Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Jana Holsanova
Gunther Kress
Len Unsworth
Jana Holsanova is Associate Professor in Cognitive Science and Senior Researcher in Linnaeus environment 'Cognition, Communication, and Learning’ at Lund University, Sweden. Her research focuses on language, images, cognition and visual communication. Jana uses eye movement measurement to study image perception, the interplay between language and images, the role of images for learning, visual thinking (mental images), and interaction with various media. Her books include Discourse, Vision and Cognition (2008), Myths and Facts About Reading. On the Interplay Between Language and Pictures in Various Media (2010) and Methodologies for Multimodal Research (2012, Special issue of Visual Communication). Jana is Chair of the Visual communication studies division, International Communication Association and Chairman of the Swedish Braille Authority at the Swedish Agency for Accessible Media.
Gunther Kress is Professor of Semiotics and Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. His interests are in communication and meaning (-making) in contemporary environments. His broad aims are to continue developing a social semiotic theory of multimodal communication; and, in that, to develop an apt theory of learning and apt means for the ‘recognition’ and ‘valuation of learning’. Some books along the road are: Language as Ideology; Social Semiotics (both with Bob Hodge); Before Writing: rethinking the paths to literacy; Reading Images: the grammar of graphic design; Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication (both with Theo van Leeuwen); Literacy in the new media age; Multimodality: a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication.
Len UnsLen Unsworth is Professor in English and Literacies Education at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney, Australia. Len’s research is in primary and secondary school English and multiliteracies education. His book publications include Teaching Multiliteracies Across the Curriculum (Open University Press) and [with Angela Thomas, Alyson Simpson and Jenny Asha] Teaching children’s literature with Information and Communication Technologies (McGraw-Hill/Open University Press 2005), e-literature for children and classroom literacy learning (Routledge, 2006), New Literacies and the English Curriculum (Continuum, 2008), Multimodal Semiotics (Continuum, 2008) and, with Clare Painter and Jim Martin, Reading Visual Narratives (Equinox, 2013).
Dean of School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Swire Chair Professor of Design.
Professor de Bont’s research interests are in the areas of early concept testing of consumer acceptance, consumer behaviour, innovation adoption, and networked innovation. On these topics, Professor de Bont supervised master’s students and PhD students. More recently Professor de Bont focuses also on the development of industrial design as an academic discipline, including the quality perceptions of design journals. He is currently editing a book on advanced design methods for practitioners.
Keynote Speakers
W. J. T. Mitchell is Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago. He is editor of the interdisciplinary journal, Critical Inquiry, a quarterly devoted to critical theory in the arts and human sciences. A scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature, Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues.
