Centre for Discourse Studies, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

DeXusChange 2009 draws upon the innovative pedagogical tradition at Aalborg University to experiment with a problem-based, project-centred research summer school for doctoral students and scholars. The core concept is the free play of ideas within the thematic context of group-derived problems and reflexive project work developed during the six fruitful days of DeXusChange.

The themes of this summer school are prompted by the recent emergence of a set of interlocking global crises – including climate, energy, food, water, finance – all of which demand a renewed interdisciplinary effort to understand how to mediate the future, the past and the present in ways that attend to equity, justice and rights. The aim is to bring together people investigating and promoting social change and transformation with an explicit focus on the role of discourse in shaping a just future (and the past). Discourse is understood as encompassing an interdisciplinary perspective on text, talk, discourse, genre, narrative, archive, document, image and rhetoric in all their modal, social and cultural forms, not only in terms of representation but also action and practice.

Themes within the interdisciplinary focus of this summer school will include the following clusters:

• Discourse/Style/Genre/Semiotics/Rhetorics
• Mediation/Modality/Action/Practice
• History/Narrative/Memory/Experience
• Change/Intervention/Critique/Social Justice
• Rights/Ethics/Care/Hope
• Suffering/Risk
• Identity/Gender/'Race'/Ethnicity/Kinship
• Belonging/Citizenship/Linking/Relationality
• Nature/Environment/Habitus/Context
• Interaction/Technology/Artefact
• Structure/Ordering/Organisation/Governance
• Space/Movement/Mobility/Flow/Scale

Following the first two days of lectures and workshops by the invited guests, which will establish a common ground work, the course will concentrate over the following days on group project work. On the last day, all groups will come together to report on their findings, solutions, and applications, with commentary and discussion from the guests and wayfinders. A poster session will take place on the second day for those who wish to present their research publicly. More details on the DeXusChange website.

The summer school is international and open to all scholars, researchers, and PhD students.

For registration information, please click here.

Application deadline is Friday, May 29 2009.