Noted urban historian Philip J. Ethington will be the keynote speaker at the second annual Mellon Innovating International Research, Teaching, and Collaboration Workshop at Indiana University Bloomington on Sept. 12 and 13.

All faculty and students are invited to the free opening reception from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12,  in the Social Science Research Commons, in Woodburn Hall 200. The reception will feature the address by Ethington, a professor of history, political science and spatial studies at the University of Southern California.

Ethington will speak on the topic of "International Scholarship from the Age of Empire to the Age of Digital Globalism," focusing on the challenges and opportunities the digital age presents for international collaboration and research.

Ethington recently completed "Ghost Metropolis: Los Angeles Since 13,000 BP," a global history of the nation's second-largest city. His work includes large-scale museum installations of geo-historical visualizations; two-dimensional cartography designed to visualize historical time (called ghost maps); and theoretical writings toward a spatial theory of history.

He also wrote the screenplay for the award-winning documentary "Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman" with Dustin Hoffman in 2008. He served as co-principal investigator in the development of online platforms for digital scholarly publications, principally HyperCities and Scalar.

The annual workshop will take place Saturday, Sept. 13, at the IU Bloomington Innovation Center at 10^th Street and the 45/46 Bypass. During the conference, recipients of 2013-14 awards from the MIIRT program will present progress reports on their projects.

With support from the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the MIIRT program is intended to promote new directions in international, area and global studies that include collaborations among faculty in the humanities, social sciences and professional schools throughout the Bloomington campus.

A total of 15 MIIRT fellowships were awarded in 2014, enabling faculty and graduate students to conduct work in countries including Brazil, China, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Liberia, South Africa, Tibet and Zambia.

A complete list of award recipients may be found on the Office of the Vice Provost website. All faculty and advanced graduate students are invited to the MIIRT Annual Workshop; however, registration is required and may be done online. The registration deadline is Tuesday.