Dr. Joseph Wronka is professor emeritus, Springfield College, Massachusetts. He has also had extensive post-secondary teaching experience in the United States, including in Alaska, Georgia, and New York City, and briefly in Europe at Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. He has represented the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) for roughly two decades and was on the executive committee at the United Nations for an NGO working for Indigenous Peoples. Having been to India previously – Bhubaneswar, Delhi, and Karnataka – he was also a Fulbrighter in Pakistan, Austria, and Greece. Dr. Wronka was one of the 300 human rights/social justice activists who attended the 50th anniversary of the UN endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He has presented his work in roughly 20 countries. He is the author of numerous scholarly and popular articles, as well as books, with his latest book being Human Rights and Social Justice: Social Action and Service for the Helping and Health Professions. Having studied the phenomenon of performing and street musicians at the University of Nice, he completed his doctorate in social policy from Brandeis University; his master’s in existential-phenomenological psychology from Duquesne University; and his bachelor’s from Brooklyn College.
Host City USA: Kottayam
Weidong Zhang
Dr. Weidong Zhang is a professor in the Department of Global Studies and World Languages at Winona State University, Minnesota. He holds a doctorate in mass communications (with a cultural studies focus on media, culture, and society), and an MA in Asian studies/Asian civilizations, both from the University of Iowa. He was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany, during 2014–2015. His research interests lie at the intersection of language and discourse, culture, and Chinese society. He has published in the International Journal of China Studies, the American Review of China Studies, the Journal of Asian Communication Research, and the Network and Communications Journal, among others. One important line of his work focuses on China’s role in the world, including China’s self-perception and its evolving foreign policy and the foreign policy discourse it has with the new world order and the Global South.
Dr. Zhang’s Fulbright project is part of a multi-country research aiming to provide a comprehensive yet nuanced analysis of China’s engagement with diverse regions within the Global South. Using case studies and fieldwork in India, Brazil, and South Africa, the project is investigating China’s diverse strategies in foreign policy, economic investments, and diplomatic initiatives in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is also assessing how nations in the Global South perceive and respond to China’s influence, highlighting regional variations in these interactions. This research addresses a critical gap in the understanding of China’s role in the Global South, a region that has often been overlooked in mainstream analyses of China’s foreign policy. By exploring the intersection of China’s strategic interests and the diverse priorities of the Global South nations, the study is attempting to offer a deeper understanding of how these evolving relationships are shaping global power dynamics, regional development, and geopolitical alignments. Additionally, it is examining the broader implications for global governance, peace, and security, to provide insights into the future of international relations and China’s role in the evolving global order.