ANNOUNCEMENTS

Maps and Directions to the Department of Communication
Department News

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Disability Studies Workshop
"UC-Wide Disability Studies Workshop: Technology, Pedagogy, Disciplinarity"

Location:
Friday, May 9, 2008 - 10:00 a.m - 5:00 p.m
Price Center, Gallery "A"

Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 10:00 a.m.- 3:00 p.m
MCC Building, Room 201 (Faculty meeting)

Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 11:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m
MCC Building, Room 133 (Grads meeting)

This two-day series of workshops is for interested faculty, graduate
students and staff from across the UC system. The meetings will be devoted
to fostering interdisciplinary and intercampus communication and
initiatives in teaching disability studies and in conducting research in the field of disability
studies. May 9 will be devoted to presentations of activities on the
different campuses, a workshop devoted to teaching with disability, and
keynote presentations. May 10 will be devoted to the formation of a
multi-campus research group and plans for a proposal for an HRI residency
year. Limited support for travel to the conference is available.
Support for the meetings is from the UC Humanities Research Institute, the
UCSD Office of the Dean of Social Sciences, the UCSD Department of
Communication, the UCSD Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center, the
UCSD Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, and the UCSD Department of
Literature.

Keynote presentations on the afternoon of May 9:
Catherine Kudlick, Professor of History, UC Davis
Sue Schweik, Professor of English, UC Berkeley
Georgina Kleege (UC Berkeley), author of Sight Unseen and
Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller

For further information and requests for accomodation email Lisa
Cartwright at lisac@ucsd.edu

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Please mark you calendars to attend the dissertation defense of J.R. Osborn.

TITLE: "The Type of Calligraphy: Writing, Print, and Technologies of the Arabic Alphabet"

DATE: Monday, May 5, 2008

TIME: 2:00 p.m.

LOCATION: Herbert Schiller Room - Media and Communication Center Room 201

RESEARCH SUMMARY: My research pursued the story of Arabic script, as it moves across communication media and languages. It examines multiple applications of Arabic script and explores the importance of print culture and printed material in relation to the rise of the modern bureaucratic state. Arabic typography, calligraphy, and recent artistic experiments all reveal meaning through a shared collection of symbols: the letters and glyphs of the Arabic alphabet. The communicative question asks how distinct practices employ this common set of visual tools. Handwritten, printed, digitally designed, and artistic Arabic letters inscribe different types of texts, and relationships across these diverse texts influence the meaning, understanding, and appreciation of the letter as a visual symbol.

Via a historical study of Arabic script, this dissertation outlines a series of communicative strategies that might usefully inform current practices of textual design. Aesthetic differences modify the communication of written Arabic messages, and awareness of this visual variation invites more engaged readings and more creative modes of writing. As practices of writing continue to shift both in the Middle East and globally, the visual conventions surrounding Arabic script offer an opportunity to reexamine and reimagine contemporary practices. Diverse methods of visual inscription suggest new possibilities of meaning and new avenues of critique.

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"Crisis, Emergency, Global Processes"

Fourth Annual UCSD Culture Conference

Friday, May 9, 2008

10:00 am (registration) - 4:30 pm, with reception to
follow

The Great Hall

University of California, San Diego

Please join us for the Fourth Annual UCSD Culture
Conference: Crisis,
Emergency, Global Processes.
This event brings together scholars who share an
interest in culture for a
full day of talks, discussion, and networking.
This year's conference will feature two full-length
paper presentations and
a panel of distinguished sociologists.
Lunch will be provided.

RSVP REQUIRED:
Please RSVP to Lisa Nunn (lnunn@ucsd.edu) by April
15, 2008

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Craig Calhoun
Social Science Research Council
and New York University
"Humanitarian Emergencies" as a Social Category

Ann Swidler
University of California, Berkeley
Cultural and Institutional Responses to
the AIDS Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa

PANELISTS:

Ann Hironaka
University of California, Irvine
Wars and Military Interventions

Peter Levin
Barnard College
Market Crises

David Pellow
University of California, San Diego
Environmental Movements, Justice, and Crises

For more information, visit our conference website:
http://sociology.ucsd.edu/conferences/culture/2008/MainPage.html

PARKING:
Parking permits are available by request.
Please indicate if you need a parking permit and
include your mailing
address when you RSVP.

If you have questions, please email Lisa Nunn
(lnunn@ucsd.edu).

Conference organizers:
Amy Binder, Mary Blair-Loy, John H. Evans, Andrew
Lakoff, Kwai Ng, and Lisa
Nunn