Tag: Rome

John Cabot University job ad: Communications & Media Studies

Professor of Communications and Media Studies
John Cabot University (JCU) – Communications
Location: Rome
Salary: Not specified
Hours: Full Time
Contract Type: Contract / Temporary
Placed on: 2nd October 2015
Closes: 31st December 2015

John Cabot University, an English language-based, American, regionally accredited four-year liberal arts college in Rome, Italy, seeks a full-time Communications and Media Studies professor for a two-year appointment with possibility for tenure.  Level of appointment depends on the candidate’s background.

The candidate should have a terminal degree, PhD in Communications and Media Studies and/or MFA in the area of Digital Media Arts, completed by the start date of September 1, 2016. She or he should be able to teach courses using critical and cultural approaches in some of the following areas: digital media, global media, media  and cultural theory, film and television, popular culture studies and industry structure and practices. Priority will be given to applicants who demonstrate experience and strength in their ability to teach diverse core courses in the program, in both the studies and the production curriculum, including advanced media theory, multimedia production, visual communication, and writing across the media.

The ideal candidate will have experience teaching within the American liberal arts tradition, experience working in a multicultural environment as well as a strong commitment to teaching students from diverse cultural and national backgrounds.

Teaching load is three courses per semester (six courses per year) and administrative work is expected.  JCU is an equal opportunity employer.  Send CV, cover letter with teaching philosophy, evidence of teaching excellence, and 3 references by December 31, 2015 to: CommunicationsSearch@johncabot.edu.

CFP Time, Memory & Identity in the Images of the New Millennium (Italy)

CINEMA & HISTORY: Time, memory and identity in the images of the new millennium
26-27 November 2015

Conference convenors
Christian Uva and Vito Zagarrio

Institutional partners
University of Leeds Centre for World Cinemas (UK)
Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
SISSCO (Società Italiana per lo Studio della Storia Contemporanea)
CPA (Centro Produzione Audiovisivi) – Università degli Studi Roma Tre
Cinema e Storia. Rivista di studi interdisciplinari (Rubbettino Editore)

Call for Papers
The 21st annual international conference of the Dipartimento Filosofia, Comunicazione e Spettacolo (formerly Dipartimento Comunicazione e Spettacolo) of Università Roma Tre will consider the relationship between cinema and history, identifying new directions and contemporary approaches in the field. This conference reprises a theme central to discussion in the 1980s, when a number of important symposia and publications in Italy responded to the translation of key French scholarship. Returning to the question of cinema and history after three decades implies the consideration of aspects and forms of knowledge absent from those earlier debates. Bringing the discussion right up to date, the aim of this conference is to employ a plurality of discourses to explore in greater depth the theme of cinema and history and to clarify a crucial relationship that has been essential to cinema since its inception.

Taking as its premise the fact that in our digital era the relationship between cinema and history is played out over a broad and complex terrain, the conference seeks to consider cinema in /hybrid /and /expanded /terms. This may require analysing cinema’s relationship with history within a broader mediatic context, taking into account – for instance – adjacent and tangential media such as television, videoart, internet and videogames. The convenors therefore warmly invite contributions that aim to problematize the relationship between cinema and history in ways not limited to the following:
• the use of cinema and history as a /method/ or lens through which to read a range of film categories beyond any historical film ‘genre’: films that, while setting their action in the present, suggest a dialectical and critical attitude towards the past, especially in order to address conceptions and perceptions of national, cultural, gender and political identity; films that are capable of addressing and affecting contemporary imaginaries and mentalities, thus becoming historical /agents/ in their own right; films that become valuable primary sources for scholars, by embodying the customs and material habits of their time; films which, though set in the present, allow us to reflect on material and everyday “microhistories” in which the story “dissolves” time and erupts into the present (Baudrillard);
• the rethinking and transcending of traditional film histories by seeing cinema and history in the light of a hybrid and global iconographic system that forces us to wonder whether we should thinking in terms distinct from the “longue durée” and allows us to avoid “textbook” slogans and stereotypes;
• history as critique, between ‘the end of history’ (Fukuyama) and its traumatic return following 9/11;
• history as /imaginary /(Ferro) and as /myth /(Rosen), but also as /atmosphere/;
• counter-factual history (“What if?”);
• history as /anti-history/: a form of projection into the past of scepticism and disillusion with present and future;
• history as /anachronistic/ configuration — for Georges Didi-Huberman a ‘heretical’ approach to image and history: while it confirms the necessity to conceive of cinema and history as part of visual culture, Didi-Huberman’s perspective stresses the intimate ‘exuberance’, ‘complexity’ and ‘overdetermination’ (/Überdeterminierung/) of images, forcing a rethinking of the cinema-history relationship within the context of the /construction of memory/;
• from ‘historical facts’ to ‘memory facts’ (Ricoeur): cinema as site of memory (both individual and/or collective); cinema as an ideal space in which to activate not the ‘time of dates’ (Bloch) but instead a dimension — often framed negatively as nostalgia (Boym) — that humanizes history and constantly reconfigures it;
• the digital imaginary between memory and history (Burgoyne);
• theoretical and practical reconsiderations of cinema through a feminist and gendered lens:  analysing the dynamics of production and reception; the interaction between Foucauldian genealogical thought and feminist theories;
• from /‘official’ history/ to /‘popular’ history/, from /engagé /to escapist cinema: the cinema-history relationship as an opportunity to reframe works that have traditionally been excluded from the analysis of cinema and history, not least because of the enduring legacy and role of /engagement /in representing the past (Landy);
• the study of the experience and reception of the historical film, in all its possible variations;
• history in audio-visual contexts: from television to videoart; history in videogames; history and photography;
• the employment and potential of digital technology and quantitative methods to serve an expanded understanding of cinema and history.

We will consider every proposal (300-500 words), with 5 keywords, 3-5 bibliographic references, and a brief biography of the proponent, sent before September 7th, 2015, by email. The selection results will be announced before September 30th. Official languages of the Conference: English, French, Italian.

Conference fees
Until 15 October 2015: 50 € (Faculty member), 30 € (Student)
From 15 October 2015 (late payment): 70 € (Faculty member), 50 € (Student)
(details of the conference website and of methods of payment will be provided in due course)

St. John’s study abroad in Rome 2014

Study abroad in Rome
May-June 2014

St. John’s University in New York is currently accepting applications from undergraduate students (including those who attend other universities) for a two-week communication course on our Rome, Italy campus, to be held on May 19-June 1, 2014. The course, entitled “Mass Communication in Rome,” teaches students how to design international communications campaigns in order to “convert” audiences and/or achieve policy change on some of the most important and challenging global issues of our time – including poverty and climate change. As part of a class project developing a communications campaign for the Italian tourism ministry, we will conduct site visits to key attractions around the city. The course also takes advantage of our location in the Eternal City to include guest speakers from the United Nations and civil society groups in Rome who are working on issues related to hunger and poverty.

Students will gain deep knowledge of current policy and political challenges in order to communicate appropriately and effectively in a global context. They will learn and apply the full array of traditional and emerging communications tactics in developing their own global communications campaigns on key international issues. Students will learn how to identify and capitalize on local advantages while tailoring their communications messages and strategies to diverse cultures.

The course is taught by Kara Alaimo, an Assistant Professor at St. John’s University who previously served as Head of Communications for a United Nations initiative and as a spokesperson in President Obama’s administration. Students book their own flights (and the course ends on June 1, leaving time to stay longer in Europe if they’d like!) The St. John’s University code for this three-credit, elective course is COM8002; students who do not attend St. John’s University should confirm with their home institutions that they will grant credit for the class. The cost of the class is $1,990 plus tuition. This fee includes room, board, and local activities.

For more information on the class, click here and choose the third tab (Italy: Communications).
Applications are being accepted on the Global Studies website.

Please contact the professor, Kara Alaimo, with any questions.