R.S. Zaharna is Professor of Communication at the American University in Washington, DC, and Faculty Fellow with the Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California.

• Contents


• Acknowledgments


• Introduction


• Call to the Boundary Spanners


• Wicked Problems, Synergistic Problem Solving


• Evolutionary Human Capacity to Cooperate


• From Mindset of Separateness


• To Mindset of Connectivity


• Call to the Boundary Spanners


• Overview


• Chapter 1


• All Thumbs at Communication


• More Global Mis-communication


• Public Diplomacy Window


• Hidden Communication Template


• Breaking out of Assumptions


• Three Logics of Communication


• For the Boundary Spanners: Beyond All Thumbs


• Summary


• Chapter 2


• A World of Relations, World of Communication


• Studying the Other: Intercultural Communication


• Overlooking the Self, Creating the Other


• Lens of Relationalism


• Individualism


• Individuality


• Relationality


• A World of Relations and Communication


• For the Boundary Spanners


• Summary


• Chapter 3


• Individual Logic - Aristotle's Legacy


• Aristotle's Legacy of Persuasion


• The Communicator


• Winning Hearts and Minds


• For the Boundary Spanners


• Summary


• Chapter 4


• Relational Logic - A Royal Bond of Brotherhood


• Amarna Diplomacy: Cultivating Relational Bonds


• The Bond


• Strengthening Ties that Bind


• For the Boundary Spanners


• Summary


• Chapter 5


• Holistic Logic - Cosmic Circles


• Cosmic Circles: Connecting the Universe


• An Indivisible Whole


• Harmony of the Whole


• For the Boundary Spanners


• Summary


• Chapter 6


• Enhancing Collaboration - Speech, Emotion and Synchrony


• Globalizing through Blending


• Individual Logic: Power of Speech


• Enhancing Collaboration thru Storytelling


• Relational Logic - Power of Emotion


• Enhancing Collaboration through Empathy


• Holistic Logic - Power of Synchrony


• Enhancing Collaboration through Play


• Summary


• Conclusion


• Boundary Spanning Agenda for Global Collaboration


• Humanity-level Perspective


• Proficiency across the Logics


• Blending the Logics


• Moving Cooperation to Collaboration


• Search for Commonality


• Functions of Humanity-centered Diplomacies


• Bibliography

Boundary Spanners of Humanity introduces an expansive pan-human, evolutionary perspective of communication and public diplomacy that can enhance global collaboration. R.S. Zaharna reveals how contemporary communication models are based on a nineteenth-century mindset of separateness that divided people into mutually exclusive cultural and national categories. That mindset reinforces human divisions and undermines our current efforts for global collaboration. In a radical break from conventional thinking, Zaharna draws upon multiple disciplines - from ancient cosmologies to neurobiology - to introduce three communication logics that can leverage human diversity and revolutionize how we collaborate globally.