Invitational Masters Student Institute, October 16-18, 2009

The Invitational Masters Student Institute held at Rutgers University is designed for students in (or recent graduates of) Masters of Communication / Media Studies programs who are seriously considering going on for their Ph.D. in Communication or Media Studies. IMSI will select 25 students for the fall 2008 Institute.

IMSI will:
… Pay for most travel expenses of participants (hotel, most meals, and up to $250 travel stipend)
… Provide 2 days of specialized programs by Rutgers Communication and Media Studies faculty focusing on leveraging current knowledge and skills into successful Ph.D. experiences.
… Help think through career options with a Ph.D. in Communication/ Media Studies
… Provide faculty feedback on a current or future scholarly project
… Provide a fun social atmosphere for M.A./M.S. and Ph.D. students as well as the Rutgers faculty

Areas of potential focus for IMSI 2009 include:
… Health Communication
… Interpersonal Communication
… Organizational Communication
… Language & Social Interaction
… Persuasion
… New Media & Technology
… Media Policy & Institutions
… Media and Cultural Studies
… Media and Politics

Institute Content
Discussion of Current Trends in Research
Faculty will work in small groups with Institute participants to discuss the current trends in research and to talk about future directions in the fields of communication and media studies. The program will be geared towards interests of this year’s participants.

Scholarly Project Development Workshops
Participants will be invited to discuss their own scholarly projects (current or contemplated). Small groups of faculty and student participants will discuss the projects, make suggestions, offer ideas, and answer questions.  The goal of these sessions is to provide students varied perspectives on their ideas and useful feedback to move good ideas along.

Methods Workshops
Faculty will provide short workshops on specific methods for collecting and analyzing data.

Doctoral Work and Careers with a Ph.D.
Faculty and current doctoral students participate in round-table discussions about career choices in pursing doctoral work and beyond.

Socializing / Networking
Our group will be small to allow for a high quality interaction. We will host participants for a Friday reception and Saturday lunch and dinner at a local restaurant. On Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon there will be opportunities for excursions into New York City. Some of the local graduate students and faculty will serve as guides for these trips.

Applications due June 29
To apply go to: www.scils.rutgers.edu/ci/imsi/

Contact: Laurie K. Lewis, Assoc. Professor, Communication Department, Rutgers University
Phone: 732-932-7500 x 8141            Email: lewisl@rutgers.edu

Call for Papers — Exploring Childhood Studies, A Graduate Student Conferenc

Department of Childhood Studies
Rutgers University, Camden

The graduate students of the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University, Camden invite submissions for papers and poster presentations for their first formal graduate student conference on April 9, 2010. Graduate students from all disciplines who are engaged in research relating to children and childhood are encouraged to submit proposals.

The field of childhood studies engages in both theoretical and empirical study of children and childhood within historical, contemporary, interdisciplinary, multi-cultural, state, national, and global contexts. Each combination of perspectives provides new insights into the lives of children and the families, cultures, and societies in which they are embedded. The interdisciplinary nature of the field is one of its greatest strengths and the core of its remarkable potential for scholarly advancement, but also leaves the field open for exploration and interrogation, and its borders difficult, if not impossible, to define.

The Exploring Childhood Studies conference proposes defining Childhood Studies by “doing” childhood studies; the conference will explore the field by offering explorations within it. We seek papers from all disciplines that keep childhood as a construct, children as a category, or the child as a real living human as their central focus, providing critical thought and insight while locating them in different contexts, fields, and ideologies.

In keeping with what we believe is the essential interdisciplinary nature of Childhood Studies, this conference seeks to be interdisciplinary itself. We seek proposals from all disciplines–education, literature, economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, law, political science, history, criminology, philosophy, medicine, religion, film studies, and cultural studies–as well as interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary scholarly work.

The range of open topics within this field is as broad as the contexts of the experiences of children and childhood: war, health, rights, gender, poverty, wealth, policy, ethics, popular culture, globalization, school, family, home, sexuality, community, and representations in all modes of fiction. The field of Childhood Studies itself is open to interrogation.

Selected papers will be grouped into panels that may be based around discipline, theme, or perspective, but will demonstrate the common grounding of the papers in their mutual exploration of children and childhood studies.

Paper presentations should be limited to 20 minutes in length. Please send 250-word abstract for paper or poster presentation (specify which) and cover letter with name, current level of graduate study, affiliated university, and email address to m_modica@vfcc.edu. Include the words “conference abstract” in subject line, and include name on the cover letter only.

For further information about The Exploring Childhood Studies conference, contact: Patrick Cox at ptcox@camden.rutgers.edu or Anandini Dar at anandini@camden.rutgers.edu.

Deadline for submission is October 31, 2009. Accepted presenters will receive email notification by January 10, 2010.

Home to the Department of Childhood Studies and The Center for Children and Childhood Studies, Rutgers-Camden is a leader in the national and international discourse on the state of children and childhood. We are very proud of the fact that Rutgers-Camden is the first and only PhD-granting Department of Childhood Studies in the nation, which has now entered its third year. We look forward to introducing the larger academic community to our fellow students, exemplary faculty and unique program, and to engaging in vigorous and stimulating discussions with our peers throughout academia.

Visit the Department of Childhood Studies here: http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu/

Patrick Cox
PhD Student
Department of Childhood Studies
Rutgers University
http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu/

“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.”
–Albert Camus

“Don’t let your studies interfere with your education.”
–Colonel Henry Rutgers

“the jUdges of nOrmalitY are present everywhere.”
–Foucault, of course
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Preparing for Comprehensive Exams

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/05/2009051501c.htm

This article, from the Chronicle for Higher Education, is geared mostly for PhD candidates preparing for oral exams.  However, much of what is suggests is good advice for MA candidates preparing for written comprehensive exams as well.  For example:

Your first task is to clarify what your exam will be about. As far in
advance as possible, talk with students, faculty members, and advisers
to answer some basic questions: What will be the structure of your
exam? How much material will it cover? Will the exam focus on knowledge
of your chosen fields, your proposed research, or both? more…

New Grad Course Offered for Fall 2009!

Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods in Communication
COM 597-01 MW 4:30-5:45
Fall 2009 CRN 14531 
Instructor: Wei “Kitty” Luo

This course is to help both graduate and undergraduate students of communication gain a comprehensive
understanding of qualitative inquiry within communication contexts and embark on an exploration of the field’s theories, methods as well as the students’ research interests. Based on this goal, this course entails the following specific objectives: (1) to examine the philosophical assumptions, theoretical traditions and epistemology of qualitative methods in the field of communication; (2) to understand various approaches–particularly ethnographic approach, participant observation, qualitative interviewing and social text analysis—to qualitative research; (3) to critique written qualitative research articles and identify ways to improve them; (4) to develop skills and techniques to design qualitative research projects.

Canterbury: Assistant Speech Coach (Paid Position)

I coach the speech and debate team here at Canterbury HS and I need to hire an assistant speech coach for next year.  If you have a student that might fit the criteria below, I would like to contact him/her.  We usually have college students for this position because it fits their schedule and there is not a teaching position attached to it, consequently, we have to replace them all the time!  It doesn’t pay well, but looks good on a resume and is fun for those that have been involved in forensics before.  If you can’t think of anyone, please let me know if there is anyone on staff who might so that I might contact them.

*Someone who is minoring in speech and/or theater or has had experience in high school speech or debate

*Someone who can coach students during lunch periods at least once a week from September to March (10:50-1:00)

*Someone who can attend at least 10 Saturday speech meets from November to March

Thank you for your time!

Linda lialt@canterburyschool.org

Backdoor Broadcasting Company Academic Service

http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/category/academic-service/

The Backdoor Broadcasting Company’s Academic Service specializes in web-casting academic conferences, symposia, public lectures, workshops and seminars in order to further the dissemination of academic research.  more…

FlowTV Special Issue CFP: Social Media (05/18/09)

Social media have created new ways for individuals to communicate and share information. Technologies such as blogs, Twitter, social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, etc.), wikis, Second Life, digg, Last.fm, FlickR, etc. have become increasingly pervasive. Social media are being used by celebrities, athletes, journalists, politicians, TV personalities, musicians, scholars, news organizations, businesses, marketers, and more. How does the use of social media change the ways we think about  identity, community, and interpersonal communication? In what ways are social media being used for political purposes, for collective action, and news aggregates? How does receiving a Twitter message on your cell phone from Shaquille O’Neal or NPR’s Scott Simon erode boundaries between public and private or change conceptualizations of intimacy? Are blogs and other social media challenging journalism’s traditional gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions? Should we be concerned about issues of privacy and free speech? How are certain social media technologies being gendered, classed, racialized, and policed? And as is the case with all forms of media, we must be careful to ask who is denied access and to what effect?

We are interested to hear what the Flow community thinks about social media technologies: uses and users, popular discourses and rhetoric, and the ways in which social media challenge concepts of identity, community, friendship, public/private, creativity, surveillance, and more.

Please send submissions of between 1000-1500 words to Jacqueline Vickery (jvickery183@gmail.com) and Anne Petersen (annehelenpetersen@gmail.com) no later than May 18th, 2009.  Flow has a longstanding policy of encouraging non-jargony, highly readable pieces and ample incorporation of images and video.  For examples, please visit FlowTV.org.
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Television program intern for VPA

The College of Visual and Performing Art is developing a television program. Our program will air on WFWA PBS 39 and feature artists and representatives from the local arts community talking about upcoming arts events. The half-hour show will be conducted in an interview format similar to “The Charlie Rose Show, ” and will air between late August 2009 and May 2010. Each show will consist of two to three segments with different guests. Dean Chuck O’Connor will serve as moderator. Although the show will air every week, it will be taped every other week- two shows at a time.

We are looking for an intern for the following:

• Serve as the Assistant Producer on the show
• Pre-interview guests and write a series of questions to be asked on-air by the moderator
• Write the script and teleprompter text
• Obtain graphics, video, and information from guests that they would like to see on the screen.
• Be available on stage during taping

Our need is for someone who has some knowledge or interest in the arts.

For more information, contact oconnorc@ipfw.edu.

CFP: The Popular in Global Times

CALL FOR PAPERS

CLR Journal (Culture, Language and Representation), ISSN: 1697-7750, seeks contributions for its forthcoming volume to be published, May 2010, on the topic of

The Popular in Global Times

Articles are welcomed that engage with the role of popular culture and the politics of everyday life in shaping new and/or alternative life-styles and cultural spaces in the age of globalization.

Possible suggested topics would include, but are by no means reduced to:

-The phenomenon of narrativization as a powerful device in the establishing and development of the popular.
- Popular strategies of contention, appropriation and subversion regarding globalization.
-The current status of popular culture in relation to emerging digital cultures.
-The popular and youth cultures.
-The popular in the Media, Arts, education, literature, film, linguistics.

Both theoretical and case studies that explore the interface of popular culture and globalization are welcomed.

Please, send two hard copies and a WORD document of your contribution to:

Jose R. Prado (editor)
Dept. Estudis Anglesos
Campus Riu Sec
12071 Castellon
Spain

Articles should not exceed 6000 words; book reviews, 600-1200 words.

Deadline for submissions: 15 October, 2009

For any enquires regarding this Call for Papers, or related issues about the Journal, you may contact the Editors at prado@ang.uji.es

or access the Journal webpage at www.clr.uji.es

CLR is currently indexed in ISOC, Latindex, MLA, ABELL.
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White Before We Got Here CFP

TITLE: _White before We Got Here: Youth and the Hidden Curriculum of Whiteness_

EDITORS: Lisa Arrastia and Bill Ayers

DEADLINE: MONDAY 29 JUNE 2009

DESCRIPTION & SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Go to

SUBMIT WORK BY EMAIL ATTACHMENT TO: Lisa Arrastia <arras004@umn.edu>

We’re searching for essays, poetry, lyrics, and visual/performance/installation art by young women and men no older than 25 at the time of writing.

Submissions to our edited book may be creative non-fiction, personal essays; poetry; and all types of artwork. The only rule is that the work has to be yours and has to be original. By “original” we mean that the work you submit to us must be unpublished and not under consideration by another publication or media source.

Work submitted should demonstrate an attempt to examine how you see and experience whiteness in your life, and/or culture, community, city, town, nation. Some ideas you might consider in generating your piece:

• Discuss or show a time when whiteness kept you silent or made you holla back at the world!?
• Show or tell us how whiteness has marked you in some way.
• Identify a time when you remember being taught (in spoken or unspoken ways) cultural values and social norms that you would consider a part of whiteness. Allow us to see what happened and why you think you were being taught these norms and values? Who and what continue to teach you the practices of whiteness?
• Describe a time when you witnessed someone close to you benefiting from whiteness and what those benefits looked like and felt like in your life? What did they mean in the larger context of your life?
• What is the cost of whiteness to you? What are its limitations?
• What do you love about the cultural values and social norms of whiteness and what is difficult about those values and norms for you?
• Describe a time when you complied with the norms and values of whiteness, how you felt about doing so, and why you conformed?
• What does whiteness sound like to you; what does it feel like, look like, or smell like?
• If you could change whiteness, how would you alter it and why?
• If whiteness could talk, what would it say?
• In 100 years, what will whiteness be if anything?

*SUBMIT WORK TO LISA ARRASTIA at <arras004@umn.edu>.*

If you need help thinking about what to write, create, and/or you want to discuss and get help refining your ideas before you make a formal submission, *email Lisa* at <arras004@umn.edu>.

We’ll notify you of our decision as soon as we can. Note that all submissions not accepted for the book will be included on a web site, which will accompany the publication of the book.

We look forward to seeing your work!

Bill Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago

Lisa Arrastía, University of Minnesota (arras004@umn.edu)
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