ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Comparative Cinema

Deadline: September 15, 2020

https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Comparativecinema/announcement/view/79

Over the last ten years, the biopic has been carried out by many relevant filmmakers —within and beyond the mainstream— and it has become a key genre in contemporary cinema. This fact is attested by titles like 'Carlos' (Olivier Assayas, 2010), 'J. Edgar' (Clint Eastwood, 2011), 'Hannah Arendt' (Margarethe von Trotta, 2012), 'Camille Claudel 1915' (Bruno Dumont, 2013), 'Saint Laurent' (Bertrand Bonello, 2014), 'Steve Jobs' (Danny Boyle, 2015), 'Neruda' (Pablo Larraín, 2016), 'Snowden' (Oliver Stone, 2016), 'First Man' (Damien Chazelle, 2018), 'Loro: International Cut' (Paolo Sorrentino, 2018), 'At Eternity’s Gate' (Julian Schnabel, 2018), 'Bohemian Rapsody' (Brian Synger, 2018), 'The Traitor' (Marco Bellocchio, 2019), 'Judy' (Rupert Goold, 2019), 'Rocketman' (Dexter Fletcher, 2019) and 'A Hidden Life' (Terrence Malick, 2019). At the same time, documentary biopics have increased, as in the case of 'George Harrison: Living in the Material World' (Martin Scorsese, 2011), 'The Salt of the Earth' (Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, 2014), 'Amy' (Asif Kapadia, 2015), 'Diego Maradona' (Asif Kapadia, 2019) and 'Pavarotti' (Ron Howard, 2019).

The diversity among these titles is proof of Belén Vidal’s statement in the prologue to the volume 'The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture' (Belén Vidal and Tom Brown, eds., 2014): the term biopic —usually undervalued as a synonym of narrative restrictions and aesthetic conservatism— is also used to name a space that is open to formal experiments. That is the reason why, in the past decade, this genre has also received renewed attention in the academic world, with volumes like 'Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre' (Dennis Bingham, 2010), 'Biopic: de la réalité à la fiction' (Rémi Fontanel, ed., 2011) and 'Invented Lives, Invented Communities: The Biopic and American National Identity' (William H. Epstein and R. Barton Palmer, eds., 2016).

In this issue of 'Comparative Cinema', we want to approach the biopic from the specific perspective of comparative cinema. How much does the story of a lifetime allow to compare aesthetic and narrative differences between two separate works? Which biopic elements are especially relevant for a comparison? Rather than discovering what the comparison between two biopics reveals us, we are interested in how such comparison can be articulated and in finding out which of its elements can be the most fruitful. Some lines of work are suggested:

Biopic and life: biopics privilege certain moments of a trajectory. Which of the life chapters are the most revealing of narrative and aesthetic differences? Between the personal and the professional life, which one of them has a greater impact on the comparison between different biopics?

Biopic and film time: by its very definition, the biopic is developed throughout a long, well delimited period. How can the length of the portrayed period, the length of the film and the time dedicated to each event be compared between different works?

Biopic and star studies: biopics entail professional challenges for performers because they can strengthen or renew their star persona. How can a biopic be compared to other performances by the same actor? How can the real character and the previous roles of the performer be compared through specific gestures?

Biopic and authorship: some filmmakers have transformed the biopic into a sign of identity. Is it possible to find common elements between different biopics directed by the same author? How much do the author’s other films —not biopics— influence these biopics?

Biopic and documentary film: many characters have been biographed both in documentaries and fiction films. Moreover, the fiction biopic can sometimes include real images. How can comparison between a documentary biopic and a fiction biopic be articulated? How much does the biopic allow to approach methodologies about documentary film?

Priority shall be given to papers focused on cinema from the 2000-2020 period (or papers containing, at least, one film from this period in their comparison). Papers must be between 5000 and 6000 words long, including footnotes. The texts (in a Word format) and the images accompanying them must be sent through the RACO platform, available on the website of the journal.

This special issue is also open for publishing interviews that have been previously agreed with the editors. Suggestions can be sent to comparativecinema@upf.edu.

The time limit for receiving papers is the 15th of September 2020.

August 10-21, 2020 (online)

Maastricht Summer School, Maastricht University

Deadline: July 10, 2020

The tweets of US-President Donald Trump, the heated social media debate on Greta Thunberg and the many angles on migration stress the pivotal role of texts and images in our societies. This course teaches you the analytical skills to study the possible meanings of textual and visual media representations.

Interactive lectures offer you concepts and methods to examine what combinations of words and/or visual elements mean in terms of a broader debate in society. These lectures further help you to understand how national identities and power relations affect the interpretations of media representations. Your individual assignment concerns a short paper, in which you apply a method to study one or two news articles, cartoons or social media posts.

Dr Leonhardt van Efferink developed an exclusive Summer School template that helps you to write a well-structured course paper. On top of this, he offers individual feedback in class and active personal tutoring by e-mail. Finally, his support includes a simple framework to develop focused, consistent and transparent research questions.

Below you find the course objectives, timetable and suggested literature. The course fee is €399. If you have any further questions, please contact course leader Leonhardt at l.vanefferink (at) maastrichtuniversity.nl

Main objectives

1. Designing an analytical framework to study media representations with textual and/or visual elements (e.g. newspaper/magazine articles with photos, cartoons and social media posts).

2. Developing a research method that draws on critical discourse analysis, social semiotic analysis and/or news framing analysis, in line with your research objectives.

3. Explaining the role of the national and ideological contexts in which (social) media content is being produced.

4. Understanding the complexity of text-image relations and their role in meaning-making processes.

5. Producing a research design and dataset for your thesis or dissertation that is manageable.

Timetable

The course will last from 10 until 21 August 2020, with daily teaching hours limited to three hours at most. Teaching days will start at 13.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2) and end at the latest at 16.00 (Maastricht time zone/GMT+2). This makes it easier for students from far away countries to deal with the large time differences. Please check Leonhardt's website for most up-to-date version of the timetable: https://vanefferink.com/en/media-representations-and-research-methods-summer-school-critical-discourse-analysis-social-semiotics-and-news-framing/

Literature

Leonhardt has based this course on publications in various languages (see overview below for some examples). You are not required to do pre-course reading. However, if you would like to do so, you are advised to select one of the publications below. You can also contact Leonhardt for tailor-made reading advice.

1. Caple, H. (2013) Photojournalism. A Social Semiotic Approach.

2. Dahinden, U. (2006). Framing. Eine integrative Theorie der Massenkommunikation.

3. D’Angelo, P. (ed.) (2018) Doing News Framing Analysis II. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.

4. Geise, S., & Lobinger, K. (eds.). (2013). Visual Framing. Perspektiven und Herausforderungen der visuellen Kommunikationsforschung.

5. Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis.

6. Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to do Critical Discourse Analysis.

7. Richardson, J. (2007) Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis.

8. Royce, T. D. (2006). Intersemiotic Complementarity. A Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis. In T. D. Royce, & W. Bowcher (Eds.), New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse (pp. 63-109).

9. Van Gorp, B. (2010) Strategies to take the Subjectivity out of Framing Analysis. In P. D’Angelo, & J. A. Kuypers (Eds.), Doing News Framing Analysis. Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives (pp. 84-109).

10. Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds., 2016) Methods of Critical Discourse Studies.

Student reviews (from LinkedIn recommendations)

1. “I found Leonhardt very well familiar with all the dynamics of his class room, as he very efficiently caters to the need of all his students coming from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds.” – Sadia from Pakistan

2. “Leonhardt is a great lecturer who knows his subject matter. I found his inclusive approach particularly useful in teaching media analysis techniques.” – Koen from Belgium

3. “Not only did Leonhardt demonstrate a high level of expertise in the subject, but he also helped his students understand difficult concepts in a very accessible way, effectively bridging the gap between theory and practice, and fostering fruitful discussions in class.” – Carolina from Brazil

December 10-11, 2020

International Workshop, Leuphana University Lüneburg

Deadline: August 15, 2020

Confirmed Speakers:

• Ursula Biemann
• Esther Leslie
• Annie McClanahan
• Yvonne Volkart

It has become a truism that capital circulates, that data, populations and materials flow, that money offers liquidity. Investigating the production of these movements and states from a logistical perspective, the proposed workshop focusses on issues of endless, frictionless circulations and continuous flow to investigate their specific logic.

Our assumption is that nothing circulates or flows without also being regulated. This places us within the discussions of environmentality, of regulation, modulation and control through the environment and qua processes of becoming-environmental. Focussing on concrete spaces of circulation, flow and liquidity, as well as their cultural (re)presentation, we want to discuss whether there is a cultural logic of environmentalization that revisits and perhaps radically revises the notion of the cultural logic of late capitalism famously described by Fredric Jameson.

Given the increasing permeation of everyday lives by computational technologies, scholars have observed the emergence of a new power constellation. While Katherine Hayles sees a general “movement of computation out of the box and into the environment” (2009, 48), Florian Sprenger’s account of an environmental mode of regulation concentrates on “the interaction between environment and surrounded and their mutual dependence” (2019, 62). Erich Hörl observes that power works “through the control of environmental variables” (2018, 155). Can we, by addressing the issue of flows, circulation and/or liquidity uncover a logic – and perhaps even a cultural logic – of this environmentalization?

For further information and more details please visit http://liquidity-flows-circulation.org/

Please send us your 500-word proposal for a 30-minute paper as well as a short biographical note to denecke@leuphana.de by August 15, 2020. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

September 24, 2020

Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University

Deadline: July 31, 2020

During the last decade we were witnessing the rise of automated journalism and application of artificial intelligence tools in the newsrooms. From simple use of templates to highly sophisticated automated content production, omnipresent algorithms, news on social networks, fake news production and its detection became our everyday media practice. AI has slowly but unstoppably entered the media landscape. The rise of AI brought wide scale of problems and questions.

Organizers call for proposal addressing, but not limited, to following themes:

Theme 1. Newsgathering

-Data gathering, real time monitoring, data harvesting

-Data verification, automated fact checking

-Crunching big data, data extraction

-Applications of AI journalism – case studies

Theme 2. News Production

-Text creation

-Automated narratives from big data

-Visual materials creation (videos, graphics, infographics)

-Influence of AI on newsroom organization, routines

-Copyright of AI produced content

Theme 3. News Distribution

-Targeted distribution

-Personalization, algorithms, social bubbles

-Human vs. machine interaction, human supervision

-Information correlation

-Fake news elimination vs. fake news production

Theme 4. AI Ethics

-New skills in the newsroom related to AI adoption

-Journalistic education related to AI journalism

-Threats and opportunities of AI journalism

-Responsibility for AI journalism

Keynote speaker: 

Professor Charlie Beckett (LSE Media and Communications, POLIS)

Important dates:

• Deadline for abstract submissions *before 31. July*
• Notification of acceptance will be sent before 31. August
• Deadline for conference registration 15. September
• Date of the conference 24. September

Conference fees:

-Early birds before 31. July - Students 50 Euro, Regular 75 Euro

-After - Students 75 Euro, Regular 100 Euro

Practical information:

-Abstract should be written in English, contain clear outline of argument, and between 300 and 500 words long.

-Presentations should be no longer than 12 minutes.

-Conference will take place at Faculty of Social Sciences Charles University in Prague. Conference will be streamed online and recorded for further access.

Contact:

Send the abstracts to: aijournalism@fsv.cuni.cz

A Theme Issue of Valuation Studies

Deadline: September 15, 2020

https://valuationstudies.liu.se/…ion

What happens when we “digitize” practices of valuation and what are the implications? What are the opportunities and limits of existing analytic tools for understanding new forms of digital valuation? What vistas and perspectives do emerge for research into valuation?

This theme issue of Valuation Studies will explore novel, cross-cutting approaches to problematizing, analyzing, and examining the intersection of digitization and valuation in contemporary societies. Contributions are welcome from a number of approaches to the study of valuation practices, including sociological, anthropological, cultural, political, semiotic, historiographic, legal, institutional, critical, and organisational. Potential research themes include, but are not limited to:

* Linkages between digitization, valuation, and accountability

* The relationship between digital and other modes of valuation

* Issues of bias, discrimination, and gaming in digital valuation

* Innovative methodologies for studying digital valuation

* The roles and relevance of automation in digital valuation

* The relationship between digital valuation and new modes of governing

* How different modes of sensing the world (digital or otherwise) are valued

* How agency is redistributed by digital valuation systems

* Questions of privacy, ownership, and control

* Due process, recourse, and contestability

* Historical analyses of digital valuation practices

Expressions of interest should be submitted in the form of an extended abstract (about 1,000 words). Selected authors will be invited to submit full papers for peer review.

Important dates

September 15, 2020: Extended abstracts due

October 15, 2020: Notification of authors

April 15, 2021: Full papers due

Full call for papers: https://valuationstudies.liu.se/…ion

Questions and inquiries: digitalization.valuation@gmail.com

Editors: Francis Lee (Chalmers University of Technology); Andrea Mennicken (London School of Economics); Jacob Reilley (Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg); Malte Ziewitz (Cornell University)

Deadline: December 10, 2020

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 1/2021. Research into any and all aspects of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres is welcome from a range of disciplines.

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is a peer- reviewed academic journal published online twice a year. Fafnir is a publication of the Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research (FINFAR). Fafnir publishes various texts ranging from peer-reviewed research articles to short overviews and book reviews in the field of science fiction and fantasy research.

The submissions must be original works written in English, Finnish, or Scandinavian languages. Manuscripts for research articles should be between 20,000 and 40,000 characters in length. The journal uses the most recent edition of the MLA Style Manual (MLA 8). The manuscripts for research articles will be subjected to a double-blind peer-review. Please note that as Fafnir is designed to be of interest to readers with varying backgrounds, essays and other texts should be as accessibly written as possible. Also, if English is not your first language, please have your article proofread by an English-language editor. Please ensure your submission conforms to our journal’s submission guidelines, which are available at: http://journal.finfar.org/for-authors/submission-guidelines/

In addition to research articles, Fafnir welcomes text proposals for essays, interviews, overviews, conference reports, as well as book and thesis reviews on any subject suitable for the journal.

Please send your electronic submission (saved as DOC/DOCX or RTF) to the following address: submissions@finfar.org. You should get a reply indicating that we have received your submission in a few days. If not, please resubmit or contact the editors. Do note that editorial review of submissions begins after the CfP has closed. More information about the journal is available at our webpage: journal.finfar.org.

Offers to review recent academic books can be sent to reviews@finfar.org. We also post lists of available books on the IAFA listserv.

The deadline for article submissions is 10 December 2020. For other submissions (essays, overviews), contact the editors. For book reviews, contact the reviews editor.

This issue is scheduled to be published in summer 2021.

​November 5-6, 2020

Anadolu University, Faculty of Communication Sciences

Deadline: August 16, 2020

You can submit your abstract about any topic related to media and communication studies. However, this year we will focus on "today and tomorrow" theme the organize panels around the below titles:

• Today and Future of School of Communications and
• Communication Education
• Today and Future Communication Sector and
• the Future of Communication Graduates
• Today and Future of Public Relations
• Today and Future of Advertising
• Today and Future of New Media
• Today and Future of Journalism
• Today and Future of Cinema
• Today and Future of Radio
• Today and Future of Television
• Today and Future of Photography
• Today and Future Intercultural Communication
• Today and Future Media Effect Studies
• Today and Future of Critical Studies 

SPECIAL SESSION

• Covid-19 Pandemic and the Media

The CIM 2020 will be broadcasted on Zoom.

Communication in the Millennium is an annual, peer-reviewed international symposium.

The world is getting smaller with high technology-based communication systems which also bring people together. Communication scholars and practitioners, especially, should be close to one another and this is why we are gathering them and preparing a platform for discussion. The responsibility of the symposium is growing day by day, as its main idea is communication in the new millennium. The aim of this symposium is to establish and continue an international multidisciplinary forum for the development of an innovative and inspiring dialogue among communication scholars and practitioners.

Secondly, popular and main issues of the communication field in the new millennium will be discussed. And with this dialogue, future projects and comparative studies will hopefully be developed.

The symposium aims to foster and promote work that is intended to make a constructive contribution to the communication field and its development.

IMPORTANT DATES

Symposium dates: 5-6 November 2020

Abstract submission deadline: 16 August 2020

Symposium registration: 5-18 October 2020

Deadline for full-paper submission for e-book: 15 November 2020

Deadline for manuscript submission for e-Kurgu Journal’s special issue: 15 November 2020

Deadline for full-paper submission for a book chapter published by a national publishing house: 15 November 2020

https://www.cimsymposium.org/

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University

We have a PhD Studentship in Making Online Participatory Artworks available in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Coventry University, with Professor Mel Jordan, of the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, as Director of Studies.

PhD Studentship: Making Online Art Together - A Practice-led Study of Online Participatory Artworks for Publics, Museums and Galleries

This is a practice-based research project. The research will discover how audiences interact with digital tools that are employed via out-reach projects. Candidates with skills and knowledge in the theory, practice and histories of social art practice should apply. The collective goal of the project is: to offer new types of artworks that can be accessed online during and beyond COVID-19; and to generate innovate ways for users to engage with digital tools for the production of collaborative artworks. The technological aspect of this project is concerned with multiple technologies for the production of artworks and is a means to experiment with engagement; its problems, its politics as well as its successes.

Research Questions:

* What kinds of social relationships are enabled by digital participatory art works; and how can a digital participatory artwork operate to support existing community building and well-being?

* What types of digital tools do museums and galleries use; and how do they make use of digital participatory art projects for community engagement? How can they reach audiences that are currently unable to visit in person?

* How do users employ digital tools; and how can we improve user engagement with online artefacts and events?

Director of Studies: Professor Mel Jordan

Training and Development: The successful candidate will receive comprehensive research training including technical, personal and professional skills. All researchers at Coventry University (from PhD to Professor) are part of the Doctoral College and Centre for Research Capability and Development, which provides support with high-quality training and career development activities.

Entry criteria for applicants to PhD:

* A minimum of a 2:1 first degree in a relevant discipline/subject area with a minimum 60% mark in the project element or equivalent with a minimum 60% overall module average. PLUS the potential to engage in innovative research and to complete the PhD within a 3.5 years

* A minimum of English language proficiency (IELTS overall minimum score of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component) For further details see: www.coventry.ac.uk/…ion

To find out more about the project please contact Mel Jordan: email: _mel.jordan@coventry.ac.uk_

To apply on line please visit: https://pgrplus.coventry.ac.uk/…ies

Closing date for applications: 10th August 2020

All applications require full supporting documentation, a covering letter, plus an up to 2000-word supporting statement showing how the applicant’s expertise and interests are relevant to the project.

Eligibility: UK/EU graduates with the required entry requirements PhD funding award: Bursary plus tuition fees (UK/EU)

Start date: September 2020/January 2021

Duration of study: Full-Time – between three and three and a half years fixed term

Interview dates: Will be confirmed to shortlisted candidates

For informal enquiries please contact Prof. Mel Jordan: email: mel.jordan@coventry.ac.uk

November 5-7 2020

Online

Deadline: September 21, 2020

Cine-Excess: The 14th International Conference and Festival on Global Cult Film Traditions

Cine-Excess 14, in association with Birmingham City University and the Black Sands Educational Project, features an online academic conference, alongside film industry panels and a streamed film festival season of related UK premieres and retrospectives. A Panel of international filmmakers discussing the theme of ‘Representations as Weapons’ will be announced in late July.*

Previous guests of honour attending Cine-Excess have included Jen & Sylvia Soska (American Mary, Rabid [2019]), Norman J. Warren (Prey, Terror), Victoria Price (Author of Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography), Pete Walker (Frightmare and House of the Long Shadows), Catherine Breillat (Romance, Sex is Comedy), John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, The Blues Brothers), Roger Corman (The Masque of the Red Death, The Wild Angels), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, King of the Ants), Brian Yuzna (Society, The Dentist), Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria), Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins), Franco Nero (Django, Keoma, Die Hard II), Vanessa Redgrave (Blow Up, The Devils), Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust, House on the Edge of the Park), Enzo G. Castellari (Keoma, The Inglorious Basts), Sergio Martino (Torso, All the Colours of the Dark), Jeff Lieberman (Squirm, Blue Sunshine) and Pat Mills (Action Magazine, 2000 AD).

For its 2020 edition, Cine-Excess is working in collaboration with the Black Sands Educational Project, which seeks to educate UK-based BAME artists, filmmakers and audiences about the subversive potential that surrounds black representations in cult and marginal cinema formats. The focus of the Black Sands project helps informs this year’s conference theme: *Representations as Weapons: Cult Film and the Politics of Resistance*. This theme considers the extent to which the struggle for representations by various ethnicities, genders and divergent groups is enacted through a range of classic and contemporary cult film genres.

This focus on representations as weapons will consider the complex issues of gender and racial diversity as embodied by the cult image, whilst exploring a range of international traditions, directors and performers whose work can be seen as existing at the borders of cinematic excess and political struggle. Further topics might consider the work of classic and contemporary minority and female filmmakers, alongside those performers whose works annex social commentary with unconventional content, while issues of diaspora, disability, mental health and migration are other key topics that will be discussed by this year’s event. Proposals are invited for papers that consider cult film case-studies within a range of differing contexts that relate to this year’s theme. We would particularly welcome contributions that focus on the following areas:

1. Manipulating the Mainstream: Jordan Peele and the New Politics of Race Horror

2. Between Genres and Against the Grain: Female Voices in Cult and Extreme Cinema

3. The Role of Race and Ethnicity in Horror Remakes

4. From Cause Célèbre to Cultural Icon: New Readings of Pam Grier and Performativity

5. Representation as Weapons: Cult Cinema at Key Points of Historical Conflict

6. Race Re-Framed: New Readings of Blaxploitation Cinema Cycles

7. Inclusion in Excess: Using the Extreme Image in Educational and Pedagogic Practices

8. Classic and Contemporary Images of Black American Horror

9. From Diversity to Deviance: The Struggle for Sexual Identity in Marginal Film

10. Screening Diversity, Consent and Desire in Marginal Film and Digital Sex/Pornography

11. Coloniser, Colonised and Cult: Film Narratives and the Struggle for Representation

12. Bodies as Battlegrounds: LGBTQ+ Representations and Intimacies

13. Terrifying Outsiders: Migrant Traumas and Regional Conflicts in Cult Film Narratives

14. “Gypsies”, Roma and Nomads: Cult Representations of Travellers and Traveller Communities

15. Dubbed but Highly Dangerous: The Political Reception of European Radical Film Texts

16. Transnational and Trash: Conflicted Notions of Nationhood in Pulp Cinema

17. Margins Within Margins: Black Trans-representation in Film

18. Disability, Diversity and Representation in Cult Cinema

19. Scoring the Resistance: Cult Soundtracks as Symbols of Rebellion

20. Screening Rights and the Battle for Embodiment: Trans and Non-Binary Voices on Screen

21. Split: Framing Mental Health in Exploitation Cinema

22. Framing the Forgotten: Dispossessed UK Communities on Screen

23. Bodies as Weapons: Classic and Contemporary Case-Studies of Subversive Cult Performers

24. Diverse Voices in Distribution: New Organisations and Patterns of Screen Disruption

25. Cult on Cults: Fictional Representations of Real Life Marginal Communities

Since its inception in 2007, Cine-Excess has developed a reputation as an inclusive and safe space in which to present new work around global cult film cultures. We welcome submissions from emerging and established scholars, activists, film makers and community groups.

Please send a 300-word abstract and a short (one page) C.V. by Monday 21st September 2020 to:

• Professor Xavier Mendik,  Director of the Cine-Excess International, Film Festivalxavier.mendik@cine-excess.co.uk
• Dr. Gemma Commane, Co-Director of the Cine-Excess International Film Festivalgemma.commane@cine-excess.co.uk
• Jo Delyse-Packwood, Co-Director of the Cine-Excess International Film Festivaljo.delyse.packwood@cine-excess.co.uk

A final listing of accepted presentations will be released on Friday 25th September 2020.

Online Delegate fees for Cine-Excess 14 are £50/£25 (concessions) and include access to all conference activities, related screenings, and industry panels. A selection of conference papers from the event will be published in the Cine-Excess e-Journal. For further information and regular updates on the event (including information on guests, keynotes and screenings) please visit www.cine-excess.co.uk .

Cine-Excess continues to monitor the Covid 19 (coronavirus) outbreak, regularly reviewing the situation and taking necessary action. Our priority is to ensure the health and safety of our attendees, delegates, staff, and everyone we work with. Cine-Excess reserves the right to amend the conference and festival programme in the event of changes to Covid 19 restrictions and guidelines.

Centre for English Corpus Linguistics (CECL, UCLouvain, Belgium)

The Centre for English Corpus Linguistics (CECL, UCLouvain, Belgium) has an opening for a PhD fellowship for a total period of four years, starting 1 October 2020.

The position is part of a large multidisciplinary project that aims to investigate socio-cognitive conflicts in online educational platforms via the prism of several theoretical frameworks from the humanities and social sciences: “MOOCresearch2.0: A mixed-method and multidisciplinary approach to socio-cognitive conflicts in online educational platforms” (Prof. M. Frenay, Prof. F. Lambotte, Dr. Magali Paquot & Prof. V. Swaen).(Open) online education poses a variety of challenges for higher education, one of which is how to foster social interactions and induce beneficial socio-cognitive conflicts to promote learning in an environment where interactions are primarily written and asynchronous. In educational research, socio-cognitive conflicts are considered essential for progress and learning to take place: they are differences in point of view that are socially experienced and cognitively resolved. As put by Darnon, Buchs, & Butera (2002, p. 140), “confrontation with a partner creates a double imbalance. This imbalance is both social (inter-individual) because it is a discrepancy between two persons, and cognitive (intra-individual) because it makes each individual doubt about his/her own answer. (…) In order to coordinate the different points of view, a cognitive work emerges from this socio-cognitive conflict, reading to a more elaborate level of reasoning” (see https://uclouvain.be/…tml [1] for more info).

Online education is becoming increasingly popular but is mainly offered in English. Research in bilingual education and content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has shown that new disciplinary concepts are not acquired as well in the foreign language as in the first language. This is especially true for concepts that cannot be directly observed or related to what learners already know, and which comprehension largely relies on linguistic mediation (e.g. Babault & Markey, 2001), and for students with lower foreign language proficiency who find it almost impossible to describe disciplinary concepts in English (e.g. Airey, 2009). Studies have also shown that results of evaluative tasks performed in a foreign language are largely dependent on L2 proficiency (Ventura, 2016). If we transpose these findings to online education, and MOOCs more particularly (as they aim to increase access to education, cf. Rohs & Ganz, 2015), it seems particularly important to investigate whether non-native speakers find in discussion forums a place where to check comprehension, ask for clarification, and discuss concepts in social interactions.

The main objective of the PhD project will be to investigate the effect of language status (native speaker vs. learner) and language proficiency on negotiation of meaning and the unfolding of socio-cognitive conflicts in asynchronous forum discussion boards. The following questions will guide the research programme:

• To what extent are non-native speakers present on forum discussions? What role do they take? How does this compare with native speakers’ presence and assumed roles?
• To what extent do non-native speakers negotiate meaning with a view to resolve a misunderstanding due to language problems vs. content-related and cognitive problems?
• To what extent do non-native speakers take part in the richer content-based interactions that can potentially give rise to socio-cognitive conflicts and learning?
• To what extent does language proficiency impact non-native speakers’ online presence, the range of roles they assume, the type of discussions they are involved in, and the types of posts they write?
• To answer the research questions, the candidate will rely primarily on techniques from corpus linguistics and natural language processing.

Job description:

The candidate will work under the supervision of Magali Paquot (CECL, Institute for Language and Communication). The candidate will be affiliated to the Institut Langage et Communication (ILC, UCLouvain) and be a member of the CECL.

The PhD candidate will also be working in a multidisciplinary environment with other researchers from the Social Media Lab (https://www.socialmedialab.be/ [2]), the Interdisciplinary Research Group in Socialisation, Education and Training (GIRSEF,https://uclouvain.be/fr/chercher/girsef [3]), the Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations(LOURIM, https://uclouvain.be/…rim [4]) and the Centre for Natural Language Processing (CENTAL, https: //uclouvain.be/…tal [5]).

Activities that the candidate will perform include:

-develop and implement (i) theoretical concepts in line with the focus of the research project and (ii) appropriate methodological procedures for investigating these concepts;

-extract relevant data from MOOC platforms with appropriate computational and NLP techniques (note that the PhD candidate will be expected to help other members of the team with data extraction and structuring)

-conduct analyses of forum posts by L1 and L2 speakers of English;

-interpret the results of the analyses and report on the project in conference presentations and academic publications;

-by the end of the four-year term, submit and defend a PhD dissertation based on the project.

Requirements and profile:

- Master degree in (Applied) Linguistics, with a master thesis on a topic relevant to the project;

- excellent record of BA and MA level study;

- excellent command of English;

- good command of French is an asset but not required;

- excellent and demonstrated analytic skills;

- knowledge of corpus-linguistic techniques is a requirement;

- knowledge of statistics and statistical software is an asset;

- programming skills in Perl or Python are also an asset (if no expertise in programming, the candidate should be willing to learn Python during the first year);

- excellent and demonstrated self-management skills, ability and willingness to work in a team;

- willingness to live in Belgium and to travel abroad (to attend international academic conferences, etc).

Terms of employment:

- the contract will initially be for one year, three times renewable, with a total of four years;

- the candidate receives a doctoral fellowship grant (starting at approx. EUR 1982 netper month) and full medical insurance;

- the position requires residence in Belgium, preferably in or near Louvain-la-Neuve;

- applicants from outside the EU are responsible for obtaining the necessary visa or permits, with the assistance of UCLouvain staff department.

Application Deadline: 31 July 2020

Please include with your application:

- a cover letter in English, in which you specify why you are interested in this position and how you meet the job requirements outlined above;

- a curriculum vitae in English;

- a concise academic statement in French or English, in which you outline your expectations about and plans for graduate study and career goals;

- a copy of BA and MA diplomas and degrees;

- a copy of your master thesis and academic publications (if applicable);

- the names and full contact details of two academic referees.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview (in situ or via video conferencing) in the second half of August 2020. Applications (as an email attachment) and inquiries should be addressed to:

Dr. Magali

Paquot

Centre for English Corpus Linguistics

Université Catholique de Louvain