What is Universe? Communication • Complexity • Coherence

The What is Universe? (2018) conference-experience examines communication, complexity/simplicity, coherence/incoherence and, how they may or may not contribute to “a pluralistic universe.” This conference marks the third collaboration among scholars from the natural and social sciences, communication, media, law, design, and art. We invite proposals for scholarly papers, panels, exhibits and installations on a wide variety of issues and topics. Please see whatis.uoregon.edu for more details.

Participants will explore universes—from reality bubbles, immersive virtual environments, and alternate histories, to agential realism, media genealogy and archaeology, to bio-inspired, urban and ecological design, to universal rights, disabilities studies, multicultural communities, networks, and cosmologies.

Proposals may address the following questions (as well as others):
• What are communication, science, media, design, and philosophy universes today, and how are they syncretizing? How can universities and disciplines be understood as universes?
• How are citizens increasingly being drawn into alternate, fictional, cinematic, and comic book universes, social networks, immersive worlds, and augmented realities?
• In an age of increasing communicative complexities and oversimplifications, what is truth and what is reality? How do real/virtual and analogue/digital universes overlap/separate?
• How is journalism overcoming vernaculars of real/fake news in a “post-truth” era, while still actively seeking solutions?
• What constitute material universes in antiquity and contemporary culture?
• How do technological and cosmological universes transform theory-practice?
• In this context, what is posthumanism and how are speculative futures already integrating into (re)generative medicine, music, law & other disciplines?
• How are emerging systems, environments, architectures, the sciences and the arts converging/diverging into societies and universes? What are universes of values?

With the definitions of “universe” continuing to multiply, important questions abound as we address a sweeping range of issues next April in Portland, Oregon.

Conference Organizers: Janet Wasko and Jeremy Swartz (University of Oregon)

Send 100–150 word abstracts or installations by DECEMBER 31, 2017 to:
Janet Wasko, jwasko@uoregon.edu.

School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1275, USA

About the Author

Aptly described by the Independent newspaper as “a man of many parts”, Prof. Mahfouz A. Adedimeji is a Fulbright scholar, interdisciplinary researcher, university don, public affairs analyst, communication consultant, peace advocate, interfaith worker and public intellectual. He obtained his academic degrees from the University of Ilorin, Ilorin, where he was a Professor of English (Pragmatics and Applied Linguistics) before his appointment as Vice Chancellor as the pioneer Vice Chancellor of Ahman Patigi, Nigeria, in February 2021. He started his academic career in 2000 at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, shortly after which he joined the services of his alma mater, the University of Ilorin. A man of eclectic academic background, Prof. Adedimeji was educated in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Markaz Shabaabil Islam, Iwo, Osun State and Markaz Ta’aleemil Araby, Agege, Lagos. He obtained advanced training in Education, Political Science, Communication and Media, Research and Peace Studies at the National Universities Commission’s (NUC) Virtual Institute for Higher Education Pedagogy (VIHEP); the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Virtual Institute for Higher Education in Africa (VIHEAF); Governors State University, University Park, Illinois, USA; University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana; and Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana, USA. Apart from serving as a cultural ambassador to the US under the auspices of the Institute of International Education (IIE), New York, Prof. Adedimeji had won or co-won the research and conference awards/grants of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) of the National Research Council, Nigeria, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). He has written extensively for a wide range of newspapers and periodicals including “Unilorin Bulletin”, “Unilorin Watch”, “DeLight”, “National Pilot”, “Daily Independent”, “Daily Newswatch”, “New York Parrot” and “New Telegraph”, among others. A versatile academic and award-winning scholar, Prof. Adedimeji has attended academic conferences and undertaken research in several universities across Nigeria as well as in Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Malaysia, Sierra Leone, Australia, France and United States of America, among others. His hundreds of academic, Islamic and general/opinion articles have been published across outlets in Nigeria and beyond. He has also facilitated and participated in seminars and workshops both nationally and internationally. A former Head of the Directorate of Corporate Affairs of the University of Ilorin, Prof. Adedimeji was the Director of the Centre for Centre for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ilorin, between 2013 and 2017. Apart from serving as Rapporteur-General to the Presidential Committee that organised the 2017 Federal Executive Council’s Retreat on Education in Nigeria, he has consulted for the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Nigeria Inter-religious Council (NIREC), the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence and Corps (NSCDC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). For years, he was a Coordinator and Facilitator of the Executive Management Course of the Nigerian Army Education Corps (NAEC) and Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal of Peace, Security and Development”, University of Ilorin. He has also served as a resource person to agencies like the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), National Orientation Agency (NOA), National Institute for Security Studies as well as a number of Civil Society Organisations. He is a recipient of several awards and honours including those of the International Chartered World Learned Society, American Biographical Institute, National Congress of Nigerian Students (NACONS), Union of Campus Journalists, University of Ilorin, the Nigerian Army Education Corps, Postgraduate Students Association, UNILORIN, Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN), UNILORIN, Students’ Union, UNILORIN, and National Association of Osun State Students (NAOSS), just to mention a few. A Fellow of bodies like the International Association of Research Scholars and Administrators (FIARSA), Institute of Corporate Administration, Nigeria, (FICAN), Society for Peace Studies and Practice (fspsp) and World Institute for Peace (FWIP) , Prof. Adedimeji is a former Member of the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) and until recently a Member of the Executive Council of the English Scholars’ Association of Nigeria (ESAN). He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Research in Pragmatics, journal of the Pragmatics Association of Nigeria (PrAN) and ANUJAT, an international multidisciplinary journal of the All Nations University, Koforidua, Ghana. He has about 15 books to his credit as author, co-author, editor and co-editor.