Unfurling Unflattening:  Tracing Pedagogical Possibilities within Higher Education

NOTE TO PROSPECTIVE CONTRIBUTORS:  This is a second round call for papers for an edited volume on teaching—and teaching with—Nick Sousanis’s graphic work Unflattening in higher ed.  Additional potential contributions are being sought.  The volume has interest from MIT Press, and is in the later stages of review.

In the late 70s, the protraction of the Cold War’s tensions and the shift from Fordism towards neoliberal economics reshaped the political and public sphere within the Western block. The traditional spaces of politics lost their pivotal role, resulting in what was perceived as a general crisis of militant politics. In a 2011 interview with Justice spatiale | Spatial Justice, rereading Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey posited that this perception stemmed from the inability of the Left to include the urban dimension in its analytical framework.

This creative session will explore the craft of creating historically informed works of fiction, poetry, digital arts, and other media. Creative writers regularly draw from the past to deepen context, to expand possibilities for material and subject matter, and to potentially illuminate connections between past and present. However, the technical process of integrating historical elements creates many challenges. This session will ask creative writers to share methods they’ve developed to make the past resonate, to energize and pattern historical detail, to maintain an authentic voice, and to make contemporary readers emotionally invest in their material.

The MLA has recently opened slots for additional “just-in-time” sessions for this year’s convention (to be held virtually from January 7-10, 2021). The session organizers invite abstracts for 15-minute presentations exploring the work of William Wordsworth in light of this year’s convention theme of ‘persistence.’

Most poets have written ars poetica to define their role and explain the meaning of their poetry for themselves and for society.  Some poets see poetry as a purely verbal act, a creative challenge to revitalize language. Others see themselves as a spokesperson for the silent or a prophet seer to bring awareness to the reader. Many poets are skeptical of the value of their poetry for society; they see their writing as a “useless” act meaningful only for themselves. This panel seeks to examine how different Latin American poets view their poetry and whether their perspective changes or is expanded in times of crisis: civil war, dictatorship, epidemics, revolution, ecological crisis, etc.

Please submit a proposal or paper related to business communication topics for presentation at the 2021 ABC-SWUS Virtual Conference, held in collaboration with the Association for Business Information Systems (ABIS). Research papers or position papers related to business communication topics in the following areas are encouraged:

Communication Technology

Technology and Education

Innovative Instructional Methods

Business Education Issues

International Business Communication

Paradigm Shifts in Communication

Training and Development/Consulting

Interpersonal Communication