ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES

Special Issue of Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies

Deadline (EXTENDED): May 15, 2019

At the heart of animation is movement, and the expression of movement is negotiated differently across media. How then do LGBTQ+ communities reappropriate the specificities of animation, comics, videogames, and other forms of visual representations that rely on putting bodies into motion? How does animation support the emergence of social and political movements from within, between, and outside media production spaces? Since 2010, studies of LGBTQ+ representation in animation have steadily increased in number. From queer readings (Halberstram 2011), to media histories (McLelland, Nagaike, Suganuma, Welker 2015), to queer media makers (such as bisexual, non-binary creator Rebecca Sugar and other queer animators like Noelle Stevenson and Chris Nee), animation production has become a vital site for the study, performance, and persistence of queer media practices. Although much conversation has been devoted to queer readings of texts in transmedia movements, the people, circuits, and institutions of queer animated media production have attracted significantly less attention.

By focusing on the “politics of movement,” we intend to grasp the convergence of

1. common techniques of animation in and across multiple media platforms
2.  means of mobile image production both amateur and industrial
3. social agendas in queer communities using the motion of images to negotiate their representation and place in society.

While this issue will brush up against the various transmedia (narrative-based, Jenkins, 2008), media mix (image-based, Steinberg, 2012) and cross-media (toy-based, Nogami, 2015) models and their cultural geographies across the globe, our central aim here is to expand the knowledge and visibility of LGBTQ+ sociopolitical projects evolving conjointly with the creation and circulation of animated images. Producing movement in, across, and outside of media extends the synchronization of images to networks of commodities, territories, and peoples. Although an important amount of scholarship tends to address this question as the “queering of texts,” we seek another point of view coming directly from the creation of moving images itself. Such production practices are also imbricated in and respond to geo-political and cultural contexts. How then does the movement in between frames, vignettes, illustrations, and memes (to name a few examples) initiate social action (be it just to produce pornography for marginalized communities or to create conventions for amateur artists and publics to meet)?

This issue of Synoptique: An Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies will focus on queer media practices and the politics of movement. When animating LGBTQ+ images, media creators are also mobilizing queer practices, communities, and identities. Therefore, we are particularly interested in analyses and testimonies that examine sites of queer media production and their animation techniques, strategies, and practices. We encourage contributions that examine the interactions of animation within media related to animation, such as comics and videogames, as forms of queer movement often overflow and interact throughout multiple media platforms (Hemmann, 2015). We also invite submissions of artwork either from queer-identifying artists and practitioners, or pieces that explore queer movement, embodiment, and existence. Interviews, manifestos, essays, and other forms of writing on animated movement in queer media making are warmly welcome, as are multimedia contributions.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• The industrial or amateur structures of LGBTQ+ images production
• Movement in LGBTQ+ pornography and erotika
• Queer movement in comics, visual novels, videogames, etc.
• The strategies and places of queered images (“Queer” Media mix, Marketing, Festivals, and Conventions)
• Animated media production of the Global South (such as Brazilian Netflix show Super Drags)
• Distribution networks for LGBTQ+ animated series (TV, platforms, VOD)
• LGBTQ+ representations in animated media emerging from manga including both more mainstream (Boy’s Love, Yuri) and subcultural (so-called Bara or Gachimuchi) productions
• Local LGBTQ+ communities and their struggles expressed through moving images
• Queer movement across comics and animation
• Decolonizing sexualities
• Cosplay as queer (re)animation

We use a broad interpretation of LGBTQ+ identity, including Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Trans*, Queer/Questioning, Two-Spirit, Intersex, Agender, Asexual, Pansexual, Genderqueer, Genderfluid, Non-binary, X-gender, Genderfuck, etc.

Essays submitted for peer review should be approximately 5,500-7,500 words and must conform to the Chicago author-date style (17th ed.). All images must be accompanied by photo credits and captions.

We also warmly invite submissions to the review section, including conference or exhibition reports, film festival reports, and interviews related to the aforementioned topics. All non-peer review articles should be a maximum of 2,500 words and include a bibliography following Chicago author-date style (17th ed.).

Multimedia works such as digital video, gifs, still images, or more (surprise us!) are also welcome. Works under 8MB may by hosted directly on the Synoptique site; anything larger must be uploaded to an external site (Youtube, Vimeo, etc). Please contact the Synoptique Board for more information on the procedures to submit artworks.

All submissions may be written in either French or English.

Please submit completed essays or reports to the Editorial Collective (editor.synoptique@gmail.com) issue guest editors, Kevin J. Cooley (kevin.cooley@ufl.edu), Edmond (Edo) Ernest dit Alban (ernestedo@gmail.com), and Jacqueline Ristola (jacqueline.ristola@gmail.com), by April 30. We will send notifications of acceptance by June 30.

Special issue of Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture

Deadline: June 1, 2019

Guest Editors: Annamária Neag and Richard Berger (Bournemouth University, UK)

Discussions on the relationship between children & youth and (social) media have predominantly focused on issues involving online safety, self-image, media use and media literacy (e.g. Canty et al, 2016; Hoge & Bickham, 2017; Livingstone et al, 2017; Nikkon & Schols, 2015;). However, less attention has been cast on the mediated experiences of children and youth in what we call ‘in between spaces’. These ‘in between’ spaces can be both physical (e.g. migrating from one country to another), and more intangible or abstract, such as re-negotiating gender. We know that childhood and adolescence are transitional states, which, for many, are often contradictory and difficult. Research shows that children and teenagers have a fluid and interdependent relationship with both the world around them and the technologies they are using (Rooney, 2012). The work of Turkle (2011) and latterly Sefton-Green and Livingstone (2017) highlights, for instance, that young people often turn to the online world as it has “intense individual meanings” (p. 245) for them, away from the school and the home. In this space then, new identities are constantly re-negotiated. As one study found, teenagers use selfies as tools for both confirming heteronormativity and for renegotiating and mocking gender norms (Forsman, 2017). In the ‘in between spaces’ of migrating youth then, social media is seen to play a vital role for maintaining social links with friends and families, and with new acquaintances in the receiving societies (Kutscher & Kress, 2018).

For this special issue, we are seeking contributions which explore and map the ‘in between’ spaces children and youth negotiate in their everyday lived media experiences. We seek articles which research how (social) media and digital technology is used/deployed in these spaces, as tools of negotiation and transaction. For this special issue, we are interested in seeing how these relationships are influenced or changed because of social platforms and digital technologies.

We would welcome expressions of interest from academics working in these fields, as well as practitioners and those who work with directly with children/childhood in these ‘in between spaces’ (e.g. those from NGO/charity sectors).

Submissions may cover, but are not limited to, the following:

• The transitioning of young people/youth through foster care;
• Unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers and migrant youth settling in a new country;
• Re-negotiating gender (including trans/non-binary transition);
• Children and young people who are transitioning between being home-schooled or from having been educated in isolated communities;
• The negotiating of new identities, such as becoming step-son/daughter, step-brother/sister;
• Transition from high school to university/labour market

GUIDELINES FOR SPECIAL ISSUE PROPOSALS

Please write a 300-word statement of the overall concept of your study, its thematic coherence and especially how it relates to the aims and scope of the call, carefully articulating the transition under discussion in a well-defined mediated ‘in between’ space. Please include your name, institutional affiliation and contact details. The deadline for sending in the proposals is the 1st of June 2019. The abstracts should be sent to both Dr. Annamária Neag (aneag@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Dr. Richard Berger (rberger@bournemouth.ac.uk).

A selection of authors will be invited to submit a full paper (from 6000-8000 words, including references) due on the 1st of October 2019.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed, and the issue is scheduled for publication in November 2020.

Please make sure to follow the Intellect Style Guide and requirements for images, graphs and tables available at https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-editors-and-contributors

All inquiries about this Call for Papers can be addressed to Dr. Annamária Neag (aneag@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Dr. Richard Berger (rberger@bournemouth.ac.uk)

July 7, 2019, 9:00am-4:30pm

Madrid, Spain

(Extended) Proposal deadline: May 10, 2019 (11:59 pm MST)

The Program:

Reimagining Our University aims to cultivate solidarity and collaboration by bringing emerging scholars together to discuss our concerns with the contemporary university and brainstorm solutions to some of these questions. We are the future of the university, and we can either choose to accept the university as it stands, prioritizing our personal success within market-driven structures, or we can choose to develop transnational networks of emerging scholars committed to supporting one another as we develop and cultivate visions of what the university might become.

The preconference will be divided into two parts: (1) three conference-style roundtables in which individuals share ten-minute provocations, followed by open discussion; and (2) carefully designed workshops aimed at targeted brainstorming and goal-setting in response to previously identified key areas of concern.

The Vision:

At the upcoming 2019 IAMCR Conference, we will be gathering to engage the role of communication in fulfilling the Preamble of the Paris Declaration (UN, 1948), which states that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world".

This commitment must begin within our own institutions. However, contemporary universities are undergoing a process of the so-called “neoliberalization”, in which students are called “customers” or “users”, and faculty and graduate students are reduced to labor force or “service providers”. In this context, the contemporary University’s commitments to financial viability often undermine and prevail upon the collective attempts of faculty, staff, and students to cultivate a community of knowledge.

It can be tempting to call for a return towards the origins of the university, for a restoration of its initial commitment to the Humanities and the development of thoughtful citizens. However, even if the university was not always as commercially driven, the university has never been committed fully to the dignity and rights of all members of the human family. It has always been exclusionary in some form, and the university participated actively in the European colonial project.

Instead it is necessary to begin with a blank slate and imagine the modern university from the ground up, as we need it to be. What purpose should the university have in today’s society? For whom should the university be designed? How should coursework be structured? How should the tenure process function? Can we design financially stable institutions without structuring such institutions around financial viability and market interests? These are massive questions with which we must wrestle, and we must wrestle with them together.

Call for Proposals:

Faculty and graduate students at all levels are encouraged to apply. Though this preconference is sponsored by the Emerging Scholars Network and emphasizes the collaboration and contributions of emerging scholars, we value the insights and perspectives of experienced academics who also wish to reimagine the university as it exists today.

For the first session, we request interested participants to submit an author bio and a 300-word abstract outlining their brief ten-minute provocations that offer insights, challenges, calls to action, or other reflections in response to the central question of this preconference: how must we rethink and reimagine the university today?

For the second session, we request interested workshop organizers to submit a CV and one-page proposal outlining their idea for a workshop related to the theme of this preconference.

Potential topics for provocations or workshops could include:

• Decolonizing the university
• Rethinking the publishing model
• Public scholarship and the university
• The future of finances within the Academy
• The tenure-track process
• University infrastructures
• The university’s responsibility to the environment

As this pre-conference will function as a workshop, involving the active participation of all conference attendees, all in attendance may request a letter to their home institution, in which we advocate for their merit to receive travel funding, regardless of whether they are one of the speakers presenting a provocation.

Please send all proposals and queries to Rachel Lara van der Merwe (University of Colorado Boulder) at rachel.vandermerwe@colorado.edu no later than May 10, 2019 (midnight MST).

Organisers:

The Emerging Scholars Network is the key organizer and sponsor of this event. ESN (http://iamcr.org/s-wg/section/emerging-scholars-network-section/home) is a section dedicated to the work and careers of emerging scholars in the field of media studies and communication.

The ESN organizes emerging scholar panels and joint panels with other sections. Emerging Scholars panels provide a comfortable environment for the presentation of theses and works in progress, where emerging scholars can receive feedback from colleagues also at the beginning of their careers and from senior scholars who act as respondents to individual papers.

January 7-11, 2020

Lisbon

Deadline: July 22, 2019

Jointly organized by the Faculty of Human Sciences (Universidade Católica Portuguesa), the Center for Media@Risk at the Annenberg School for Communication (University of Pennsylvania), the School of Journalism and Communication (Chinese University of Hong Kong), the Department of Media and Communications (London School of Economics and Political Science) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (University of Helsinki), the Second Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication will take a comparative and global approach to the study of media and uncertainty across time.

Call for Applications

The media today are troubled by uncertainty. Externally, a growing sense of uncertainty draws from deep-seated questions about identity formation, increasing angst over the viability of familiar cultural, political and social formations and intensifying social and economic precarity and inequality. Ultimately, the risks and challenges posed by climate change expose an even deeper sense of risk, calling into question the usual cyclical social imaginations about risk, crisis and renewal.

Within media environments, uncertainty builds from the rapid unfolding and often unforeseen ramifications of digital technology, the collapse of traditional business models, new degrees of irrelevance, the emergence of new players and platforms, the development of new reception practices, changing expectations of what media are for and a shift in the very relationship of the media to the outside world in an era marked by widespread dis- and mis-information. The viability of media as we know them is up for grabs.

How and in what ways will the media – as institutions, as occupational and professional contexts, as a diverse set of practices – adapt to this age of uncertainty? Will the media continue to produce meaningful content, and if so in which ways? How will the media push back against political assault? Who will fund the media’s continued presence? Will new business models allow the media to play a central role in democratic societies, producing investigative journalism and relevant information on current affairs? How do we move forward in rebuilding public trust in the media, ensuring that they help sustain some kind of inclusive public space? How will audiences relate to and engage with different media platforms? How will new forms of media change and disrupt legacy media platforms? How will journalism report about uncertain and risky futures? How will political powers be held accountable?

Questions like these fuel the imaginary that uncertainty introduces into considerations of the media, demanding global approaches to the different occupational, professional, economic, political, cultural and environmental contexts in which the media operate. Thus, the Second Lisbon Winter School for the Study of Communication will consider how uncertainty is molding the media in different geographies and how societies rely on the media to deal with moments of uncertainty.

The Lisbon Winter School invites proposals by doctoral students and early career post-docs from all over the world that address, though may not be not be strictly limited to, the topic of media and uncertainty as it relates to:

• Media and digital transformation
• Emergent cultural, political and social formations
• New business models
• New notions of risk and resistance to it
• Media and uncertainty throughout history
• Online harassment
• Alternative media forms and outlets
• Media activism
• Reporting uncertainty
• Authoritarian media
• Media and political accountability
• Dis- and misinformation, fake news and hate speech
• Environmental precarity

PAPER PROPOSALS

Proposals should be sent to lisbonwinterschool@gmail.com no later than July 22, 2019 and include a paper title, extended abstract in English (700 words), name, e-mail address, institutional affiliation and a brief bio (max. 100 words) mentioning ongoing research. Applicants will be informed of the result of their submissions by September 20, 2019.

FULL PAPER SUBMISSION

Presenters will be required to send in full papers (max. 20 pages, 1.5 spacing) by November 22, 2019.

For more information please visit the Winter School website: https://www.lisbonwinterschool.com/

Deadline: June 16, 2019

Peer-reviewed journal Mediální studia / Media Studies invites texts for issue 2/2019.

Please submit your manuscripts via e-mail address: medialnistudia@fsv.cuni.cz

Paper types

Studies are based on original research, solving the issue raised empirically, theoretically or methodologically. The recommended length of the studies is 6000-8000 words, including footnotes and references with an abstract of up to 150 words, up to 10 keywords, and brief information about the author up to 100 words.

Essays explore upcoming or current media trends or events and discuss their relevance. Or, they ruminate upon different conceptual or methodological approaches. The recommended length of the essays is 3000-4000 words, including footnotes and references with an abstract of up to 150 words, up to 10 keywords, and brief information about the author up to 150 words.

Polemics brings discussions on actual theoretical, or methodological, or empirical studies previously published. The recommended length of the polemics is 3000-4000 words, including footnotes and references. Interviews introduce inspiring personalities within the media and communication field, both from academia and practical operation. The recommended length of the interview is 3000-4000 words including footnotes and references. The interviews include brief information about the interviewee.

Book reviews introduce and critically evaluate new books emerging within the field of study. The recommended length of studies is 2000-4000 words, including footnotes and references. Reports inform about interesting events connected with media life (conferences, workshops, festivals, summer schools etc.). The recommended length of studies is 1000-2000 words, including footnotes and references.

For a more detailed description of papers types and other information, please follow the submission guidelines (https://www.medialnistudia.fsv.cuni.cz/en/autor-s-manual).

About the Journal

Mediální studia / Media Studies (ISSN 2464-4846) is a peer-reviewed electronic journal, published in English, Czech and Slovak twice a year. Based in disciplines of media and communication studies, it focuses on analyses of media texts, media professionals practices and media audiences behaviour. We especially welcome papers covering media in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and support the emphasis on the dynamics of local-global knowledge on media and its mutual connections.

Deadline: July 19, 2019

Despite the wide variety of events studied or addressed by event scholars and event managers, very few consider death from a perspective of event studies or event management. Yet, it is the one event that none of us can evade. How death is articulated through the events around it, how the end of life is marked (whether that be the life of an individual, a group, or a community) through evental structures in diverse cultural, ideological, societal frameworks, is a vastly under-explored domain. From the practicalities around a highly stage-managed event of commemoration or memorialisation, in the details of state funeral or day of remembrance, to the sudden outpourings of grief and unstructured informal societal responses to some events of death around well-known figures, the loss of someone personally close to us or our responses shed light on culturally normative modes of expression, hegemonic power, or an ideological context within which the death occurs and the living act and interact.

Following on from a positive discussion with one of the editorial board of the Emerald Studies in Death and Culture book series we are looking for chapters that would contribute to a proposed book on death, remembrance, memorialisation and the evental. We seek contributors from any discipline and field who are interested in reflecting on death from the perspective of event, event studies, and events management. The work can be conceptual, empirical, practical or provocative. Whether you are a practitioner or your area of expertise is anthropology, critical event studies, cultural studies, philosophy, psychology, sociology, theology or otherwise, so long as your interest is in the manifestation, mediation and articulation of death from an events perspective, we would love to hear from you. There are no restrictions around conceptual framework, or on the research philosophy/research approach, your work adopts.

Chapters may cover, but not be limited to:

• Celebrating, commemorating and memorialising death through events
• Funerals and memorial services
• Funeral directors as event manager and co-creators of funeral events
• National or international commemorations of death
• Deaths of celebrities, royalty, religious or political leaders or iconic figures
• Formal state responses to death
• Media influences on death
• Commercialization of death
• Cultural significance of death memorials
• Vigils and responses to terror attacks
• Faith and non-faith perspectives
• Informal spontaneous evental responses to death
• Cultural appropriation of death events
• Teaching about events of death
• Conspicuous consumption and death
• Sustainability and woodland burials
• Visual media, social media and memorabilia, live streaming of death events
• (Auto)Ethnographic stories of death events
• Memorialisation as activist event
• Theological perspectives on death events
• A contemporary conceptualization of the funeral as event
• Rituals of death events
• Death events as liminal spaces

In the first instance please send us an abstract of 300 words (excluding any references), together with your full name, any affiliation, and lead author contact information until 19th July 2019. Our objective is to submit a formal book proposal by the end of July 2019.

Dr Ian R Lamond: i.lamond@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Rev. Ruth Dowson: r.dowson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk

To view the terms under which this email is distributed, please go to: http://leedsbeckett.ac.uk/disclaimer/email/

October 18-19, 2019

Ghent (Belgium)

Deadline: May 12, 2019

Keynote speakers:

Catherine Grant (Birkbeck, University of London)

Barbara Flueckiger (Zurich University)

The academic study of film has involved looking at generic conventions, authorial features, and the use and function of different aspects of film language, including mise-en-scène, narrative, editing and sound. Film Studies has also examined the relationship between film and society, by contemplating issues such as race and gender, the on- and off-screen construction of stardom, the association between cinema, ideology and propaganda, and the way in which films mirror and shape national and transnational identities. The industrial features of film, film policy and legislation, as well as matters of film reception, distribution and exhibition, venues and audiences (cf. the New Cinema History Movement) have also been extensively considered by scholars, within and beyond the discipline.

Research questions and methodologies from the humanities and social sciences have often been used in conjunction in the analysis of this multitude of topics. The history of Film Studies is thus one of transdisciplinarity. As the discipline moves forward, and its future is called into question – both in relation to debates about the post-cinematic era (Denson and Leyda 2016) and the changing academic context (Fairfax 2017) – methodological considerations have been given greater attention in academic discussions. This is at least partly connected to the rise of the Digital Humanities, which has afforded the study of film with a variety of new digital sources, tools and methods, as well as a growing interest in quantitative data, which allows for new forms of analysis of film texts, industries, audiences and cultures. At the same time, more traditional methods, such as the multiple approaches to textual analysis, the use of interviews and surveys, as well as archival research, retain their important place within Film Studies. The wide variety of methodologies adopted by researchers of film across the globe have meant the discipline is now faced with a series of challenges and opportunities.

Aiming to explore a wide range of approaches, this conference invites contributions that engage with current methodological challenges and opportunities in Film Studies. We welcome theoretical contributions on methodological issues in Film Studies, papers or workshop sessions on specific methods, as well as research papers paying considerable attention to the methodological framework at stake.

Abstracts are invited on topics related to research methods in Film Studies, including but not limited to:

• Statistical methods for textual analysis
  
• Film Studies and big data
  
• Text mining in Film Studies
  
• CAQDAS and Film Studies
  
• Cinema and social network analysis
  
• Audience research
  
• Methods in New Cinema History
  
• Production analysis and film policy research
  
• Film and video as methodological tools
  
• Narrative analysis
  
• Archival research
  
• Methodological issues in specific schools of film analysis (e.g. feminism, phenomenology, neoformalism, auteurism, post-structuralism, critical theory, cultural studies, political economy …)
  
• Neurocinematics and neuroscience of film
  

The conference will also host a special panel organized by the ECREA Television Studies section. The section invites paper proposals devoted to new methodologies in the research of television fiction and non-fiction content. The section welcomes submissions that explore comparisons, international approaches and examples of concrete and innovative case studies, in order to shed light on the future of TV Studies in the new digital context.

Please submit your abstract (max 300 words) along with key references, institutional affiliation and a short bio (max 150 words) or a panel proposal, including a panel presentation (max 300 words) along with minimum 3, maximum 4 individual abstracts.

Submission deadline: 12 May 2019.

Proposal acceptance notification: 21 June 2019.

Please send your abstract/panel proposals to the conference email address: filmstudiesecrea@gmail.com

ECREA membership is not required to participate in the conference. The conference fee will not exceed 70 EUR and will include coffee breaks, lunches and receptions.

The conference takes place in Ghent and is hosted by Ghent University and the University of Antwerp. The conference is organised by the ECREA Film Studies Section in co-operation with DICIS (Digital Cinema Studies network), the Research Center for Visual Poetics at the University of Antwerp, the Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at Ghent University, the Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center at the University of Antwerp, and the Popular Communication division of NeFCA.

Conference organisers: Gertjan Willems (University of Antwerp/Ghent University), Sergio Villanueva Baselga (Universitat de Barcelona), Mariana Liz (University of Lisbon)

Conference website: https://ecreafilmstudies2019.wordpress.com/

Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

Deadline: May 10, 2019

Required: PhD in Communication with a preferred focus on aging, intergenerational communication, and/or ater life. ABD’s OK but hired at Lecturer rank and limited to undergraduate teaching.

For PhD’s to teach communication courses pertaining to aging in the Graduate Program in Lifespan and Digital Communication (LSDC) and dependent on expertise, relational communication, group communication, or organizational communication in the undergraduate program in Communication.

Areas of special interest include: health communication in later life; communication and aging well strategic communication in later life; communication and lifespan resilience.

Ability to teach quantitative and qualitative communication research methods courses at the graduate and undergraduate level, and willingness to participate in a new Lifespan Communication Research Center are welcome additions.

Email a letter of application, CV, names of three references to: Thomas Socha, tsocha@odu.edu, Department of Communication & Theatre Arts, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 23529, 757-683-3833.

Deadline: EOD, Friday, 5/10/19. A formal search for a permanent, tenure-track, assistant professor position to focus on Communication and Aging will begin this fall (2019).

University of Milan

Deadline: May 17, 2019, 12:00 PM

The SOMET (Sociology and Methodology of Social Research) PhD, jointly run by the University of Milan and the University of Turin, is now accepting applications for the 35th cycle of studies, starting in September 2019.

Applicants will be admitted ONLY with a scholarship. There are 6 scholarships available for the upcoming cycle. SOMET is one of the leading sociological PhD Programmes in Italy.

Entirely held in English, its courses, seminars and research activites are organised jointly by the University of Milan and the University of Turin. Its Faculty also includes sociologists from other Italian and international universities.

The Ph.D. programme in Sociology has a longstanding tradition of excellence in Italy. It was one of the first to be established after the 1980 university reform and has provided a large number of outstanding academic sociologists who have gone on to make significant contributions to teaching and research in Italy and abroad.

The aim of the programme is to provide structured and advanced training in theoretically-guided empirical research across a wide range of sociological fields and to introduce students to current international issues in both qualitative and quantitative social research.

The course consists of a three-year programme made of 60 credits per year. The first year is devoted to basic training, in conjunction with the activities of the Faculty's interdisciplinary Graduate School in Social and Political Sciences. The second year is partly spent in a relevant university department abroad and is devoted to the initial drafting of the thesis. The third year is entirely spent completing the thesis.

Graduates will be able to compete successfully for positions as researchers (in public and private universities and research centers), skilled professionals and consultants in sociology to public agencies and international organizations and institutions in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Several of our recent graduates have obtained positions in important international universities (University of Amsterdam, King's College London, University of Essex, EmLyon Business schoool, Middlesex University).

Since 2014-2015, the PhD programme in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research (SOMET) has being offering PhD positions for joint degrees with two LERU partner universities – *University of Amsterdam* and *Lund University*. From 2019-2020 a new partnership will be activated with *Vrije Universiteit Brussel*. Several joint-degrees are currently active also with several French Universities, among which the *Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales* (EHESS) in Paris.

The research areas covered by the PhD Programme in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research (Universities of Milan and Turin) comprise:

*Culture and consumption

**Digital society and the media

**Gender and sexuality

**Migration studies, multicultural societies and citizenship

**Science, technology, environment and urban studies

**Social inequalities and socio-economic stratification

**Social movements, collective action and civil society

**Sociology of family

**Sociology of health

**Sociology of politics, public opinion and voting

**Work and organizations*

The Call for Applications is available here: https://www.nasp.eu/training/phd-programmes/somet/call-for-application.html

Glasgow School for Bussiness and Society

Applications are invited for a full-time, competition-funded PhD research studentship at Glasgow Caledonian University within the Glasgow School for Business and Society, division of Media and Journalism.

Project description:

This PhD project arises out of discussions concerning the limited range of representations of serious illness in film and TV narratives. For example, stroke, despite being a leading cause of disability in the Western world, has almost no presence in contemporary screen narratives.

The situation is even worse with media depictions of obstetric and gynaecological issues; mainly because of the socio-cultural resistance to showing the female body as being less than ‘perfect’.

The aim of this project is to map existing narrative representations of illnesses on screen such as stroke, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and gynaecological/urogynecological conditions as well as to develop a series of recommendations, via research involving consultation with health professionals, for improving future narrative representations of serious illness on screen. Representative texts to be analysed may include the following: films Philadelphia (1993) and the recent Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) for depictions of AIDS; BBC TV series Bodies (wr.: Jed Mercurio, 2004-6) for gynaecological issues; works of screenwriter Dennis Potter for psychological explorations of serious illness (psoriatic arthropathy: The Singing Detective, BBC TV 1986; cancer: Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, BBC TV and Channel 4, 1996); the single TV drama Care (BBC TV, 2018) for stroke. Frederike Van Wijck, Professor of Neurological Rehabilitation within the School of Health and Life Sciences at GCU, will act as a consultant on the project.

The project directly relates to the following aspects of GCU’s research strategy: (i) Inclusive Societies and (ii) Healthy Lives and in particular to the theme of ‘Social Justice, Equalities and Communities’ focusing on inclusiveness, identity and cultural citizenship with reference to socio-cultural analysis of media practice and the enhancement of the evidence base for future initiatives and interventions in this field; as well as to public health, in terms of the management of long-term conditions.

Supervisor Research Profiles

Director of Studies: Dr. Helena Bassil-Morozow

GCU Research Online URL: http://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/helena-bassilmorozow(7249df3f-d70f-4aa6-bbaf-13630d622086).html

2nd Supervisor: Prof. John Cook

GCU Research Online URL: http://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/john-cook(837514aa-9398-410e-9770-75c9de052f0a).html

This project is available as a 3 years full-time PhD study programme with expected start date of 1 October 2019

Candidates are encouraged to contact the research supervisors for the project before applying.

Link to the project: https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/screen-narrative-representations-of-serious-illness/?p108778