Keynote Speakers
Professor Theo van Leeuwen was appointed Professor of Media and Communication and Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2005 at the University of Technology Sydney.
In 2008 the university merged the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences, Education and the Institute for International Studies Professor van Leeuwen was appointed Dean of the newly formed Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
Professor van Leeuwen’s previous appointments include Professor and Head of Research at the London College of Communication, and Professor and Director of the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University.
Professor van Leeuwen has given invited lectures in universities in Holland, Belgium, Brazil, France, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Austria, the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong; taught short postgraduate courses in visual communication and multimodality in Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Vienna, Recife, Belo Horizonte and Madrid, and examined PhD theses at many Universities in the UK, Europe and Australia.
Professor van Leeuwen is founding editor of Visual Communication, published by Sage, London. Earlier he was one of the founders of the Dutch film magazine Skrien (now in its 39th year of publication), and the journal Social Semiotics (now in its 18th year of publication).
He is a member of the editorial board of the following journals: Information Design Journal; Information Technology, Education and Society; Discourse and Society, Journal of Language and Politics, Critical Discourse Studies, Social Semiotics and Cultural Studies Review. Professor van Leeuwen regularly act as a referee for Language and Politics, Journal of Pragmatics, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Text, as well as for a range of publishers, including Routledge, Sage, Arnold, and the University of Edinburgh Press, and for research councils in the UK, USA, Canada, Austria and Australia.
Professor van Leeuwen is an internationally renowned academic who has written many books and articles on discourse analysis, visual communication and multimodality. His most recent books are Discourse and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2008) and The Language of Colour (Routledge, 2011)
Born in Thessaloniki (1959), he studied Sociology (B.A. Victoria University of Manchester), Sociology of Literature (M.A. University of Essex) and Comparative Literature (Phd. University of Jannina). Since 1996, he teaches at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, offering courses in Modern Greek Culture, Cultural Policy, Media & Culture, Visual Communication, and Documentary. Author of The Poetics of Autobiography (Athens 1993), Introduction to Modern Culture (Patra, 2002), Uses and Meanings of Photography (in publ.) and editor of Television and Society (Thessaloniki 1988), The Life of Signs (Thessaloniki 1996), Semiotics of Culture (Thessaloniki 2001), Interculturality, Globalisation and Identities (Athens 2008), Digital Media and Culture (2010) and Borders, Peripheries, Diasporas (in publ). He has contributed to a variety of collective volumes and has published extensively in the fields of literary and cultural theory, mass communication and visual culture, cultural politics and cultural policy.
Miltos Frangopoulos was born in Athens, Greece in 1951. Studied Art History and Theory at London and Essex Universities, UK. Currently Deputy Director of Studies at the Vakalo Art and Design College, Athens, is also in charge of international collaborations. Senior research fellow at the University of Derby UK. Formerly a member of the governing board of the art critics’ association AICA-Hellas (2006-09), and of the editing board of the translation journal Metafrassi (1999-2008). Has written extensively on art and cultural issues in journals and newspapers in Greece; short-listed for the state prize for the essay (2004). Has also worked as a translator of English literature and authored two novels. Recently published work includes: An Introduction to the History of Graphic Design, a translation of William Blake’s Visions of the Daughters of Albion, and Unknown Languages, a selection of translated European verse.