Photo featuring Aswin Punathambekar, Ph.D., Jing Wang, Ph.D., and Ali Karimi, Ph.D.
Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication

About

Since its inception in 2013, CARGC has established itself as an integral hub for global media and communication scholars around the world. Our research, teaching, and public engagement initiatives explore and forge dynamic connections across local, regional and global contexts.

Who We Are

We explore new ways of understanding and explaining the world, including through public scholarship, the arts, multimodal scholarship, and digital archives. With a core commitment to the development of early career scholars worldwide, CARGC hosts postdoctoral, doctoral, undergraduate, and faculty fellows who collaborate in research groups, produce peer-reviewed scholarship, contribute to CARGC's Global Media & Communication Podcast, and organize talks, lectures, symposia, conferences, and summer institutes.

Our Mission and History

The Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication produces and promotes scholarly research on global media, communication, and public life. Our work brings together “area studies” knowledge with theory and methodology in the humanities and social sciences to understand how local, lived experiences of people and communities are profoundly shaped by global media alongside cultural and political-economic forces. This synthesis of deep regional expertise and interdisciplinary inquiry stimulates critical conversations about entrenched and emerging communicative structures, practices, flows, and struggles.

As an institute for advanced study, we are committed to supporting early career scholars from around the world. Our fellows bring fresh ideas and new topics to the field of global media and communication studies, and are fully engaged in the daily life of the center. We are committed to fostering a highly collaborative environment and inclusive community of scholars driven by intellectual generosity, curiosity, and exchange.

Photo of CARGC fellows and staff in the CARGC conference room

We organize distinguished lectures with eminent scholars like Purnima Mankekar, Tarek El-Ariss, Anikó Imre, Saskia Sassen, and Arjun Appadurai, and convene master classes, symposia, and workshops on topics ranging from migration to the climate crisis, to global media industries and cultural politics. We hold regular book talks, colloquia, and panel discussions on topics of crucial relevance to geopolitics, everyday life, and communication. Our vision of “inclusive globalization” recognizes plurality and inequality in global media and the need for deep regional expertise and interdisciplinary inquiry.

CARGC Press oversees the Center’s knowledge production and dissemination activities. Our fellows and distinguished visitors have published papers, policy-focused briefs, and special issues with partners such as the International Journal of Communication and Communication and the Public. CARGC Press is also committed to multimodal scholarship and being at the forefront of technologically and economically driven changes to knowledge production and dissemination. In 2022, the center launched its Global Media & Communication Podcast in partnership with the New Books Network. Reflective of our vision of "inclusive globalization," all of our CARGC Press publications are free and open access.

Photo of a view from the CARGC office on 3901 Walnut Street

Contact Us

Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication
3901 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 746-8477
cargc@asc.upenn.edu

CARGC is located on the sixth floor of 3901 Walnut Street on the University of Pennsylvania campus. The space features large windows displaying views of Penn, West Philadelphia, and Center City; a state-of-the-art conference room for CARGC events; and a combination of open workspaces and spacious offices ideally suited for research, writing, and collaboration.

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