Temple Hosts Annual Global Fusion Conference

This weekend, scholars, theorists and professors from around the globe are coming to Philadelphia for the Global Fusion Conference, this year, hosted by Temple University. This years theme: Media and the Global City. The conference will be held at Temple’s center city campus beginning Friday and ending on Sunday. Every year, universities such as Texas A&M, Ohio, and Temple come together to host workshops, panels, and presentations with the purpose of promoting excellence in the academia of global media in communication studies. Topics of race, sociology, gender, religion, and technology will be discussed in relation to our global, mediated world. These examples though, are only a snippet of over 20 panels that are going to be presenting a variety of topics at the conference.

Conference organizer, Diantha Vliett, a 2nd year Ph.D student in Media and Communication expressed that the participation of Temple is a tradition, largely due to Dr. Patrick Murphy, who brought the conference to Temple for the first time when he began working at Temple. Temple’s very own students and faculty will be presenting this weekend at the conference, including Vliet herself.

“My presentation is about how newspapers use certain types of discourse to strengthen or defend national identity when traditions are being criticized. Specifically, my paper talks about a holiday (Sinterklaas or St. Nicholas) from the Netherlands, where I am from, which has been criticized for using blackface,” Vliet told us.

“Global Fusion is a wonderfully diverse conference, both in terms of subject matter and in terms of attendees. We have a lot of international presenters, which means topics and contexts come up that some people might not have even thought about before,” she added.

Through the conference, students and faculty from around the world are given the opportunity to present their own perspectives and research.

Another presenter includes Temple’s very own Abby Moore, a Junior media studies student, who will presenting on Dr. Barry Vacker’s panel.

Vacker, a media studies professor at Temple commented, “In a century where it’s clear that electronic media technologies are making possible a planetary civilization, it is important to understand the multiple effects of global media on our society, nations, and consciousness. That’s why Global Fusion is important to me and I am glad Temple plays a key role in this conference.”

There will be over 20 presenters at the conference on behalf of Temple University’s School of Media and Communication, from faculty to students, with pre-conference workshops being hosted by conference organizers Patrick Murphy, Fabienne Darling-Wolf and Nancy Morris. Dean Boardman of Temple’s School of Media and Communication will also make an appearance during the opening night of Global Fusion 2016.

The conference is is $160 for faculty and for free for SMC students. For more information on the conference and registration, visit the official site here.