Globalization, Inequalities & Communication for a Social Change, Free Public Lecture

The School of Communication Studies is proud to present its annual Cowperthwaite Lecture and Seminar, featuring guest lecturer Dr. Mohan J. Dutta, faculty in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore.

The two credit graduate course, “Globalization, Inequalities & Communication for a Social Change” (COMM 55095/75095) will be held from August 19—24. Sessions will be from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. and 1:00-4:00, Monday through Friday.

Dutta will give a public lecture titled, “Interrogating global health inequalities: Listening to the voices of the poor” on Sunday, Aug. 18 at 3:30 p.m. in 146 Taylor Hall, on the Kent State University campus.

The Cowperthwaite Lecture is established in the name of L. LeRoy Cowperthwaite, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and served as Director of the School of Speech at Kent State for 29 years. Previous scholars have included David Ewoldsen of The Ohio State Univeristy; Walid Afifi of University of California, Santa Barbara; and Mary Beth Oliver of Pennsylvania State University, among many others.

Dutta is professor and head of the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore and courtesy professor of communication at Purdue University. At NUS, he is the founding director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE), directing research on culturally-centered, community-based projects of social change.

He teaches and conducts research in international health communication, critical cultural theory, poverty in healthcare, health activism in globalization politics, indigenous cosmologies of health, subaltern studies and dialogue, and public policy and social change. Currently, he serves as editor of the “Global Health Communication Book Series” with Left Coast Press and sits on the editorial board of seven journals. Before arriving to NUS, he served as associate dean of research in the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University, a service learning fellow, and a fellow of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Academy. Also at Purdue, he served as the founding director of the Center for Poverty and Health Inequities (COPHI).

Professor Dutta holds a Bachelor of Technology (Honors) in Agricultural Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota. He began his career at Purdue University in 2001, was tenured in 2005, and became full professor in 2009. In June, 2010, he was appointed as the Lim Chong Yah Professor of Communication and New Media at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and formally joined NUS as Professor of Communication in July, 2012.