Challenge Seminar “Visual Studies of Immedia: Exploring Postmodern Immediacy of Mass Media”

Project description:

European Humanities University invites young university faculty from NIS countries and Eastern Europe, to take part in the new interdisciplinary project Visual Studies of Immedia: exploring postmodern immediacy of mass media, funded by OSI Higher Education Support Program (Budapest).

The seminar aims at the collaborative analysis of how contemporary media (cinema, TV, Internet) re-configure the correlation of form and content of the message (formats of communicative mediation as an “immediate” content), the narrative and the visual, the global and the local, the private and the public experience of individuals in the new space of global communications. Participants’ team-work in the course of the seminar will be focused on the elaboration of the model for the renewal of education in visual media, journalism and Communication Studies in post-Soviet countries.

Project duration – 2 years (September 2007 - September 2009).

The first year of the project will be organized along the lines of theoretical and methodological inquiry of contemporary approaches to visual media, while the second year will be more focused on the didactic issues (how to incorporate new approaches to studying media culture into University curriculum, how to implement media formats into the practices of teaching) and the forms of interaction between academia and mass media which has to do with the role of intellectuals in public sphere and the social relevance of University knowledge. The format and profile of Challenge Seminar presupposes a variety of forms and ways of cooperation and interaction between resource faculty, participants and invited media practitioners. We envisage lectures, seminars, master-classes, the workshops of digital video production; round-table discussions; the collective production of multimedia didactic materials and so on.

The project builds upon previous work in HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching Rethinking Visual and Cultural Studies: new subjects, methods and teaching strategies (EHU, 2003 – 2006).

The first contact session will take place in the second half of September 2007, in Vilnius.

Resource faculty of the project:

Well-known experts and scholars from various Western and post-Soviet universities will be engaged in the project as visiting lecturers and as tutors. Among them there are:

• Mark Poster - Professor of History and Film & Media Studies, University of California, Irvine (USA)
• François Jost - Professor of University Paris-3, Department of Audiovisual Communications and Cinema (France)
• Andrei Gornykh - Professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, European Humanities University (Belarus – Lithuania)
• Nerijus Milerius – Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Vilnius University (Lithuania)
• Benjamin Cope – Director of academic program at Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Poland – UK)
• Almira Ousmanova – Professor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, European Humanities University (Belarus – Lithuania)

Project directors – Almira Ousmanova and Andrei Gornykh.

Application procedure and eligibility:

The potential candidates should qualify the following criteria:
- to be junior university faculty, teaching in subjects related to Media and Visual Culture (and affiliated with the Depts. of Media Studies, Information and Communication, Culturology, Design of Visual Media, Film Studies, Sociology)
- to have proficiency in English and Russian (the two working languages of the project).

Preference will be given to those who combine teaching with creative activities (film production, work in mass media or advertising, etc.).

The application ‘package’ should include the following documents:

• Application (to be written in English, please include your name, surname, year of birth, country of residence, name of the affiliated institution and position, courses taught, highest academic degree, degree-granting institution and year, your research interest, language ability, contact information) 
• Curriculum Vitae, including list of publications (in English) 
• Statement of Purpose (a brief description of the applicants' current professional interests and goals, of how the theme of the project corresponds to their academic background and current professional activities, how they see the participation in the project would enhance their academic and professional development, how they can effectively contribute to the program (optional – English or Russian) 
• Writing sample on the theme of the project or a Syllabus of an academic course developed or taught by the applicant in the subject of the project (optional – English or Russian)

Deadline for applications is July 10, 2007. Applications are to be submitted in electronic format via e-mail.

Contact information for applicants:
Elena Khloptseva, project coordinator
Postal address: Kražių str., 25, LT 01108, LITHUANIA
e-mail: e.khloptseva@gmail.com

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