UCL GRAND CHALLENGE OF INTERCULTURAL INTERACTION

GCII Theme: Civilisations

Lead: Dr David Wengrow (UCL Institute of Archaeology)

Main collaborator: Prof Karen Radner (UCL History)

Additional collaborators: Dr Mark Altaweel (UCL Institute of Archaeology); Prof Mike Rowlands (UCL Anthropology)

Project: UCL has an unprecedented opportunity to conduct archaeological and anthropological fieldwork in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Following decades of conflict and a genocidal campaign against its inhabitants in the 1980s, the region is now a focus of major investment and is rapidly becoming a hub of international research. Environmental and cultural regeneration are high on the agenda of local authorities, as is the investigation of the area’s rich, but surprisingly unexplored, archaeological and cultural heritage, and the parallel development of museums and tourism.

The Shahrizor Plain, where UCL has been permitted to work, lies in the province of Suleimaniya, within the heartlands of what was once referred to as the ‘Cradle of Civilisation’; the region in which farming, urban life and literacy began. The current project is in early stages of development, but already involves staff from three UCL departments as well as the newly established department at UCL Qatar, with its focus upon archaeology, museums, heritage and the fostering of intercultural relations in the Middle East. Over the longer term, this project will provide a major vehicle for linking UCL’s expertise across these fields and applying them in an area where they are badly needed.

GCII Theme: Religion & Society

Lead: Dr François Guesnet (UCL Hebrew & Jewish Studies)

Main collaborator: Dr Uta Staiger (UCL European Institute)

Additional collaborators: Dr Claire Dwyer (UCL Geography); Dr Myriam Hunter-Henin (UCL Laws); Prof Cécile Laborde (UCL Political Sciences); Dr Robert Morris (UCL Constitution Unit)

Project: This series of four workshops will discuss the complex processes through which religious communities create or defend their place in a given commonwealth, both in history and in our world today. The focus is on communities' ability to formulate and present their claims, to identify potential spokespeople and their addressees, to secure their institutions and assert their physical and political presence, as well as on the epistemological, political and social conditions facilitating or complicating processes of negotiation.

The four workshops are:

• Negotiating Religion: European legacies, European challenges
• Accommodating Religious Communities in Contemporary Europe: Constitutional and philosophical dimensions
• Negotiating Religion in Urban Space
• Legal Frameworks: Schools and religious freedom

GCII Theme: Human Rights

Lead: Ms Carey Young (UCL Slade School of Fine Art)

Main collaborator: Dr Ralph Wilde (UCL Laws)

Project: The field of human rights is a new vein of research for me, but is highly appropriate given my ongoing artistic research interests in the growing influence of corporations and the legal sphere on to individual and collective subjectivity, and the relationship between law and ideas of ‘reality’. The small grant would provide seed funding for the research, development and production of a small body of artwork which could be exhibited within public exhibitions commencing in 2012–2013.

I would like to engage with Dr Wilde’s research into legal ‘black holes’ (otherwise termed ‘legal vacuums’ or ‘extra-legal zones’) – the often-used term for extraterritorial situations such as military ‘black sites’ or the US detention centre at Guantanamo. I am particularly interested in Dr Wilde’s writings, which problematise and critique the idea of ‘legal black holes’. Particularly interesting to me is Dr Wilde’s view that law is not ‘missing’ from such zones, contrary to much of the literature, and that the application of human rights law may not be the universal salve it is commonly expected to be.

I also envisage using the research phase to look into other human rights issues which also extend my previous research interests, with the idea to develop a major solo exhibition proposal on a human rights theme. I am also interested in the emerging field of human rights law which deals with transnational corporations, as ‘non-state actors’, with regard to human rights, in particular looking at complicity between states and transnational corporations with regard to slippages in human rights protections. Whilst seeing human rights as a contested field, I would like to interrogate the neoliberal idea that we should leave it to the marketplace to regulate corporate behaviour around human rights. I envisage this will lead to ideas for other artistic works.

Lead: Dr Simon Lock (UCL Science & Technology Studies)

Main collaborator: Professor Claire Warwick (UCL Information Studies)

Additional collaborators: Dr Jon Agar (UCL Science & Technology Studies); Dr Anthony Watkinson (UCL Information Studies); Dr Steve Cross, UCL Public Engagement

Project: In a very short space of time online social media platforms have become pre-eminent tools of intercultural interaction, supplementing and even displacing many older systems and customs. This project brings together dispersed communities within UCL who research social media platforms. The aim is to share expertise, transfer theory and practice, and pool our intellectual resources in ways that lead to fruitful new collaborations across the university and new ways of using social media for research interactions with stakeholders outside of the academy.

The problem to be solved involves silos. Academics work in disciplinary silos. In those silos, wheels regularly get re-invented and customised jargon and practices thicken the walls. From the outside UCL itself can be viewed as a silo. We know with certainty that research is being conducted on social media and political and social engagement, ideas of privacy, identity, personalization of information, methods of surveillance, notions of public sphere, and corporate control and storage of data. We also know a great many colleagues are investigating new technologies as tools for dissemination and engagement.

With so much going on in the subject area, a clear opportunity exists for opening up the silos and sharing expertise to develop.

This project uses the 'town meeting' model to get our network started. At the same time, we will initiate some desk-based research to pool together scholarship and identify common themes. Finally, we run some workshops so the network can digest the results and identify avenues for further work. Throughout, we’ll use our understanding of these tools to disseminate and engage.

UCL Grand Challenges Report 2008–2010 (pdf)

31 May 2013 

"Gained in Translation": A one day colloquium
JZ Young Lecture Theatre, University College London

The School of European Languages, Culture and Society
UC: Centre for Early Modern Exchanges 

Panels on "Travelling Texts" (papers by Zoran Milutinovic (SSEES) on Sava Nemanjic, Professor Simon Gaunt (KCL) on Marco Polo, Professor Stephen M. Hart (SELCS) on Santa Rosa de Lima), "Literature in Translation" (papers by Dr Alexander Samson and Dr Gareth Wood) and "Translation and Hip Hop" (chaired by Wen-chin Ouyang; papers by Cristina Moreno Almeida on Moroccan hip hop and Nichola Smalley on Scandinavian hip hop). Key-note speaker at 5.00 pm: Professor Terry Eagleton, "The Problem of Literature and the Question of Culture". Reception: Haldane Room 6.00-7.00pm.  There are a limited number of tickets for this event. To sign up for this event click here.

Gained in Translation
'Gained in Translation' is a series of events at exploring and celebrating the intercultural importance and societal impact of poetry, prose, and drama translated from its original language. The series, supported by GCII, and organised by the School of European Languages, Culture and Society and UCL Centre for Early Modern Exchanges will run in terms 2 and 3 of Academic Year 2012-13.

21 May 2013

China in Latin America
This one-day conference convenes specialists working on important aspects of China’s involvement with Latin America. The programme will begin with a history of the Chinese diaspora focussing on the different patterns of migration taken by Chinese workers on their journey to the Americas. Supported by GCII and UCL Institute of the Americas.  Further details

23-25 May 2013

The Art of the Impossible: Culture, Philosophy and Dissent from Havel to the Present

This conference, supported by GCII, seeks to reassess critically the legacy of Václav Havel, to identify more broadly the political, cultural, and philosophical questions that underlie 'East European dissidence', and to consider their implications for dissent today. Further details

16 May 2013

Staging Daniel’s ‘Cleopatra’
The team behind Helen Hackett’s recent production of Samuel Daniel's Cleopatra, supported by GCII, will give a presentation about the project. This will include live-action scenes performed by two leading cast-members, and clips from the DVD of the full performance in March.  Further details

14 May 2013

Western Perspectives on Eastern Europe: New Mental Mapping after the Cold War
Lecture by Larry Wolff, Professor of History and Director of the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University.

This lecture, supported by GCII, will discuss the idea of Eastern Europe, as first conceived in the eighteenth century, and how that idea has been recently transformed during the twenty years since the end of the Cold War. Further details

1 May 2013

Negotiating Religion: Inquiries into the History and Present of Religious Accommodation

This conference is the closing event of a four-worshop series, supported by a GCII Small Grant,  which took place at UCL in 2010-12. It offers a cross-disciplinary assessment of these different forms in which religious identity, commitment and community are negotiated in the contemporary world. Further details

April 2013

UCL Digital Humanities Month
How can the use of computational tools and techniques transform your research in the humanities? How can the use of humanities approaches transform your research in the digital sciences? Digital Humanities Month at UCL aims to explore the cross-disciplinary research between computing, the humanities, culture, and heritage at UCL through a series of talks and workshops which will highlight the opportunities that exist at UCL, introduce you to the projects, tools, and individuals engaged in this space at UCL, and encourage others to get involved. UCL Digital Humanities Month, supported by GCII, is convened by Melissa Terras, UCL Digital Humanities.

• Programme, Digital Humanities Month
• 25-26 April, Project Starter Workshop   The highlight of Digital Humanities Month will be a competitive Digital Humanities Project Starter Workshop: who can pitch the best project, and win seed funding (£5,000) to undertake a new project at the juncture of computing and the humanities?
• Winning workshop project: UCL Connections - a test project to unite UCL's physical/digital resources and personal experiences for research, social or promotional activities.
  
  10–13 April 2013

Interdisciplinary Conference on Migration: Global Development, New Frontiers   Conference Website

March - September 2013

Gained in Translation
'Gained in Translation' is a series of events at UCL exploring and celebrating the intercultural importance and societal impact of poetry, prose, and drama translated from its original language. The series, supported by GCII, and organised by the School of European Languages, Culture and Society and UCL Centre for Early Modern Exchanges will run in terms 2 and 3 of Academic Year 2012-13.

21 March 2013 (6.30 pm) Bloomsbury Theatre, UCL

Gained in Translation: From Poetry to Film: Roland-Francois Lack, David Harsent, Graham Henderson

Roland-Francois Lack, 'Voltaire in Wandsworth', a talk about famous French writers in London

Screening of No. 8 New College Street, a documentary about the house where Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine lived in 1873

Screening of House of Knives, which re-creates the passionate relationship between the two poets when they lived at No. 8 New College Street, followed by Q&A with directors and actors.  For more information about this event, please contact the PI of "Gained in Translation", Stephen M. Hart stephen.malcolm.hart@ucl.ac.uk

3 March 2013

Gained in Translation: Samuel Daniel's Tragedie of Cleopatra
Daniel's tragedy (composed in 1594) was one of the earliest English plays about Cleopatra, and almost certainly influenced Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Its original performances would have included female actors in country house settings. Our Jacobean-style production will shed light on female participation in drama in Shakespeare's time, and on early modern ideas of female heroism. It will also illuminate the history of perceptions of race; and, since it draws on classical and French sources, the importance of international influences in shaping the English Renaissance.

1 March 2013 

Cultural Heritage - Values, Identity and Wellbeing Domain
2.18 Chadwick Building, Main Quadrangle, UCL, Gower StreetThe domain co-leads: Beverley Butler (Institute of Archaeology), Anne Lanceley (Women's Cancer), Murray Fraser (Bartlett School of Architecture) and Andrew Flinn (Dept of Information Studies) are holding a preliminary meeting / workshop to introduce research and researchers at UCL interested in heritage and value, well-being and identity.  This workshop will provide an opportunity for individuals with similar interests to meet each other and discuss potential collaborations and to contribute to the discussions on the vision and priorities for the domain. Register

29 January 2013

Grand Challenges Small Grants Showcase Reception

Learn more about our small grants scheme, which supports cross-disciplinary projects up to a maximum of £5,000, and the projects which have been made possible in the past. Four UCL researchers will make short presentations about their projects. Further details and registration. Interested in applying for a small grant in the 2012-13 financial year? Apply online (closing date: Friday, 15 February). 

15 January 2013

Inaugural Lecture by Prof Lisa Jardine (UCL Centre for Editing Lives & Letters)
Temptation in the Archives
Details and booking

14 September 2012

Intercultural Communication for Tourism Professionals Workshop
This workshop, supported by GCII, offers tourism professionals the opportunity to gain a further understanding of  the interplay between language, communication and culture in the context of tourism. Dr Clyde Ancarno, Linguist and Project Manager of Language and Culture in Tourism at UCL.   Workshop flyer

21 September 2012

Communication in London's tourism industry
This roundtable meeting, supported by GCII and convened by Dr Clyde Ancarno, Linguist and Project Manager of Language and Culture in Tourism at UCL, will focus on communication practices within London’s tourism industry. A range of questions will be examined, such as, for example, issues related to communicating in a culturally diverse workplace.  A wide range of experience and knowledge will be pooled together: tourism professionals, academics, trainers with experience in training tourism staff, representatives of tourism-related institutions and local authorities. Roundtable flyer

28 June 2012

The pursuit of Olympic ideals – physical, neural and aesthetic
Organised by UCL Events

What were the ideals surrounding the ancient Greek Olympic games?

8-9 June 2012

Language Diversity in the Nordic countries and the UK
Organised by UCL Scandinavian Studies

The aim of this seminar is to take a different approach to talking about language practices. The seminar brings together ‘witnesses’ (incl. a Saami speaker) who have personal experience of speaking or working with people who speak minority languages, regional dialects or urban vernaculars, and academics who study languages in the Nordic countries and the UK.

6 June 2012

Peacemaker: The Foraker Act (1900) and the Poetry of Evaristo Ribera Chevremont by Professor Benigno Trigo (Vanderbilt University)

Organised by UCL Spanish & Latin American Studies and supported by GCII.

This paper explores an early book of poems by Evaristo Ribera Chevremont (1896-1976) titled The Slinger Hurled the Stone (El hondero lanzó la piedra). Trigo analyses the effect of the first Constitution of Puerto Rico under the government of the United States on that book in particular, and on Puerto Rican cultural expression in general during the first decades of the twentieth century.

25 May 2012

Workshop on the Right to Work

Organised by UCL Institute for Human Rights and the UCL Labour Rights Institute. The value of work cannot be underestimated in today’s world. Work is instrumentally valuable because productive labour generates goods needed for survival, like food and housing; goods needed for self-development, like education and culture; and other material goods that people wish to have in order to live a fulfilling life.

April 2012

Rousseau 300
A series of events, supported by UCL GCII, commemorating Rousseau’s tercentenary. Organised by the UCL Centre for Transnational History, these events aimed at a comprehensive re-evaluation of Rousseau's enduring legacy after 300 years.  The opening keynote lecture of the conference: ‘The vicissitudes of recognition: the legacy of J-J Rousseau’ can be listened to again. It was given by Professor Axel Honneth (Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt, and Columbia University). 

30 April 2012

Where next for social media research?
A Town Meeting supported by GCII.
This meeting is intended to bring together people from different parts of UCL who may be interested in research on social media, both theory and practice. The aim is to foster greater research collaboration and identify future potential at UCL.

13 March 2012

Debating Social Rights
Organised by UCL Institute for Human Rights and the UCL Labour Rights Institute.
Professor Conor Gearty (LSE) and Dr Virginia Mantouvalou (UCL) will debate the role of courts and the role of legislatures in the protection of rights such as the right to housing and the right to work.

February to June 2012

Negotiating Religion: Inquiries into the History and Present of Religious Accommodation
A series of workshops to discuss the complex processes through which religious communities create or defend their place in a given commonwealth, both in history and in our world today.  Funded through the UCL Grand Challenges Small Grants Scheme.  Convened by Dr François Guesnet (UCL Hebrew and Jewish Studies) and UCL European Institute.

12 December 2011

Cultural Heritage and Global Change
A workshop organised by GCII and European Institute on behalf of the League of European Research Universities (LERU).

23 November 2011

Negotiating Religion: Workshop 1: European Legacies, European Challenges
This first workshop addressed the history of religious conflict and accommodation, and gauges the impact of religious skepticism and secularization in Europe.

2 November 2011

A UCL Civilisations Network?
A Town Meeting organised by GCII.
Civilisations constitute important counters in the global play of politics and warfare in the twenty-first century. Nations and other communities (religious, political, ethnic) find their identity and their legitimacy in a perceived continuity with ancient civilisations.

23 June 2011

How It All Began: The origin of the universe
How the Universe came into existence is a subject of strong international scientific interest, involving widely different methodologies.

16 June 2011

Migration, Law and the Image: Beyond the veil of ignorance
Supported by GCII.
Examining a range of examples from science fiction narratives of alien species, to stories of conquest, colonization, and ethnic cleansing, to the development of contemporary practices of detention and border policing, the lecture will argue that immigration in our time has ceased to be a merely transitional phase in human life, and threatens to become a permanent condition for growing numbers of people.

15 June 2011

Intercultural Knowledge Transfer: Europe and Islam in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
This workshop investigates the role of culture and knowledge transfer between different religious communities, focusing, in this case, on exchanges between Mediterranean culture of late antiquity and emerging Islam, Jewish-Islamic cultural transfer, and instances of knowledge transfer from Islamic sources to Jewish communities.

8 June 2011

Francis Bacon in International Collaboration
Supported by GCII

4-8 April 2011

UCL Migration Week 2011
A series of lectures, panel discussions, conferences and exhibitions, organised by GCII, exploring migration from a number of academic perspectives.

14 February 2011

UCL Science, Medicine and Society Network
A Town Meeting organised by GCII.
The proposed UCL Science, Medicine & Society Network would act as a mechanism and as a forum to bring key players together from departments across UCL and UCL Partners, facilitating interdisciplinary analysis and response to major issues impacting health and wellbeing during a period of profound demographic, social, political, economic, environmental and technological change.

11-12 February 2011

/carmen/karmen/s/
A three-part exploration of Carmen across times, cultures and media. An interdisciplinary conference will explore issues of intercultural and intermedial translation and adaptation through the prism of Carmen.

The Financial Crisis and the Labour Market – Prof Edward P Lazear (Stanford)

Backlash? The resurgence of homophobia in contemporary cities

Romani politics in Contemporary Europe

Migration and the Body – Prof Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California Berkeley)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

Examining the Relationship between Migration and Security – Prof Elspeth Guild
UCL Global Migration Symposium Series

Rewriting Histories: The Transnational Challenge

Migration and the Clinic – Dr Sushrut Jadhav (UCL Mental Health Sciences)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

Critical Minds: Critical Spaces

Infrapolitical literature: Hispanism and the Border – Prof Alberto Moreiras (Aberdeen)
GC Associated Guest Lecture Series

Managing Immigration Policy in High Income Countries – Professor Gordon Hanson (UC San Diego)
UCL Global Migration Symposium Series

Migration and Democracy – David Nugent (Emory University)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

Beyond the Ghetto: An interdisciplinary perspective on patterns of ethnicity in the built environment

Caught in Flux: Housing and communities in transition

Migration and Human Trafficking – Sophie Day (Goldsmiths College)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

The Humanities and the Anxiety of Violence beyond the Ghetto – Professor Homi Bhabha (Harvard)

Globalisation and Cosmopolitan Citizenship: Migrating Bodies, Practices and Ideas – Prof Peggy Levitt (Wellesley College)
UCL Global Migration Symposium Series

Accommodating Religious Diversity in a Secular Society – Prof Lord Bhikhu Parekh
GC Associated Guest Lecture Series

Migration and Social Suffering – Richard Rechtman (Institute Marcel Rivière, Paris)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

Crime and the Humanities

Sexuate Subjects: Politics, Poetics, Ethics

UCL Institute for Human Rights: Official Launch Event

• video

An Early Career Researchers' Evening: the Blue Sock Salon

Destination London: Writing Cities from Eastern Europe

Nominal Commitment to Human Rights: A Global Survey

The Current Crisis: Alternative histories – Prof Charles Maier (Harvard)
Global Perspectives on the Current Economic Crisis

• video

Action to End Genocide – Dr James Smith, Aegis Trust
GC Associated Guest Lecture Series

Migration, Climate Change and Indigenous Rights – Mary May Simon (President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

The Social Craftsman – Prof Richard Sennett (LSE)
Global Perspectives on the Current Economic Crisis

• video

Migration and Religion –  Ehsan Masoon (The British Council') in conversation with Wendy Kristiansen (Le Monde Diplomatique)
Migration and Wellbeing: Lecture Series at the British Museum

The Impact of the Current Crisis on the Developing World – Prof Frances Stewart (Oxford)
Global Perspectives on the Current Economic Crisis

• video

UCL Centre for Early Modern Exchanges: Launch Event

UCL Connections (awarded £5,000)

Project team from left to right:

Jia Liu (UCL Archaeology)

Emma Norris (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health)

George Neris (UCL Centre for Sustainable Heritage, Bartlett)

Peter Williams (UCL Information Studies)

Introduction

University College London is a world-renowned institution across multiple academic fields. However, as is the case across Higher Education, departments often work in isolation and members of staff and students are disconnected from each other: unaware of the teams and heritage around them. Additionally, the true spirit, the everyday life and the history of UCL is often difficult to portray to the public via current media.

Recent increased availability of the internet and mobile devices provide unprecedented access to information. Companies and institutions are seeking new ways to utilise this technology and improve engagement with both internal and external stakeholders. Despite the ever-expanding pool of digital data and other assets, a physical presence must also be maintained to provide relevance to individuals without access to such digital tools. UCL currently has no tool to unite the physical, digital, resources (internal/external), and personal experience for research, social or promotional purposes.

Aims

Considering the problem outlined above, the research aims to:

· Create new connections within and outside of UCL;

· Champion the heritage, research and social assets of UCL by uniting the physical and digital, the public and the personal;

· Test new augmented reality technologies in a UCL format;

· Establish an innovative, interactive and attractive system for UCL to interpret and integrate digital and physical assets.

Objectives

These are to:

· Establish physical “Totem” sign-posts across campus, indicating and providing information on points of interest;

· Building on existing UCL infrastructure and resources, develop an online (and possibly mobile) augmented reality system, allowing users to assign ‘Totems’ to points of interest around UCL and provide tags; comments and media on their related experiences;

· Work with specialist teams across UCL to ensure the quality of development;

· User-test this system with internal and external UCL stakeholders.

Methodology

· Establishing the physical ‘Totem’ sign-posts across campus: For the purpose of this project, the Digital Humanities and the adjacent Petrie Museum have been chosen as the pilot locations;

· Developing an online application and User Interface, by utilizing UCL-developed software and open-license applications to create a digital map of the plane where the Totems will be placed and the interface through which the data will be collected, tagged, connected and represented.

· User-testing this system: This will be undertaken by observing users while they use the system and provide a ‘protocol analysis’ of their actions during a search session. Post-session interviews will elicit opinions and suggestions with regard in particular to barriers, difficulties and recommendations for improvement.

This project will involve the following steps:

· Data Collecting: Data concerning targeted ‘Totem’ will be collected through literature review, interview, photo/video taking, and 3D-data capturing, etc.

· Data Processing: All collected data will be reorganized under an elaborate-designed interpretation structure.

· Data Outputting: Reorganized data will be visualized and synthesized with user-friendly UI design, and eventually be generated as software, which covers platforms of PC, webpage, and mobile devices.

Duration and future direction

The interpretation system of ‘UCL Connections’ is renewable and sustainable; ‘UCL Connections’ team will try to finish several ‘Totems’ within 6 months.

Future work will aim to secure additional, future funding to make the digital service go live publically, for promotion and for service moderation.