Keynote Speakers and panelists

Professor Giuliana Ferri (University College London) 

Title of presentation: Intercultural ethics and intercultural dialogue in the age of AI

Abstract:

Generative AI is a subset of AI (Artificial Intelligence), in the sense that generative AI can generate new content based on deep learning of the patterns gained from its training on large datasets (Dai, Zhu, 2024). Large Language Models (LLMs) are specifically trained to generate ‘human like’ language. The issues raised by LLMs are multiple, from reproducing language inequality (Carbajal Carrera, 2024; Tran, Stell, 2024) and cultural bias (Jones, 2025; Kohnke et al, 2023) to unethical practices in academic writing (Shaw, 2025), leading to the lack of consent from authors to have their own work used to ‘feed’ these large datasets. The environmental impact (Yu et al, 2024), exploitation of digital workers in the Global South (Anwar, Graham, 2020), and military uses of generative AI (Shama, 2021) are also well documented, posing other ethical challenges for intercultural ethics.

In line with my past and current work in intercultural ethics (Ferri, 2018, 2022, 2023), in this talk I aim to outline some of the concerns that pertain specifically to intercultural dialogue, starting with a reflection on the onto-epistemic shift that initiated the modern era with the mechanical reproduction of the work of art (Benjamin, 2008) and continued in what Debord (1983) called ‘’society of the spectacle’’ and Baudrillard the simulacrum (1994, 1995). In this shift, our relationship with the world becomes increasingly alienated and subject to economic and political forces that are beyond our control, something that is rapidly accelerating with the development of AI. I argue that recovering the ethical relation with the other in the ‘here and now’ of interaction (Ferri, 2018) is more urgent than ever. I use le dire (Levinas, 1998) as a poetic modality of language that recovers the transformative power of intercultural dialogue as critical dialogue (Freire, 1970; McAllister, Ferri, in press) to address ‘’intercultural injustice as it unfolds in the real world’’ (O’Regan, Ferri, 2025, p.805).

References:

Anwar, M. A., Graham, M. (2020). Digital labour at economic margins: African workers and

the global information economy. Review of African Political Economy 47(163). 95–105.

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press.

Baudrillard, J. (1995). The Gulf War did not take place. Power Publications.

Benjamin, W. (2008). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Penguin.

Carbajal Carrera, B. (2024). AIsplaining Generative AI explains linguistic identities to me. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 47(3), 340 – 365.

Dai, D.W. and Hua, Z. (2025). When AI meets intercultural communication: new frontiers, new agendas. Applied Linguistics Review, 16(2), 747-751.

Debord, G. (1983). Society of the spectacle. Black & Red. 

Ferri, G. (2018). Intercultural communication. Critical Approaches and future challenges. Palgrave.

Ferri, G. (2022). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house: decolonising intercultural communication. Language and Intercultural Communication, 22(3), 381–390.

Ferri, G. (2023). Embodied others and the ethics of difference. Deterritorialising intercultural learning. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 31(2), 269–282.

Jones, Rodney H. (2025). Culture machines. Applied Linguistics Review, 16(2), 753-762.

Kohnke, L., Moorhouse, B. L., & Zou, D. (2023). ChatGPT for language teaching and learning. RELC Journal, 54(2), 537–550.

McAllister, Á, Ferri, G. (in press). There is no Other: Dúchas, Levinas, and Interconnectedness as Poetic Restoration.  London Review of Education.

O’Regan, J. P., Ferri, G. (2025). Artificial intelligence and depth ontology: implications for intercultural ethics. Applied Linguistics Review, 16 (2), 797-807.

Shaw, D. (2025). The digital erosion of intellectual integrity: why misuse of generative AI is worse than plagiarism. AI & Society, https://doi-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/10.1007/s00146-025-02362-2

Tran, H., Snell, A. (2024). Beyond borders or building new walls?

The potential for generative AI in recolonising the learning of Vietnamese dialects and Mandarin varieties. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 47(3), 284 – 308.

Yu, Y., Wang, J., Liu, Y. et al. (2024). Revisit the environmental impact of artificial intelligence: the overlooked carbon emission source? Frontiers of Environmental Science and Engineering, 18, pp.1-5.

Associate professor Hanne Tange (Aalborg University) 

Title of presentation: Educating Intercultural Citizens in Times of Crisis

Abstract: 

Intercultural citizenship is associated with attributes such as cultural awareness, relationship-building and open-mindedness. Traditionally, interculturalists assumed that such competences were cultivated in foreign language and intercultural education, drawing on the models of Byram and Deardorff. Yet these presume conditions of stability, which cannot be taken for granted in times of crisis. Hence, the present state of turbulence demands a different approach to intercultural learning. 

Inspired by principles of experiential and multicultural learning, I shall present a three-step model for intercultural education. Central are the pedagogical ideas of ‘discomfort’ (Zembylas 2015) and ‘collapse’ (Servant-Miklos 2024), which means that I recognise crisis as the key element distinguishing the present, as well as educators’ ethical obligation to teach in a manner inspiring hope in future generations. 

The model contains three stages: Stage One involves emotions invoked by an intercultural incident that, in Boler’s words (2004), has caused a ‘shattering of worldviews’.  ‘Discomfort’ suggests negative feelings, arising from a perceived threat to the normative beliefs constituting individual actors’ ‘comfort zone’. In stage Two the intercultural learner accepts discomfort as a feeling invoked by a reality of ambivalence. The stage is named ‘critical hope’, suggesting that positive emotions arise from the reflective process stimulated by the intercultural encounter.  Stage Three foregrounds action, acknowledging how a perceived capacity to create change generate positive feelings. The implication is that intercultural education involves active citizenship, empowering learners by supporting their development of the practical knowledge necessary to act in the world. 

References:
Boler, M. 2004. Teaching for hope: The ethics of shattering world views. In Garrison (ed.), Teaching, Loving & Learning, 117-31. New York: Routledge.

Byram, M. and Golubeva, I. 2020. Conceptualising intercultural (communicative) competence and intercultural citizenship. In J. Jackson (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication, pp. 70-85. Routledge. 

Deardorff, D. 2012. Framework: Intercultural competence model. In Deardorff (ed.). Building Cultural Competence, pp. 45-52. Routledge.

Servant-Miklos. G. 2024. Pedagogies of Collapse. Bloomsbury. 

Zembylas, M. 2015. ‘Pedagogy of discomfort’ and its ethical implications. Ethics and Education 10 (2), 163-74.