Roman Lietz Profile

Profiles

Roman Lietz received an MA and a PhD in Intercultural Business Communication from the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, in Germany.

Roman LietzHe gained seven years of practical experience in Berlin (Germany) managing the – at that time – second largest project for integration assistants (Integrationslotsen) in Germany. With this practical backing, he commenced an academic career in teaching and research. He was a researcher at various universities (the Karlshochschule of Applied Sciences, the Hochschule Karlsruhe of Applied Sciences, the University of Landau, and the Johannes-Gutenberg University of Mainz/Germersheim) carrying out several applied research projects concerning questions of integration, participation and intercultural communication. The latest project is the ReDICo project (Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively), carried out together with Fergal Lenehan among others. The ReDICo research co-operative also retains editorship of the book series Studies in Digital Interculturality.

His list of publications includes one monograph concerned with quality assurance in integration projects (2018, in German), and three co-edited volumes on the topics of cyber-utopia/dystopia (2022, in English), language and interculturality in the digital world (2024, German and English), and about the reimagining of digital cosmopolitanism (2025, English), and more than 30 articles, research reports and newer forms of science content communication, such as an educast and a podcast.


Work for CID:

Roman Lietz wrote a guest post for the Center, The Need for a Cosmopolitan Perspective.

CFP Studies in Digital Interculturality Book Series

“Publication

Call for submissions: Studies in Digital Interculturality Book Series, ReDiCo. Deadline: Rolling.

Co-editors: Luisa Conti, Fergal Lenehan, Roman Lietz and Milene Mendes de Oliveira.

The ReDICo project (“Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively”) is pleased to announce an open call for submissions for the book series Studies in Digital Interculturality. This peer-reviewed series explores the diverse dimensions of intercultural practices and discourses within digital spaces, as well as their influence upon issues such as identities, group social cohesion and cultural change. In the series, they aim to publish thematically relevant monographs, edited volumes, dissertations and other contributions of the highest quality. A possibility also exists to publish all books as open access by the transcript Publishing House, in cooperation with the international de Gruyter Publishing House.

Fergal Lenehan Profile

Profiles

Fergal Lenehan is adjunct Professor (ausserplanmäßger Professor) at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, in Germany. He received a BA and an MA from University College Dublin, Ireland, and a PhD from the University of Leipzig, Germany.

Fergal LenehanHe also completed the German Habilitation – the formal, second PhD which allows you to officially become a Professor – at the Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena. He is also journalistically active and has written for the Dublin Review of Books and The Currency, among other publications.

He has had a varied research profile, but intercultural questions have remained central. He has written a monograph on the intellectual history of the European idea, Intellectuals and Europe: Imagining a Europe of the Regions in Twentieth Century Germany, Britain and Ireland (2014), and a monograph on German depictions of Ireland, Stereotypes, Ideology and Foreign Correspondents: German Media Representations of Ireland, 1946-2010 (2016).

In recent years, he has been a central figure in the research co-operative ReDICo: Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively. As part of ReDICo he has been co-editor of a number of open-access publications dealing, theoretically and empirically, with the topic of digital interculturality. These include a special issue of the journal Interculture Journal on Cyber-Utopia / Dystopia? Digital Interculturality between Cosmopolitan and Authoritarian Currents (2022), and the edited volumes: Language and Interculturality in the Digital World (2024), Lifewide Learning in Postdigital Societies (2024), and Reimagining Digital Cosmopolitanism (2025). He is also co-editor, with Luisa Conti, Roman Lietz and Milene Mendes de Oliviera, of the book series Studies in Digital Interculturality. ReDICo has also developed educasts, a podcast series, and the scholarly platform, the ReDICo-Hub. He recently published the article Examining realised and unrealised contacts: theoretical thoughts on digital interculturality (2024) in the journal Language and Intercultural Communication.

Work for CID:

Fergal Lenehan has written a guest post for the Center, The Need for a Cosmopolitan Perspective, as well as writing KC114: Digital cosmopolitanism, and then translating it into German.

ReDICo 2025: Digital Pasts and Futures: Internet Histories, Digital Interculturality and Reimagining Digitality (Germany but Online)

ConferencesDigital Pasts and Futures: Internet Histories, Digital Interculturality and Reimagining Digitality, ReDICo, Germany but online, 23-24 June 2025. Deadline for abstract: 28 February 2025.

Digital Pasts and Futures: Internet Histories, Digital Interculturality and Reimagining Digitality – The Fourth ReDICo Conference Online, 23-24 June 2025. In this conference organizers would like to bring together scholars who engage with internet histories, digital futures and digital interculturality so as to initiate a discussion regarding the reimagining of digitality, not least its relationship to interculturality. They are, thus, interested in wide and interdisciplinary approaches that go beyond the presentism that often marks media and communication studies, while also engaging with alternative visions of how digitality can be construed, not least from an intercultural perspective.

It is intended that a selection of the papers presented will be published following a peer review process in book form, funding pending, with the transcript Publishing House in the Series “Studies in Digital Interculturality”. The conference is without fees, completely online and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Keynote speakers that have already been confirmed include Prof. Valérie Schafer (University of Luxembourg), Associate Prof. Helle Strandgaard Jensen (Aarhus University), Prof. Ethan Zuckerman (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and Prof. Ramesh Srinivasan (University of California, Los Angeles).

ReDICo Hub on Digital Interculturality

Resources in ICD“ width=

ReDICo Hub on Digital Interculturality has now opened. Germany, but online.

ReDICo stands for Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively. They have just sent a note to share:

“Finally our Hub on Digital Interculturality is ready! Here you will find resources, calls, job and collaboration opportunities and publications. Our aim with this Hub is to provide a non-commercial space in which individuals, who are passionate about research and praxis in relation to digital interculturality, can come together to share and to forge meaningful collaborations that transcend geographical boundaries. It would be great if you could take just a few minutes of your time to create a profile, free of charge, on our Hub here. By doing so, you’ll be contributing to the growth of our community.

You know, beginnings are always hard! As part of your profile setup, we encourage you to include your Zip Code if you wish to appear on the platform’s World map. This will allow others to locate and connect with you based on your location. Thank you for considering our invitation. We look forward to welcoming you to our growing community!”

ReDICo 2024 Encounters: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Digital Interculturality (Germany but Online)

ConferencesReDICo 2024 Encounters: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Digital Interculturality, ReDICo, Germany but online, February-March 2024.

(Participation in the Encounters is free of charge.)

Digital practices have been defined as assemblages of actions and digital technologies connected to social goals and social identities. Apart from being ‘digital’, these practices are also often intercultural, as the online worlds of video-streaming platforms, social media, and micro-blogging, to mention some concrete contexts, are replete with cultural diversities of many kinds. Yet, if our object of research is digital intercultural communication, can we expect the existing definitions of interculturality, originally conceived to describe situations of physical mobility and migration, to still hold true? Thus, the first aim of the ReDICo 2024 Encounters is to foster dialogue between the epistemologies of linguistics and intercultural communication that may benefit the study of digital interculturality. The second aim is to explore methodologies that can be adopted in empirical studies using digital intercultural data.

The ReDICo Encounters will bring together leading international researchers from intercultural communication and linguistic studies to introduce theoretical and/or empirical perspectives on digital intercultural practices and engage in dialogue surrounding possible points of theoretical and methodological synergy.

Overview of the Encounters:
Encounter 1: Feb. 16, from 2 to 4 pm (CET), online – ReDICo team
Encounter 2: Feb. 23, from 2 to 4 pm (CET), online – Dominic Busch & Rodney Jones
Encounter 3: March 1, from 2 to 4 pm (CET), online – Zhu Hua & Jannis Androutsopoulos
Encounter 4: March 4 (evening) & March 5 (all day), Friedrich Schiller University Jena – Ben Rampton, IKS & ReDICo team
Encounter 5: March 7, from 4 to 6 pm (CET), online – Adam Brandt & Alexandra Georgakopoulou-Nunes
Encounter 6: March 15, from 2 to 4 pm (CET), online – Çiğdem Bozdağ & Daniel Nascimento Silva
Encounter 7: March 22, from 2 to 4 pm (CET), online – ReDICo team

ReDICo: Cosmopolitanism in a Postdigital, Postimigrant Europe, and Beyond (Germany but Online)

ConferencesCosmopolitanism in a Postdigital, Postimigrant Europe, and Beyond, ReDICo, Germany but online, 27 June-7 July 2023.

The second Researching Digital Interculturality
Co-operatively (ReDICo) conference will be on “Cosmopolitanism in a Postdigital, Postmigrant Europe, and Beyond,” combining different themes from the field of digital interculturality. It may indeed be observed that ‘the digital world’ has been gradually intertwining with the material ‘analog world’, to an extent that the differences between these two spheres are no longer really visible (‘postdigitality’). At the same time, differences between ‘migrant’ and ‘indigenous or ‘native’ have also dissolved in modern migrant societies, a phenomenon that gives space to the challenges of an even more ambiguous and complex postmigrant society. Finally, this interplay influences how we, as people, meet each other on an equal footing as citizens of the world and offers new reflections on Cosmopolitanism in a Postdigital, Postmigrant Europe, and Beyond.

You can look forward to ten sessions (90 minutes each) spread over six days, during which 27 scholars from a variety of countries and fields will give short and precise presentations of 15 minutes. There will be extended discussions, reflections, and new contacts. Organizers wish to involve voices from civic society in the academic discourse, and so have invited six representatives and activists from non-governmental institutions to share their perspectives.

Keynote speakers: Professor Gerard Delanty (University of Sussex, on Tuesday, the 27th of June) and Professor Naika Foroutan (DEZIM Berlin, on Wednesday, the 5th of July).

Participation in the online conference, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, is free. Registration via e-mail.