[ecrea] "New histories of communication study" preconference, ICA 2013

New Histories of Communication Study

International Communication Association Preconference

London, June 16-17, 2013

Sponsor: ICA Communication History Interest Group

Co-Sponsors: ECREA Communication History Section and IAMCR History Section

Organizers: David W. Park and Peter Simonson



This preconference seeks to broaden, internationalize, and advance the 
history of communication study as a family of overlapping configurations 
and practices. It aims to bring together scholars from ICA, ECREA, 
IAMCR, NCA, and select rhetoric societies in an effort to stoke new, 
cross-national and cross-field conversations about the study of 
communication in long and broad historicalperspective. It aspires to 
push the empirical and theoretical boundaries of histories and 
pre-histories of the field by attending to overlooked research areas, 
emerging conceptual orientations, and new axes of understanding and 
comparison among distinct traditions cutting across communication, media 
studies, cultural studies, journalism, and rhetoric, among other 
fields—and across institutional, intellectual, social, cultural, 
discursive, and material history. More specifically, it takes as its aims:

(1) To further internationalize the history of the fields and subfields 
of communication through papers that

a. are centered on world regions or nations that have received 
relatively little historical attention to this point;

b. are focused on the history of trans-national flows of influence, 
ideas, paradigms, texts, methods, research technologies, people, 
politics, power, other agentic forces contributing to the study of 
communication in the past; or

c. take up comparative analysis across nations or regions.

(2) To deepen, enrich, and empirically fill out the history of 
communication study through papers that

a. throw light on understudied dimensions of the academic study of 
communication as it developed over time;

b. make use of archival materials, oral histories, or other primary 
sources that have not found their way into the published history of the 
field to date, or have been underused;

c. advance a social history of the field that goes beyond ‘great men,’ 
landmark texts, and dominant forms of research—drawing attention, e.g., 
to patterns of labor, ordinary practitioners, pedagogical texts and 
practices, and points of articulation with everyday life and with 
publics beyond the academy;

d. provide institutional histories of important departments, journals, 
and professional associations

e. apply historical consideration to domains that have received less 
attention than some other subfields in the extant historiography of the 
field, including: internet studies, interpersonal communication 
research, forgotten avenues of communication research, marginal 
formations of all kinds, and more;

f. bring newer or under-utilized theoretical paradigms and analytic 
frameworks to bear on the history of the field—e.g. new materialisms, 
archaeology, post-colonial and critical race theory, feminist theory, 
and queer theory; or

g. critically engage existing histories and revise dominant 
understandings of individuals, institutions, ideas, schools, and practices.

(3) To broaden and cross-fertilize the history of communication study 
and related academic and non-academic fields through papers that

a. consider commercial, governmental, philanthropic, religious, 
therapeutic, or other non-academic versions of the study of 
communication as a family of social practices; or

b. draw out points of intellectual or socio-historical connection among 
communication-related fields whose histories and presents have often 
been kept separate of one another—e.g. rhetoric, hermeneutics, literary 
studies, journalism studies/Zeitungwissenschaft, information, media 
studies, cultural studies, and social scientific communication research.

Abstracts of 300 words (maximum) should be submitted no later than 15 
November 2012. Send abstracts to: David Park at (park /at/ lakeforest.edu) 
Authors will be informed regarding acceptance/rejection for the 
preconference no later than December 15, 2012. In an effort to 
facilitate informed discussion of papers, the organizers hope to have 
the papers for this preconference posted online. For this reason, full 
papers will need to be submitted no later than May 15, 2013.

This preconference will be held at LondonMetropolitan University. The 
organizers wish to thank Sheila Lodge for providing access to these 
facilities

----------------
ECREA-Mailing list
----------------
This mailing list is a free service from ECREA.
---
To unsubscribe, please visit http://www.ecrea.eu/mailinglist
---
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Postal address:
ECREA
Université Libre de Bruxelles
c/o Dept. of Information and Communication Sciences
CP123, avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, b-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------