The Speakers  

Kenneth J. Gergen, Social Psychology: Mustin Professor, Swarthmore College; Professor Gergen, by himself, ensures broad attention for this conference. One of social constructionism's earliest, most important and most widely respected exponents; his analyses in construction include warrant, power and voice. He is editor of the text series: Inquiries in Social Constructionism. In addition to the pivotal, Introduction to Social Constructionism, he has authored The Saturated Self, a text dealing with globalization; and much more.
http://gergen.socialpsychology.org/

Richard J. Bernstein, Philosophy: Vera List Professor Emeritus, The New School for Social Research, N.Y.C.: He is as important as any philosopher today. His works include, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis; and The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity / Postmodernity.
http://www.newschool.edu/gf/phil/faculty/bernstein_richard

Richard A. Shweder, Cultural Anthropology: Professor of Human Development at the University of Chicago; co-chair, joint Social Science Research Council/Russell Sage Foundation Working Group. His recent research examines the scopes and limits of pluralism in Western liberal democracies; the norm conflicts that arise when people migrate to countries in the "North". Bringing with them culturally endorsed practices that mainstream populations in the United States or Western Europe sometimes find aberrant and disturbing, how much accommodation to cultural diversity occurs and ought to occur under such circumstances? Among his many significant works, Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology.

Mary Catherine Bateson, Cultural Anthropology: President, Institute for Intercultural Studies New York City. Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Dean (Amherst, Tehran) and Visiting Scholar worldwide; writer and co-author of numerous books and articles; daughter of anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, advancing their prolific legacy. www.marycatherinebateson.com

W. Barnett Pearce, Communication: Professor, The Fielding Graduate University; focusing on interaction as his unit of analysis (as opposed to individual or group), Pearce has developed profound diagramatic analyses of social interactional complications, ranging from moments to episodic, relational and macro-studies. His Communication and The Human Condition includes fine advice, such as a second liberation, from mere facticity, and into hermeneutic, narrative coherence; at the same time, it thoroughly organizes mono, ethnocentric, modern and postmodern culture; in Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective (Wiley-Blackwell 2007), he uses his groundbreaking C.M.M. theory to show how to discern and act wisely during "critical moments", moments which can shape and define our world.
http://www.pearceassociates.com/, http://www.fielding.edu/

PROPOSED SPEAKERS FOR SUBSEQUENT CONFERENCES:

Rom Harré, Philosophy/Psychology: Former Department Chair of Psychology, Oxford, and now Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University; Harré is cognitive psychology's most formidable opponent. His work involves interpretation of moral orders, transformation of the static and monadic concept of self into a narrative self, i.e. Autobiography, gaining its advantages in constructing self agency and managing contradiction. His publications include, Cognitive Science: A Philosophical Introduction; and much more.
http://www.georgetown.edu/departments/psychology/faculty/harre.html

Stephen Littlejohn, Communication: Adjunct Professor, The University of New Mexico; Professor Littlejohn is author of one of the most comprehensive and widely circulated texts of communication, its theory and more. He also co-authored with Pearce, Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide. His analytical focus is on interactional difficulties and he is invariably one of the most astute contributors to any project in which he is involved.
http://www.domenici-littlejohn.com/

John Shotter, Communication: Professor Emeritus, The University of New Hampshire; Professor Shotter has an advisory role at The Kensington Consulting Center, a Psychological Group of England. Highly published, he is an expert in meticulous and keen applications of James, Dewey, Wittgenstein and Harré; Shotter's analyses critique objectivity and scientism, showing how these positions ignore accountablity for participatory ramifications of their analytical frames; as opposed to the mechanism of these first to third person accounts, Shotter re-interprets a non-passive warrant, through "specificatory structures", i.e. jointly negotiated accounts adjusted to specific situations.
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jds