Source: ReDICo.
2022: What did we do?
There’s snow on the ground here in Germany, the evenings are dark, and it’s time to look back at what we did in 2022. Maybe with your involvement? We would also like to look towards the brighter evenings that are coming and what’s planned for next year.
We finished two of our four research projects, and we learned a great deal about Digital Cosmopolitanism on Twitter and how strangers become a team while playing a simulation game online. You can read some of the related publications on our website. There are also more to come in 2023. Next year will also see the completion of the first educasts arising from the project. So, be sure to keep an eye on the ReDICo YouTube channel and our Twitter account ReDICo@DigInterculture and our Mastodon account @redico@mstdn.social..
Our first major publication came out during the year: a special Issue of the Interculture Journal dealing with cyber-utopianism/dystopianism and cosmopolitan and authoritarian currents. You can check it out here. It’s free to read like all of our publications.
In July we hosted, with the Hellenic Open University, our first major E-Co-Conference “Lifewide Learning – Transformations and New Connections in Postdigital Societies”. We tried out a triad of settings: online, hybrid and offline , with participants joining online and at the Dornburg Castles near Jena. We were very happy with how it went. Indeed, we saw some of you there. Here’s a short visual documentation, the recordings of the conference are also available here. The conference report is also here.
2023: What’s to come?
2023 will see the publication of our first e-book. It will be an issue of the Forum Angewandte Linguistik (Peter Lang Editorial), the book series of the leading German association for Applied Linguistics (GAL). It’s dedicated to “Sprache und Interkulturalität in der Digitalen Welt” (Language and Interculturality in the Digital World). The volume comprises different contributions in German, as well as English, tackling this current topic through the lens of Applied Linguistics, but also integrating other related disciplines. So stay tuned.
The publication of our second open access e-book, an edited volume based on the papers presented at the conference on lifewide learning, will take place in the new year. The first papers are now reaching us and the contributors – a lot of you included – present studies undertaken in various European and non-European contexts.
As we proceed with our next empirical research studies on “Counter Public Spheres in the Comments Sections of British and German Online News Websites” and “The Use and Influence of Digital Media for Social Cohesion in Diaspora Communities”, we will also be organising our second E-Co-Conference on “Cosmopolitanism in a Postdigital, Postmigrant Europe, and Beyond” in collaboration with the University of Limerick, Ireland. This conference will be held in successive online meetings from 26 June to 7 July. Prof. emer. Gerard Delanty (University of Sussex) and Prof. Naika Foroutan (DeZIM Berlin) have already confirmed their participation as keynote speakers. The Call for Papers is still open until January 31: We’re looking forward to your contribution! Indeed, we are looking for a wide range of perspectives. So, why not think about sending an abstract?
Finally, we will launch the ReDICo Hub, an open platform for the fostering of scientific dialogue; to connect, share and collaborate. We hope this will become the main piazza and platform for scholars interested in questions concerning digital interculturality.
We love having you with us and we look forward to future collaborations!
We wish you a happy new year in our shared postdigital and intercultural world!