Academic Conference: The 13th International Conference on Intercultural Communication (ICIC 2024) Held at Wuhan University

From October 26 to 28, 2024, the Center for Studies of Media Development of Wuhan University, a Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education, and the School of Journalism and Communication of Wuhan University hosted the 13th International Conference on Intercultural Communication (ICIC 2024). Themed "Cross-Cultural Memory Flow and Memory Construction in the Digital Era", the conference attracted scholars from Denmark, the United States, Hong Kong, and mainland China to explore topics such as the creation and flow of intercultural memories in the digital era, the construction and identity of global memory. Discussions offered perspectives on how to build a community of shared future for mankind and practice mutual learning among civilizations from the standpoint of intercultural memory.

Photo 1: Group photo of attendees at ICIC 2024

The conference received 88 submissions, with ten selected for plenary presentations after expert review. It featured three keynote speeches, with students and scholars from well-known universities at home and abroad, including Aarhus University in Denmark, Duke Kunshan University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Peking University, Fudan University, Wuhan University, etc., discussing the cross-cultural flow of memory and the construction of memory in the digital age. Pre-conference speeches on October 26 were delivered by Svend Erik Larsen, a fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and a retired professor from Aarhus University, and Cai Zhixiang, a chair professor at Xiamen University and an adjunct professor in history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Professor Shan Bo, the director of the Center for Studies of Media Development of Wuhan University, delivered the opening address. He emphasized that cultural memory, as a means of social identity construction, relies on various mediating mechanisms such as language, symbols, images, and architecture. These mechanisms facilitate the crossing of ethnic and cultural boundaries, thereby reconstructing and expanding memory spaces.

Svend Erik Larsen highlighted in his keynote that memory is not merely a recollection of the past but a complex process involving cultural context, media dissemination, and individual cognition. In the context of globalization, media serves as a crucial medium for cultural transmission and memory shaping, necessitating a broader perspective to understand the interplay between memory and media.