The College of Communication and Information, School of Library and Information Science and School of Visual Communication Design at Kent State University were well represented at the 2nd International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society by Don Wicks, Ph.D., SLIS interim director and associate professor; Rosemary Du Mont, Ph.D., SLIS professor; Doug Goldsmith, associate professor, Visual Communication Design;and Darin Freeburg, CCI doctoral student, who received a scholarship to attend the February event in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
[Darin Freeburg] Wicks, Goldsmith and Freeburg co-presented a paper titled "Visual Depictions of Religion in Children’s Picture Books," which reported on how religious concepts are visually represented in picture books. The study made use of the Marantz Picturebook Collection housed at SLIS.
Freeburg was chosen as a "Graduate Scholar" and received free registration in exchange for helping with the Conference. According to the conference website, "Graduate scholars contribute to the flow and overall success of the conference. Their key responsibilities include chairing the parallel sessions, keeping the conference on schedule, providing audio-visual technical assistance and assisting with the registration process." Freeburg is working toward a Ph.D. in Communication and Information.
Du Mont's presentation on "She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theology Discourse by Elizabeth A. Johnson: A Bibliometric Exploration of Knowledge Diffusion" discussed the impact of She Who Is on current scholarship in religion, theology and other disciplines by profiling qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the research and popular literature that cite this book.
In addition to representing CCI and SLIS, Wicks, Du Mont and Freeburg also represented the Center for the Study of Information and Religion (CSIR) at the conference. Wicks is director of CSIR, Du Mont is CSIR associate, and Freeburg is a graduate assistant for the center.A research initiative of SLIS, CSIR was founded in 2009 with the goal of facilitating research on the various institutions and agents of religion and their effect on social knowledge through the use, dissemination and diffusion of information.
Media contact:
Flo Cunningham
330-672-0003
fcunning@kent.edu