SIU Carbondale is hosting the 25th annual Global Fusion Conference at Morris Library, Oct. 16-19. (SIU Carbondale photo)
October 02, 2025
SIU’s College of Arts and Media hosts global media, arts conference to address uncertainty
CARBONDALE, Ill. — An international conference that brings together scholars and artists using media and the arts to address the uncertainty of disorienting times will be hosted this month by Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s College of Arts and Media.
Global Fusion 2025 — The Critical Path in Disorienting Times: Explorations, Practices, and Solidarities — is scheduled for Oct. 16-19. The bulk of the 25th annual conference is Oct. 17-18 at various locations in Morris Library. While registration is required to attend the entire gathering, there are two plenary sessions, along with artistic exhibits and performances, that will be free and open to the public where registration is not required.
Varied topics highlighted
The conference utilizes visionary designer, architect, writer and former SIU Carbondale faculty member R. Buckminster Fuller’s understanding of critical path, or a way to humanity’s sustainable existence without fighting over resources, “as a means of achieving social, ecological, economic and technological unity.”
The topics within the eight sessions include the impact and role of social media, the future use of artificial intelligence and new technologies in education, design and business, community media and local autonomy, precarious and changing journalistic norms, and participatory theater as a tool for social change.
The conference features 26 panels over two days, with more than 90 paper presentations from faculty and graduate student presenters from around the world, including Africa, Asia, South America and the United States, said Lisa Brooten, a professor in the School of Media Arts. The conference also features artistic work and performances, including interdisciplinary arts festivals on Friday, Oct. 17, on the Morris Library front lawn at 10:45 a.m. and Guyon Auditorium at 4:15 p.m.
Specific information on topics and activities is available on the conference website.
Media availability
Reporters, photographers and news crews wishing to cover the conference or arrange for interviews should contact College of Arts and Media Dean Hong Cheng at 618-453-7708 or Lisa Brooten, professor, School of Media Arts, at lbrooten@siu.edu.
‘The Creative Hub’
The conference highlights a feature present in each of the six schools within the College of Arts and Media, which was established in July 2021, Dean Hong Cheng said. "All six schools have one thing in common – that’s creativity,” he noted, emphasizing the interdisciplinary opportunities available for faculty and students. “Creativity is our hallmark. We call CAM the Creative Hub.”
Cheng also noted that CAM was the first among the 21 universities listed in both the Carnegie Classification of Institutions for Higher Education’s Research 1 and Opportunity Colleges and Universities to combine arts and media into a single college. This structure ensures CAM offers top-tier research, affordability and a strong return on investment for students, all within the context of the entire university, but in a highly interdisciplinary and creative way, Cheng elaborated.
Cheng mentioned that, traditionally, Global Fusion conferences have emphasized scholarly research more. “For us, research includes scholarly work or creative activity, or a mix of both," Cheng said, stressing CAM’s support for all types of research.
A ‘holistic’ approach in a disconnected world
Brooten noted the conference offers the opportunity to bring “cutting-edge research” and discussions on international global communication and media to the region.
That includes taking a “holistic approach to dealing with difficult issues and difficult times” and the roles of media and communication. That also includes examining and dealing with misinformation and changes in media and communication fields from AI, she said.
“We are currently highly polarized in our country and the world,” Brooten said. “We have a wave of authoritarian populism that has flooded the planet and divided us. We are fractured in many, many ways in many countries.”
Two plenary sessions set
Among the featured speakers are Dafna Lemish, a former dean of SIU Carbondale’s then-College of Mass Communication and Media Arts; Allen Turner, an assistant professor in DePaul University’s Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media, and Joseph Underhill, an associate professor and environmental studies director at Augsburg University.
The opening plenary at 1 p.m. Oct. 17 in Guyon Auditorium will feature Turner and Underhill. In addition, Elizabeth Donaghue, assistant director of SIU Carbondale’s University Honors Program, and artist Benjamin Lowder, director of the Fuller Dome Center for Spirituality and Sustainability on the SIU Edwardsville campus will discuss “Navigating a Way Forward Through the Artifacts of Buckminster Fuller.”
At 2:30 p.m. Oct. 18, also in Guyon Auditorium, Lemish, a distinguished professor in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, will present “Academic Immigrants in Pursuit of a Home and Solidarity.” Lemish will discuss her new book, “Always an Academic Immigrant: A Collective Memoir,” where she will share what she learned “from interviewing 81 academic immigrants who uprooted from their home country to another country for an academic career.”
“I will focus on the challenges they face, the unique benefits they believe they contribute to higher education institutions in their scholarship, teaching and leadership, and explore their sense of living in two worlds at once,” she said.
An international scholar on the media’s role in children’s lives, Lemish was a professor, department chair and later dean at SIU Carbondale from 2010 to 2016. Lemish said she’s “extremely excited” about returning to SIU Carbondale for the first time in nine years and is “very grateful” to Cheng and Brooten “for making me feel so welcomed and at home.”
“I have very strong positive feelings toward my colleagues, the institution, and even the physical grounds. I am looking forward to being reunited with friends, walking Campus Lake and wandering my favorite places in the building and the campus at large,” she said.
Consortium partners
The Global Fusion consortium currently consists of Southern Illinois University (both SIU Carbondale and SIU Edwardsville), Ohio University, Temple University, Texas Tech University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia.