Dear Visitor | | IOW's NEWSLETTER #12
December 2025
Thank you for subscribing to IOW's Newsletter!
By subscribing to IOW’s Newsletter, you will be updated about the latest keywords uploaded, and provided news about the project in general and the activities of IOW's collective. The Newsletter will also disseminate Calls for conferences and publications connected to issue of Othering.
And you can become an active participant to IOW's dictionary, by proposing and discussing words that are used to (re)produce different forms of Otherness, and/or suggesting keywords that you would like to be discussed! You can visit regularly www.iowdictionary.org to find further info on keywords and on how to join the project. |
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Forthcoming entries
- casta by Natalia Ortesio Ruiz. From the perspective of media and political discourse analysis and interaction analysis, the author examines the use and meaning of this term as defined and employed by Javier Milei, the actual president of Argentina. Far from being a neutral word, it serves as a label for the political class and those seen as complicit in its corruption— a term marked by contempt and hostility, whose discursive construction will be the focus of this analysis.
- chelha by Ramdane Touati. This entry examines a term used in Tamazight (Berber), Arabic, and French to refer to languages and ethnic groups. In most contexts, aside from southern Morocco, the term signifies alterity—particularly concerning language—and often carries a pejorative connotation. Chelha specifically refers to a subaltern language that lacks recognition and legitimacy from others.
- trans by Victoria Odeniyi and Romain Potier. The keyword entry problematises contemporary uses of trans as largely unhelpful and discriminatory. Anti-trans discourses can hide racism and other forms of discrimination (social class, Islamophobia). There is growing evidence that the erasure of trans existence is part of a wider goal to maintain supremacy of one group of people over others.
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- Giorgis, P., Mavrodieva, I., Semenets, O., Todorova, B. (2025). Re-designing an imaginary past to construe imaginaries for the present – and the future. A cross-cultural perspective. In Discourse and Imaginaries of Past, Present, and Future Societies. Book of Abtsracts DiscourseNet Congress # 6. p. 75.
- Giorgis, P., Valente, A. C. (2025). Rebutting AI: Interacting with GenAI to Develop Critical Digital Literacy and Critical Discourse Analysis in Classroom Practices and Beyond. In Human, Humane, Humanities. Voices from the Anglosphere. Book of Abstracts AIA Turin 2025, pp.280-281.
- Semenets, O. (2025). The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra as a source of new senses of Ukrainian state-building (analysis of mediatised discursive practices in the wartime). Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov. Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies. 2025. Vol. 18(67). No. 3. Pp. 25-38. https://doi.org/10.31926/but.pcs.2025.67.18.3.2
- Mavrodieva, I. (2025). From print to platform: transformations in publishing and PR in contemporary media ecosystems. Materials of the ХVІІI International scientific-practical conference. pp. 174-184.
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IOWers at CONFERENCES September-October 2025 - Odessa Polytechnic University, Odessa, Ukraine. 10-12 September.
International conference Information Education and Professional Communication Technologies 21 st century.
Ivanka Mavrodieva presented “From print to platform: transformations in publishing and PR in contemporary media ecosystems” discussing the transformations in terms of creating international scientific networks, methodologies, and pointed out the examples from the IOW dictionary and BGS speech
- University of Turin, Turin, Italy. 11-13 September. 32 AIA (Italian Association of Anglistics).
Human, Humane, Humanities. Voices from the Anglosphere.
Paola Giorgis and Andrea Valente presented “Rebutting AI: Interacting with GenAI to Develop Critical Digital Literacy and Critical Discourse Analysis in Classroom Practices and Beyond”. Discussing the impact of digital technologies on pedagogical practices and classroom relationships, they illustrated critical approaches to AI through classroom activities in Canada and Italy capable to develop critical language awareness and critical literacy.
University UNIMORE, Reggio Emilia, Italy. 13-17 October.
In collaboration with the Freire project (https://freireproject.com/) Paola Giorgis organized the 15th International Congress of Critical Pedagogy. Following critical pedagogy approaches as a space for dialogue, conscientization, transformation and liberation, the Congress met local grassroot groups and engaged with participatory dialogues on themes such as ‘Pedagogies of Peace and War: Discourses on Power’ and ‘Community Activism: Making the Difference’.
- University L’Orientale, Naples, Italy. 23-25 October.
Echoes of Hate, Screens of Resistance. Discourse, Media, and Pedagogy in the Digital Age.
Paola Giorgis conducted the workshop “In Other Words. A Free and Participatory Online Resource to Counter Digital Toxicity”. After presenting IOW dictionary, its characteristics and ethos, she provided some examples of entries and engaged the audience in activities to show how derogatory words can be problematized and countered in a pedagogical perspective through replicable activities.
- University of Plovdiv, Faculty of Pedagogy, Bulgaria. 30 October, 2025.
In a plenary lecture, Ivanka Mavrodieva outlined the trends in scientific communication today: digital channels, interdisciplinary teams, and scientific products that influence policies and professional standards, not just impact factors. Within such a framework, she also presented IOW dictionary. https://uni-plovdiv.bg/news/news/1631
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Tan, Shaun (2007).
The Arrival. Hodder Children’s Books. The Arrival deals with the theme of the migrant experience told as a series of wordless images. A man leaves his family to seek better prospects in an unknown country. By a series of images that create a fictional place equally ‘other’ to readers of any age, the author deals with the existential themes of belonging, search for identity and meaning, and displacement. https://www.shauntan.net/arrival-book
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Mahmud, Chra Rasheed. (2025).
What they see, what they say: The everyday reality of being a migrant ‘Other’. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 12, 101917. Through qualitative interviews, the study investigates Othering among Iraqi Kurdish migrants in the UK revealing how exclusion is experienced externally but also internalised through emotional, spatial, linguistic, and embodied dimensions. Othering operates both vertically between majority-and minority groups but also horizontally within and between minoritised communities. |
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Equipaggio della Tanimar (2025).
Controdizionario del confine. Parole alla deriva nel Mediterraneo centrale. [Counterdictionary of borders. Words adrift in the central Mediterranean Sea]. Tamu/Tangerin. This collective work navigates the seas of contemporary migration, where divisions of class, gender, and origin, draw boundaries between those who can move comfortably and those who risk their lives to challenge militarized borders. Words too are a lifeboat to call for allies, to name places and means, but also to uncover enemies, dangers, and contradictions, to describe forms of solidarity and acts of violence (in Italian). |
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Alexiadou, A., Scarvaglieri, C., Schroeder, C., Wiese, H. (eds.) (2025).
The construction of multilinguals as Others: Do we practice what we preach? Berlin: Language Science Press.
This volume addresses the issue of the Othering of multilingual speakers, understood as constructing them as members of a social and linguistic out-group, erasing or exoticising multilinguistic practices. The different chapters discuss the labelling, framing, and construction of multilinguals as Others in several linguistic subdisciplines – e.g. second language acquisition, language teaching, etc. Available at: https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/393
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Rüdiger, S., Dayter, D. (eds.). (2025).
Manipulation, Influence and Deception. The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language. Cambridge University Press. After a comprehensive introductory chapter which makes the research on persuasive language accessible to readers without extensive background knowledge, the different chapters dissect the intricate web of manipulation, influence and deception, providing in-depth analyses of the potent mechanisms governing communication. |
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On visual dissent and subversion |
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Velikonja, Mitja. (2020). Post-Socialist Political Graffiti in the Balkans and Central Europe. A comprehensive aesthetic-political analysis of graffiti and street art in different parts of the world is developed according to a multiperspective approach which takes into consideration the historical-cultural-political context, the artist’s motivations, the public’s response, and the graffiti itself (technique, composition, structure, etc.). Further info at: https://indigo.com.ge/en/articles/unmuted-walls
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On collaborative works and interdisciplinarity |
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Leeds- Hurwitz, Wendy (2025). Mapping Goffman’s Invisible College. The mediastudies.press. Though often portrayed as a ‘loner’, Erving Goffman (1922–1982), an important theorist of social interaction, in his years at Penn University was solid part of an interdisciplinary group. Leeds Hurwitz’s work not only opens a new perspective on Goffman’s studies, but it also reaffirms the relevance of collaborative work and the dialogue between disciplines and diverse approaches to develop innovative ideas. Available at: https://www.mediastudies.press/mapping-goffman
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CALLS FOR PAPERS: CONFERENCES |
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Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, BUAP, Puebla, Pue., Mexico
ALED-DN Confrerence. Discoursive Panoramas. Voices, Perspectives, Challenges and Defiances in Global Crisis Societies.
Dates: 25-28 August 2026
Deadline for Abstracts: 15 December 2025
The congress aims at bringing together research and reflections that critically analyse discourses that emerge, circulate, and transform in contexts of global crises. The event proposes a space to make diverse perspectives visible, including those traditionally silenced, in order to understand the discursive dynamics that accompany processes of conflict, resistance, exclusion, or social transformation in a world marked by uncertainty and change. More info at: https://discourseanalysis.net/en/ALED-DN2026
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Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2026 ESSE CONFERENCE (European Society for the Study of English)Dates: 31 August – 4 September 2026 Deadline for Abstracts: 31 January 2026 The Conference includes plenary lectures, parallel lectures, seminars, round tables, and posters. The themes address English language and Linguistics, English Language and Literatures in English, and Cultural and Area Studies. More info at: https://www.esse2026.com/en/index.php
Calls for participation: https://www.esse2026.com/en/calls_participation.php
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The Journal of Translation and Languages (TRANSLANG) invites submissions for its upcoming issue, Volume 25, Number 01, to be published in June 2026.
The journal is a double-blind, peer-reviewed, biannual, free-of-charge, and open-access journal edited by the University of Oran 2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed, Algeria.
Languages: English, Spanish, German, French.
Deadline: 31/03/2026
Some of the themes are: Translation theory and practice; Interpreting studies and practice; Language policy and translation in multilingual societies; Translation technology and digital tools in translation; Cross-cultural communication and translation; Corpus-based translation research
Translation ethics and ideology.
More info at: https://asjp.cerist.dz/en/PresentationRevue/155
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A final note As IOW dictionary engages contributors and readers to reflect on how specific words shape specific world’s vision, here’s an example on how also the absence/erasure of specific words shape specific world’s vision. Please browse the updated list (October 2025) of the words that were banned by US Federal Government: https://pen.org/banned-words-list/
“Every year, fewer and fewer words” (George Orwell, 1984).
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We are looking forward to hearing your comments and suggestions, as well as to welcoming your contributions! In the meanwhile, take care & stay tuned!
Paola Giorgis on behalf of IOW's Editorial Board
For further info, please write to: info@iowdictionary.org
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