DeXus 6.0: Discourses and Practices That Matter

[Paul McIlvenny]

          *** FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT ***

DeXus 6.0: Discourses and Practices That Matter

An International Summer School on Discourse, Practice and Social Justice

Dates: 19th – 24th August, 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://dexus.cdit.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 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. Discourse is understood as encompassing an interdisciplinary 
perspective on text, talk, 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.

With the strong interdisciplinary focus of this summer school, we will be 
working with the following clusters:

            * Discourse/Style/Genre/Semiosis
            * 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://dexus.cdit.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.

The DeXus 6.0 summer school is supported by the Centre for Discourses in 
Transition (C-DiT), the Doctoral Programme in Discourse and Contemporary 
Culture, the 'Mattering: Material-Discursive Practices' research group, and the 
Department of Culture and Global Studies at Aalborg University.

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