Canadian Tech Visionary to join USC Center on Public Diplomacy for 2006-07

Canadian novelist and technology visionary Cory Doctorow will join the USC Center on Public Diplomacy as a visiting scholar beginning in September 2006, the Canadian Fulbright Commission announced.

Doctorow, who edits the widely read culture and technology blog site Boing Boing, will be the first to hold the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Public Diplomacy. The partnership is designed to attract Canada's most prominent scholars to USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, a global leader in studying how countries communicate about themselves to citizens of other countries.

“I’m looking forward to being part of the academic discourse on the ways that technology can either liberate or control us,” Doctorow said.

While at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, the scholar will conduct leading-edge research, collaborate with USC faculty and students, and deliver guest lectures to the wider community.

"Canada is increasingly recognized as being on the forefront of innovation and scholarly thought in the public diplomacy sphere. We are equally pleased that the Commission has selected a visionary like Cory Doctorow to be the first recipient of the chair,” said Joshua S. Fouts, Director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. “In an era in which technology is changing the dynamic, social fabric and very rules by which people around the world learn about each other, it is critical that Public Diplomacy be current. Cory will bring a valuable perspective to this discussion.”

Doctorow’s chair is being co-sponsored by USC’s Integrated Media Systems Center. “We are excited by this opportunity to work with such a visionary as Cory Doctorow as we continue our research on experiential media for education, journalism and entertainment, ” said Adam Clayton Powell III, Director of the Integrated Media Systems Center at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

A different notable Canadian will come to USC each year. “The research agenda advanced by this new Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy is particularly important in the context of today’s increasingly complex international environment,” said Michael K. Hawes, executive director of the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program.

Supported by Foreign Affairs Canada and the United States Department of State, the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program promotes a deeper and more nuanced knowledge of Canada-U.S. relations and builds mutual understanding between the two countries through high-level academic exchange. The Canada-U.S. Fulbright Visiting Research Chairs are designed to strengthen binational collaborative research on issues relevant to Canada, the United States and the relationship between the two countries. For more information, visit the Fulbright website.