the lessons that scholars can learn from studying critical periods during which one dominant technology is replaced by a new mode of communication? How do such lessons serve our understanding of the phenomenon called new media?

Organizing Committee:
Dr. Rosa Salzberg, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Dr. Gabriele Balbi, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
Dr. Juraj Kittler, St. Lawrence University, USA

Global Campus of Human Rights (Italy)

Late announcement: On Monday, 28 July, EIUC will hold a one-day event aimed at raising awareness of the Global Campus and fostering debate on some of the main issues connected with the human rights of migrants. In this regard, the event will bring into focus the UN Migrant Workers Convention.

The conference, to be held at the EIUC premises in the Monastery of San Nicolò in Lido-Venezia, will feature some of the leading experts on the Convention, including academics affiliated with universities within the network of the Global Campus regional master’s programmes. It will be attended by students from all of the regional master’s programmes and will consist of lectures, panel discussions and breakout sessions where participants will have an opportunity to brainstorm on overcoming obstacles to ratification of the UN Migrant Workers Convention. The Convention is one of the ten core international human rights instruments, but since it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1990 it has been ratified by just 47 States.

Further information about the event is available here.

Mob-ility symposium (Italy)

Mob-ility Symposium
Wake Forest University
October 10, 2014
Casa Artom, Venice, Italy

Submissions due July 31, 2014

The story of Camillo Artom is one of mobility, the theme of the Mob-ility Symposium, to be held on October 10, 2014. The Symposium is an opportunity to reflect on the movement of persons, ideas, traditions, goods, and the political, social, and cultural ramifications of mobility, as they relate to the changing practices in travel, the environment, social-economic status, and technology.

These often include, but are not limited to, discussion of citizenship, immigration, diasporas, belonging, and place. Specifically, the Symposium invites a focus on the people who move (the ‘mob’ in mobility): migrants, travelers, tourists, temporary citizens, and asylum seekers, refugees, stateless people. Venice is a perfect site for the ‘Mob-ility Symposium’ as a historic trade city, a merchants’ harbor where people have always come and gone.

Keynote speaker: Dima Mohammed, a Palestinian argumentation scholar who is currently working at the Argumentation Lab of the Instituto de Filosofia da Nova at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Her domain of specialization includes argumentation theory, philosophy of language, persuasion research and political philosophy.

Invited: papers, paper abstracts, discussion panels, and encourage creative submissions related to all aspects of mobility, including:
*Migration, immigration, emigration
*Diaspora, exile, refuge, asylum
*Citizenship rights, nationality, borders
*Socio-economic status
*Travel, transportation
*Technology, mobile modes of communication
*Environment, sustainability
*Security, surveillance

Papers must not exceed 25 pages and must include a title, the author’s/s’ affiliation, and contact information. Paper Abstracts must not exceed 2 pages and must include a title, the
author’s/s’ affiliation, and contact information. Discussion Panels or Performances/Creative Expressions must include a 250-word rationale, a 250-word abstract of each proposed paper or contribution, and a list of presenters with affiliation and contact information.

Submissions from faculty, students, artists, activists, practitioners, and community members are all encouraged. Thanks to the Provost’s Office for Global Affairs, the Symposium is free and open to the public. Space is limited.

Send/Email all submissions to:
Alessandra Von Burg
Department of Communication
Box 7347, Reynolda Station
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC 27109