Posted: 04.24.06

The Department hosted a small conference on Teaching cultural codes: Communication, culture, and pedagogy, on April 10th and 11th. The conference brought together eleven focal participants who were present at all sessions for presentations and discussions pertaining to the teaching of undergraduate courses and curricula in communication and culture from a cultural codes perspective that emphasizes diverse and distinctive ways of communicating within and across communities.

The eleven focal participants came from three different countries--the US, Germany, and Israel--and represent ten different academic institutions. Several UW people from Communication, Scandinavian Studies, the Information School, Anthropology, Education, Social Work, and Landscape Architecture also participated in the conference, including undergraduates, graduate students, and staff from across the University. There were, by design, scholars who approach the study of communication from a codes perspective.

Sessions included teaching intercultural communication from a codes perspective, undergraduate fieldwork research in communication and culture, teaching intercultural communication with simultaneous transmissions of communication from US classrooms to classrooms in any of several countries in Europe and the Middle East, indigenous film, and teaching of culture to students of translation and interpretation.

Director of the conference Professor Gerry Philipsen said that it brought together many people who had contributed to the body of scholarly knowledge we now have about communication from a cross-cultural perspective and that this was a truly international, multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal festival of inquiry and discussion pertaining to teaching communication and culture with undergraduates.

Crucial financial support was provided by the Earl and Edna Stice Lectureship in Social Science, the Graduate School, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities.

Conference Participants (Click to enlarge)