What's "In the Works" for Nicholas J. Cull?

CPD Faculty Fellow Nicholas J. Cull is Professor of Public Diplomacy at USC Annenberg where he directs the Master of Public Diplomacy (MPD) program. A 2015 study led by Emily Metzgar of Indiana University identified him as the most prolific author in the field.

A historian by training, Cull is best known for an emphasis on the importance of listening and for detailed studies of public diplomacy agencies, including British wartime agencies in his first book, Selling War (1995), and the USIA in both The Cold War and the United States Information Agency (2008) and The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency (2012). He is co-editor of the journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy and is concluding more than a decade as president of the International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST).

Nick’s current projects include a single-volume introduction to the practice of PD: Public Diplomacy: The Foundations of Global Engagement in the Era of Social Media. It is a written version of the lectures he has developed for the CPD Summer Institute and for his guest lectures at diplomatic academies around the world. The book is in press and due out from Polity in the spring of 2019. 

Recent work includes:

• Chaired a scoping study for media diplomacy in the Western Balkans for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
• Presented historical context and examples to explain relations between diaspora and public diplomacy at the "Diaspora, Diplomacy and Development" conference hosted by the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies in Dublin from May 24-26, 2018. 
• Gave a presentation about the future of public diplomacy at RAND in Santa Monica on June 5, 2018. 
• Presented on images of D-Day for the National WWII Museum in New Orleans on June 7, 2018, which was relayed on C-SPAN. 
• Presented on the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth at the Public Diplomacy Council in Washington, D.C. in July 2018. 

Here's what else Professor Cull has "In the Works":

• Editing the second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (with Nancy Snow) and the anthology Canadian Public Diplomacy (with Michael Hawes) for Palgrave Macmillan.
• Speaking in Tbilisi, Georgia and Yerevan, Armenia as a guest of the U.S. Embassy, Tbilisi, Parliament of Georgia and Armenia's foreign ministry and diaspora ministry in September 2018. 
• Guest lecturing for Catholic University of Milan’s Cultural Diplomacy degree in Rome in December 2018. 
• Conducting a long-term study of the way in which global public diplomacy networks were an essential element in the end of Apartheid in South Africa, which he will be researching during a sabbatical semester scheduled for the spring of 2019.
• A potential third volume on the history of U.S. public diplomacy. When asked about these plans, Cull says he is waiting for some indication of a happy ending before beginning work on this. Alluding to the original Star Wars trilogy he jokes, "At the end of the second book, public diplomacy was certainly frozen in carbonite… I guess I’m waiting for the dancing Ewoks."

About this series:

"In the Works" is CPD's periodic roundup of news from the international PD scholarly community. If you've taken up a new academic position, published a new work or recently embarked on a research project on a public diplomacy topic, let us know! All updates can be sent to cpd@usc.edu. Please be sure to use "In the Works" in the subject heading.