FINAL CALL: DeXus 6.0: Discourses and Practices That Matter

[Paul McIlvenny]

Sorry for cross-posting.
Please circulate this information to interested parties.

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          *** FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT ***

DeXus 6.0: Discourses and Practices That Matter
An International Summer School on Discourse, Practice and Social Justice

Dates: 19th – 24th August, 2013

Deadline for registration: 1st May 2013
Participation fee payment deadline: 1st June 2013

Location: Centre for Discourses in Transition (C-DiT)
Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Invited guests:
- Rodney Jones, City University of Hong Kong
- Sarah Pink, RMIT University, Australia/Loughborough University, UK
- William Housley, Cardiff University, Wales

Local tutors:
- Paul McIlvenny, Aalborg University
- Pirkko Raudaskoski, Aalborg University

Web site: http://www.dexus.aau.dk

The thematics of this summer school is prompted by the recent emergence on the 
global stage of a set of interlocking global crises – including climate, 
energy, food, water, finance – which demands a renewed interdisciplinary effort 
to understand how to prefigure and mediate the future, the past and the present 
in ways that attend to equity, justice and rights. The aim is to bring together 
people investigating and promoting social change and transformation with an 
explicit focus on the role of discourse and practice in shaping and prefiguring 
a just future (and the past). Discourse is understood as encompassing an 
interdisciplinary perspective on text, talk, discourse, genre, narrative, 
archive, document, image and rhetoric in all their modal, social and cultural 
forms, not only in terms of representation but more importantly in relation to 
action and practice. Practice, practices, practical reasoning and practical 
action are increasingly key elements of many recent approaches to discourse 
(eg. microethnography, mediated discourse analysis and nexus analysis), but a 
dialogue between these approaches and the variants of practice theory that are 
being used in sophisticated ways in fields such as transition studies, 
anthropology, visual studies, etc is urgently needed and holds much potential.

Themes within the interdisciplinary focus of the summer school will include the 
following clusters:

    * Discourse/Style/Genre/Semiotics
    * Mediation/Modality/Action
    * Practice/Practical Reasoning/Practical Action
    * Transition/Intervention/Critique/Social Justice
    * Rights/Ethics/Care/Hope
    * Identity/Gender/'Race'/Ethnicity/Transnationality
    * Belonging/Citizenship/Linking/Relationality
    * Nature/Environment/Habitus/Context
    * Structure/Ordering/Organisation/Governmentality
    * Space/Movement/Mobility/Flow/Scale

Our summer school will interest students and scholars who work in the diverse 
fields of discourse studies, communication studies, practice studies, 
development studies, globalisation studies, media studies, political science, 
sociology, history, anthropology, transition studies, social movement 
studies, transition studies, communication activism, participatory 
communication, critical journalism studies, action research, and human-centred 
communication and informatics.

DeXus 6.0 draws upon the innovative pedagogical tradition at Aalborg University 
to experiment with a problem-based, project-centred research summer school for 
doctoral students and scholars who are engaged in interdisciplinary studies. 
Following on from five successful "DeXus: Discourse Nexus" summer schools 
between 2003-2009, the core concept in DeXus is the free play of ideas within 
the thematic context of group-derived problems and reflexive project work 
developed during the six fruitful days of the summer school.

Following the first two days of lectures and workshops by the invited guests 
and local tutors, which will establish a common framework, we concentrate over 
the following days on group project work. On the last day, all groups will come 
together to report on their findings, solutions and applications, with 
commentary and discussion from the guests and the tutors. A poster session will 
take place during the first day for those who wish to present their research 
publicly.

The summer school is international and open to researchers, doctoral and 
graduate students. You will find registration details and contact information 
online at http://www.dexus.aau.dk

The deadline for registration is 1st May 2013. The participation fee payment 
deadline is 1st June 2013.

The participation fee is 4000 Danish kroner (approx. 500 Euros), which covers 
administrative costs, tea/coffee and lunches every working day, one evening 
drinks reception (Monday) and one evening dinner (Thursday).  Please see the 
website for more information about how to register.

Attendance at the summer school (including lectures, workshops and 
pre-readings) and completion of the group project work over six days is 
equivalent to 5 ECTS. Participants who complete the summer school will be 
awarded an official certificate.

The DeXus 6.0 summer school is supported by the Centre for Discourses in 
Transition, the Mattering: Material-Discursive Practices knowledge group, the 
Doctoral Programme in Discourse and Contemporary Culture, the Dean of the 
Faculty of Humanities, the Department of Communication & Psychology, and the 
Department of Culture and Global Studies at Aalborg University.

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