IOW (In Other Words) Editorial Board
DOI: 10.55206/DMYU7765
The 6th ESTIDIA conference (15-17 June 2022) was hosted by the University of Alicante, Spain.
The conference was organized in collaboration with ESTIDIA (European Society for Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Dialogue) and the initiator is Prof. Cornelia Ilie – the Chair and founder of ESTIDIA.
Welcome & opening ceremony, Aula Magma: Catalina Iliescu & Cornelia Ilie
The theme of the conference is Dialogue-shared Experiences across Space and Time: Cross-linguistic and Cross-cultural Practices.
The participants were from of 100 universities and colleagues from 29 countries: Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom.
The 6th ESTIDIA conference was organized and held in a hybrid format.
Workshops were a significant part of the conference: two methodological workshops and five thematic workshops.
The methodological workshop IN OTHER WORDS. Coming to grips with critical, creative, inter-/cross-cultural dialogue across space and time. A methodological workshop to explore the role of keywords in (re)producing or problematizing Otherness was scheduled on June 15th and organized in four parts/hours – two hours of theoretical background, one hour of actual work in groups on the different keywords, and one hour of feedback.
Based on our collective and ongoing work on the online dictionary In Other Words, our Workshop addressed these questions referring to the three paradoxes illustrated in the Call to demonstrate how a critical, creative and collective approach can challenge redundant monologues, enhance the plurality and diversity of perspectives, and promote inclusion – rather than reproducing exclusion – by offering alternatives to manipulative rhetoric and discriminating language against individuals and groups. Our Workshop invited participants to explore methodologically how dialogue-shared experiences of inter-/cross-linguistic and inter-/cross-cultural practices can develop across time and space by adopting a multilingual perspective and a multi-level dialogue among researchers, practitioners, activists, educators, and artists.
Left: Victoria Odeniyi and some online participants
Right: from left to right,Victoria Odeniyi, Bilyana Todorova, Paola Giorgis
As seen in the Workshop description, IOW dictionary does not crystallize words but rather shows how words possess a dynamic quality since, travelling across time and space, different contexts and different countries, they acquire (or are attributed) different meanings. In particular, IOW online dictionary is concerned with how words are mobilized to (re)produce different forms of Otherness, its main focus being to challenge and subvert the use of discriminating language.
During the workshop activities
Yet, besides constituting a resource to be used for free in different social and educational contexts and by different types of audiences, the critical, creative and collective analysis of the keywords has also become an innovative collaborative research process. Indeed, IOW’s characteristics, together with and its ethical and political stances, have significantly meant the development of an original method of research and practice that has been carried out by seven scholars from different countries and different formations as members of the Editorial Boards, and has involved other contributors from other countries and formations.
These were the theoretical backgrounds of the workshop:
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Paola Giorgis – Challenging and subverting discriminating narratives through critical and creative analysis.
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Andrea C. Valente – Exploring IOW Dictionary through Complexity: A Research Method.
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Bilyana Todorova – Etymology as a part of IOW project.
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Ivanka Mavrodieva – Rhetorical and communicative strategies in the creation and use of words.
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Olena Semenets – A dialogical essence of truth.
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Ioanna Vovou – On the use of images and audiovisual material.
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Victoria Odeniyi – Peer review process and multilingual practices.
Twenty in-person participants, and 15 online participants joined the Editorial Board of IOW in walking together along the methodological path of such a praxis, analyzing each different steps for producing a keyword for IOW through the actual discussion of keywords that have already been analyzed as well as the proposal of new ones. During the workshop, practical information of how to participate as an author was also provided, together with the main methodological aspects that have been guiding the cooperative workshop of IOW’s Editorial Board.
The audience in the Aula Magna during the theoretical presentation
The choice of the keywords, the different sources and the creative materials used for the critical discussion and subversion, the actual process of writing and text production, the combination of the different methodological approaches have allowed to look at keywords from several different perspectives, and to develop a constant and fruitful exchange between the members of IOW’s Editorial Board, as well as with other contributors. Critical, creative and inter-/cross-cultural practices have thus been enacted, becoming an actual innovative praxis.
IOW Editorial Board
Paola Giorgis – Independent Scholar and Teacher of English, Literature and Visual Arts, Italy
Ivanka Mavrodieva – Sofia University, Bulgaria
Victoria Odeniyi – University of the Arts, London, University of London, UK
Olena Semenets – Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine
Bilyana Todorova – South-West University, Bulgaria
Andrea C. Valente – York University, Canada
Ioanna Vovou – Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece.
At this link you can find the slides of IOW Workshop at Alicante:
https://www.iowdictionary.org/news
Here is the link to IOW dictionary:
https://www.iowdictionary.org/
Some components of IOW Editorial Board.
From left to right: Bilyana Todorova, Ivanka Mavrodieva, Victoria Odeniyi, Cornelia Ilie, Paola Giorgis
Брой 52 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, юли 2022 г. се издава с финансовата помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП3/75 от 18 декември 2021 г.
Issue 52of the Rhetoric and Communications Journal (July 2022) is published with the financial support of the Scientific Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP3/75 of December 18, 2021.
Брой 52 на сп. „Реторика и комуникации“, юли 2022 г. се издава с финансовата помощ на Фонд научни изследвания, договор № КП-06-НП3/75 от 18 декември 2021 г.
Issue 52 of the Rhetoric and Communications Journal (July 2022) is published with the financial support of the Scientific Research Fund, Contract No. KP-06-NP3/75 of December 18, 2021.