Professor Mohan Dutta to deliver prestigious lecture in the field of communication

The Carroll C Arnold Distinguished Lecture is among the highest honours in the communication discipline. Named after Pennsylvania State University Professor Emeritus Carroll C Arnold – whose works such as Public Speaking as a Liberal Art helped define the field – the annual address highlights scholarship that demonstrates the societal value of communication research.

Professor Dutta’s invitation recognises his global leadership in health communication, social change and culture-centred approaches. His work has shaped international conversations about equity, voice and structural transformation, and his selection places Massey University at the forefront of socially engaged communication scholarship.

His address, titled Suturing Solidarities That Sustain Our Capacities to Imagine, will explore the role of communication in nurturing connection and collective action at a time of converging global crises. It will reflect on ancestral stories of resistance and the solidarities that emerge across movements for Indigenous land return, abolition of racist carceral systems, migrant rights, resource redistribution and the dismantling of imperialist militarism.

Professor Dutta says the theme of his lecture is about how solidarities grounded in ancestral stories of resistance can sustain our ability to imagine just futures.

“Amidst the consolidation of power in elite hands and the acceleration of destruction worldwide, our capacities to imagine transformative futures through love, connection and community remain our greatest sustenance.”

He adds that his lecture will pay tribute to diverse traditions of struggle and the radical hope seeded within them, grounding contemporary social challenges in a long history of collective organising. 

“This lecture will honour the radical possibilities of solidarity rooted in our diverse histories of resistance.”

The lecture will be delivered during the National Communication Association’s 111th Annual Convention in New Orleans on 21 November.