[Air-L] Call for contributions, ESN-IAMCR special session "The University in Crisis: Tradition, innovation, and employment in Communications departments”

[Francesca Musiani]

Please find below a call for contributions for a special session organized
by the Emerging Scholars Network of the International Association for Media
and Communication Research (IAMCR), of possible interest for both emerging
and senior scholars.


Best regards,

Francesca Musiani

ESN-IAMCR communications coordinator


-----


International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
2011

Theme: “Cities, Creativity, Connectivity”

*CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO A ROUND TABLE ON*

 *"The University in Crisis*

 *”Tradition, innovation, and employment in Communications departments”*

Organized by the Emerging Scholars Network

* *

 Over the past few years, students and faculty in California, Puerto Rico,
Quebec, Greece and England, and other regions where the government has
customarily given strong support to higher education, have responded to
massive fee increases with protests and strikes. In other countries
universities and students have recently been at the center of social
struggles, as have communications technologies. What does this mean for the
nature of academic employment and research in Communications? And how does
neoliberal policy affect academic research and practice in Communications,
an interdisciplinary area of study incorporating both critical theory and
research directly applicable to the business world?

The Emerging Scholars Network of the IAMCR invites interested scholars and
advocates to submit abstracts for around table on: “The University in
Crisis: Tradition, innovation, and employment in Communications
departments.”


Present developments in academia in the Western world have followed a
consistent trajectory of government disengagement, while institutions such
as tenure and thesis-based PhDs are being questioned. Universities in the
Global South are sometimes strongly supported by government and sometimes
entirely private. We invite contributions that address one (or more) of the
following themes:

a)      Historical traditions in universities and how Communications, as one
of the newest disciplines in the humanities, has fit into these practices;
regional differences in the nature of universities and changes affecting
them;



b)         The role of Communications studies in studying, critiquing,
alleviating or contributing to the negative effects of globalization;

b)      The effects of different funding sources on research and employment,
as well as the role of corporations in universities and Communications
departments;


c)      Case studies, personal ethnographies, and examples of new patterns
of employment for emerging scholars;

d)      Possible solutions/attempts to reconcile such debates and address
contemporary challenges: visionary proposals for preserving the value of
higher education in a hostile political climate, the future of academic
employment and the role of Communications in future universities.


The Emerging Scholars Network welcomes proposals from both emerging and
senior scholars.


Interested contributors are invited to submit a proposal of no more than 500
words along with a *curriculum vitae*.


**Submissions should include your name, affiliation, and email address,
and should be sent by ------  to Holly Nazar (hollynazar at hotmail.com) with
carbon copy to Stefania Milan (Stefania.Milan at eui.eu).  The list of
panelists will be announced by the end of April 2011.


-- 
Francesca Musiani

Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation (associé au CNRS, UMR7185)
MINES ParisTech
60, Boulevard Saint Michel
75272 PARIS Cedex 06 France

33 (0)1 40 51 92 77
33 (0)6 45 31 90 53
francesca.musiani at mines-paristech.fr
www.csi.mines-paristech.fr/Perso/Musiani/