ECAH2018


"Fearful Futures"

July 9–10, 2018 | The Jurys Inn Brighton Waterfront, Brighton, UK

We have reached a moment in international history that is one of potential paradigm shift. It is a moment when a problematic, but at least blandly progressivist, pro-multiculturalist movement toward “cosmopolitanism” (as Kwame Anthony Appiah might use the term) is being threatened by a far more destructive and potentially genocidal ethno-nationalism, the ferocity of which is fuelled by economic disparity, religious intolerance and retrograde ideologies regarding gender, race and sexuality. The possible global futures we face are fearful, indeed, and in an era of information and disinformation, fake news, and hysterical polemic, are sometimes made out to be inevitable.

In this context, the arts, humanities, media and cultural studies play an important role in tracing the genealogy of the present moment, documenting it, and charting different paths forward, inviting such questions as how does culture replicate itself (or critically engage itself) in the classroom, in literature, in social media, in film, in the visual and theatrical arts, in the family, and among peer groups? How do we rise to the challenge of articulating a notion of human rights that also respects cultural difference? How do cultural representations of the environment abet or challenge the forces driving climate change? What are the roles and responsibilities of the individual activist as teacher, writer, artist, social scientist and community member? What are the responsibilities of both traditional and non-traditional media? How do we make sense of the ideologies driving hatred and intolerance, and posit different models of social engagement and organisation? Looking to the past, what do we learn about the challenges of today? 

This international and interdisciplinary conference will bring together a range of academics, independent researchers, artists and activists to explore the challenges that we face in the twenty-first century. While we have every right to fear the future, we also have agency in creating that future. Can we commit to a cosmopolitanism that celebrates difference and that challenges social inequity? On our ability to answer to that question affirmatively likely hangs our very survival.

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Programme

  • Introducing Brighton Rocks
    Introducing Brighton Rocks
    Featured Presentation & Film Screening: James Rowlins & Mark Nelson
  • Fearless Futures
    Fearless Futures
    Plenary Panel Presentation: Anne Boddington & Joseph Haldane
  • Design and Democracy
    Design and Democracy
    Keynote Presentation: Bruce Brown
  • Classic Rock in the Year of Revolt: Using the Illusion of Life to Examine the Hits of 1968
    Classic Rock in the Year of Revolt: Using the Illusion of Life to Examine the Hits of 1968
    Keynote Presentation: Thomas G. Endres
  • IAFOR Silk Road Initiative Information Session
    IAFOR Silk Road Initiative Information Session

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Speakers

  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Kingston University, UK
  • Bruce Brown
    Bruce Brown
    Royal College of Art, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Thomas G. Endres
    Thomas G. Endres
    University of Northern Colorado, USA
  • Mark Nelson
    Mark Nelson
    Photographer & Filmmaker
  • James Rowlins
    James Rowlins
    Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

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Organising Committee

The Conference Programme Committee is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Conference Programme Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Board. The Organising Committee is responsible for nominating and vetting Keynote and Featured Speakers; developing the conference programme, including special workshops, panels, targeted sessions, and so forth; event outreach and promotion; recommending and attracting future Conference Programme Committee members; working with IAFOR to select PhD students and early career academics for IAFOR-funded grants and scholarships; and overseeing the reviewing of abstracts submitted to the conference.

  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Kingston University, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • James Rowlins
    James Rowlins
    Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
  • Gary E. Swanson
    Gary E. Swanson
    University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

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Review Committee

  • Dr Anna-Marie Jansen Van Vuuren, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Professor Zohreh Mirhosseini, Islamic Azad University-Tehran North Branch, Iran
  • Dr Ibrahim Yabagi Mohammed, Jubail Industrial College, Saudi Arabia
  • Dr Esther Nyam, Plateau State University, Bokkos, Nigeria., Nigeria
  • Professor Jungman Park, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea
  • Dr Louis Regis, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago
  • Professor Santosa Soewarlan, Indonesia Institute of the Arts, Indonesia
  • Dr Zainor Izat Zainal, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

IAFOR's peer review process, which involves both reciprocal review and the use of Review Committees, is overseen by conference Organising Committee members under the guidance of the Academic Governing Board. Review Committee members are established academics who hold PhDs or other terminal degrees in their fields and who have previous peer review experience.

If you would like to apply to serve on the ECAH2019 Review Committee, please visit our application page.

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Introducing Brighton Rocks
Featured Presentation & Film Screening: James Rowlins & Mark Nelson

Brighton Rocks is a young festival with big ambition – to become the UK’s main festival for indie and underground cinema. Founding director, Dr James Rowlins, discusses Brighton Rocks’ aims and ambitions, and the pitfalls and potential of setting up a new film festival in the digital age. This is followed by a screening of Berlin: Alexanderplatz (Mark Nelson, 14 mins), “Best Short Film” of the 2018 Brighton Rocks Film Festival.


Berlin: Alexanderplatz

Berlin: Alexanderplatz is a tour de force art house film, at once mesmerising and sublime. Director Mark Nelson took inspiration from Hermann Hesse’s poem Stufen (Steps in English); the stages or steps we take in our interaction with the world. Alexanderplatz, in East Berlin, provides a filmic opportunity to present not only an interplay between Man and imposing structures weighed down by history, but also what might transcend both in Hesse’s vision – a Cosmic Spirit. This Spirit shines through in the play of families in Alexanderplatz and also people simply getting on with their lives, in defiance of terrors past and present. The Spirit's beacon of light breaks through and reconciles Man in the universe, a re-birth, a redemption.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Fearless Futures
Plenary Panel Presentation: Anne Boddington & Joseph Haldane

We have reached a moment in international history that is one of potential paradigm shift. It is a moment when a problematic, but at least blandly progressivist, pro-multiculturalist movement toward “cosmopolitanism” (as Kwame Anthony Appiah might use the term) is being threatened by a far more destructive and potentially genocidal ethno-nationalism, the ferocity of which is fuelled by economic disparity, religious intolerance and retrograde ideologies regarding gender, race and sexuality. The possible global futures we face are fearful, indeed, and in an era of information and disinformation, fake news, and hysterical polemic, are sometimes made out to be inevitable.

In this context, the arts, humanities, media and cultural studies play an important role in tracing the genealogy of the present moment, documenting it, and charting different paths forward, inviting such questions as how does culture replicate itself (or critically engage itself) in the classroom, in literature, in social media, in film, in the visual and theatrical arts, in the family, and among peer groups? How do we rise to the challenge of articulating a notion of human rights that also respects cultural difference? How do cultural representations of the environment abet or challenge the forces driving climate change? What are the roles and responsibilities of the individual activist as teacher, writer, artist, social scientist and community member? What are the responsibilities of both traditional and non-traditional media? How do we make sense of the ideologies driving hatred and intolerance, and posit different models of social engagement and organisation? Looking to the past, what do we learn about the challenges of today?

Following the morning keynotes, Joseph Haldane will invite Anne Boddington for a moderated discussion around the conference theme, drawing on the material of the earlier presentations, invite feedback from the audience, and addressing some of the key questions and challenges posed by the conference theme.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Design and Democracy
Keynote Presentation: Bruce Brown

For most people the terms “design” and “excess” are abstract concepts. In this elusive state they simply are more powerful in the hands of people wanting to influence human behaviour. This is important if we are to defend the democratic right of all citizens to exercise freedom of choice (and to give them choices to make); yet to also recognise that, in a world based on mass democracy, the exercise of free will can produce irrational results leading to social instability. From this dilemma has emerged a paradox in which freedom of choice is both a perceived human right and a necessary political illusion. This is an issue of design. But, as has often been observed, “theories of design developed in the twentieth century have ignored these issues”. From the mid twentieth century onwards the design profession expanded in line with the mass production of consumer goods. This abundance of stuff stimulated a culture of desire that served to distract people’s attention away from the human condition and the exercise of political will. From the late twentieth century onwards the advent of digital technologies revolutionised these earlier systems of production, distribution and consumption to create a world of individuals and tribes where the process of distraction has been further heightened through an excess of stuff and data. As observed by the American sociologist, Herbert Simon, “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”. This said, the massive changes taking place to design over the last fifty years have largely gone unnoticed. Design has moved from being “a plan to make an artifact” into a space where “to design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones”. If we are to take seriously the claim that “the modern world lacks harmony” then designers need to understand and reclaim this territory—to believe that design has the power to influence human behaviour for better and for worse. What is at stake here is our belief in the right of all people to human dignity through democracy. In this context we may have to recognise that the wealth of excess accompanying freedom of choice is part of the human condition—but learn to manage it productively through design.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

Classic Rock in the Year of Revolt: Using the Illusion of Life to Examine the Hits of 1968
Keynote Presentation: Thomas G. Endres

This is not the first generation facing a fearful future. Exactly fifty years ago, 1968 – nestled between the Summer of Love (’67) and Woodstock (’69) - was known as the year of revolt. “It was a year of seismic social and political change across the globe” (www.theguardian.com). From Vietnam protests and Civil Rights marches, to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, American culture was awash in struggle yet alive in activist ideology. In particular, Classic Rock of the era served as a reflection of the times, a call to action, and eventually an eternal lesson on love, angst, and protest. Using Sellnow’s Illusion of Life methodology, which examines music as rhetoric, this essay analyses the top ten hits of that year (per http://ultimateclassicrock.com/1968-songs/). The website posits, “The best songs of 1968 mostly steered clear of the hippie trappings that dominated the two surrounding years,” and includes such timeless masterpieces as Joplin’s “Piece of my Heart”, Cream’s “White Room”, Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower”, and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”. The humanistic methodology begins by identifying first the patterns found in the songs’ virtual time (music) and virtual experience (lyrics). Analysis then delves into the use of strategies such as congruity, incongruity, ambiguity, and ascription to get across meaning. From there, we critique the interpretations and impact such works had on their original generation, trace their ongoing impact over the course of five decades, and conclude with moral and pragmatic applications for today.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

IAFOR Silk Road Initiative Information Session

As an organization, IAFOR’s mission is to promote international exchange, facilitate intercultural awareness, encourage interdisciplinary discussion, and generate and share new knowledge. In 2018, we are excited to launch a major new and ambitious international, intercultural and interdisciplinary research initiative which uses the silk road trade routes as a lens through which to study some of the world’s largest historical and contemporary geopolitical trends, shifts and exchanges.

IAFOR is headquartered in Japan, and the 2018 inauguration of this project aligns with the 150th Anniversary of the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when Japan opened its doors to the trade and ideas that would precipitate its rapid modernisation and its emergence as a global power. At a time when global trends can seem unpredictable, and futures fearful, the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative gives the opportunity to revisit the question of the impact of international relations from a long-term perspective.

This ambitious initiative will encourage individuals and institutions working across the world to support and undertake research centring on the contact between countries and regions in Europe and Asia – from Gibraltar to Japan – and the maritime routes that went beyond, into the South-East Continent and the Philippines, and later out into the Pacific Islands and the United States. The IAFOR Silk Road Initiative will be concerned with all aspects of this contact, and will examine both material and intellectual traces, as well as consequences.

For more information about the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative, click here.

Anne Boddington
Kingston University, UK

Biography

Anne Boddington is Professor of Design Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business and Innovation at Kingston University in the UK and recently appointed as the Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. Professor Boddington has extensive experience of the leadership, management and evaluation of art and design education and art and design research in higher education across the UK and internationally. She is an experienced chair and has held trustee and governance roles across the creative and cultural sector including as trustee of the Design Council, an independent Governor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), an affiliate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a member of the executive of the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and a member of the advisory board of the Arts & Humanities Research Council. She has an international reputation in creative education and research and has been a partner, a collaborator, a reviewer and evaluator for a wide range of international projects and reviews across different nations in Europe, the Middle East, Southern and East Asia and North America.


Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Viral Lessons
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today
Bruce Brown
Royal College of Art, UK

Biography

Bruce Brown was educated at the Royal College of Art in London where he is currently Visiting Professor. Until 2016, Bruce was Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Professor of Design at the University of Brighton. For twenty years previously he was Dean of the university’s Faculty of Arts & Architecture. In 2018 Bruce was appointed by the University Grants Committee of the Hong Kong Specialist Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China to Chair the assessment panels for Visual Arts, Design, Creative Media in the Hong Kong Research Assessment Exercise 2020. Prior to this he was appointed by the UK Funding Councils to Chair Main Panel D in the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework. Prior to this he chaired Main Panel O in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. Bruce served as a member of the Advisory Board of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and has advised international organisations including the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation and the Qatar National Research Fund. Bruce chaired the Portuguese Government’s Fundação para a Ciência ea Tecnologia Research Grants Panel [Arts] and was one of four people invited by the Portuguese Government to conduct an international review entitled Reforming Arts and Culture Higher Education in Portugal. He has served as Trustee and Governor of organisations such as the Art’s Council for England’s South East Arts Board, the Ditchling Museum and Shenkar College of Design and Engineering, Tel Aviv. Bruce is an Editor of Design Issues Research Journal (MIT), an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Design and Democracy
Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

A Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance, Dr Haldane is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), a Visiting Professor at the School of Business at Doshisha University (Japan), and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (USA).

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

Featured Interview (2021) | Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Thomas G. Endres
University of Northern Colorado, USA

Biography

Thomas G. Endres (PhD, University of Minnesota) is head of the School of Communication at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO, USA. Teaching and research interests include rhetoric and popular culture, storytelling within cultural communities, leadership and group dynamics, and pedagogical tools such as study abroad and online learning. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in communication theory, and his favorite course to teach is a short-term summer course in Barcelona, Spain. He is author/photographer of the book Sturgis Stories: Celebrating the People of the World’s Largest Motorcycle Rally, and has published dozens of book chapters and conference proceedings on topics such as father-daughter relationships, tattoos as family identifiers, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. In 2015 he published the definitive article on Ernest Bormann’s Symbolic Convergence Theory in Wiley-Blackwell’s International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy. He has delivered over 225 conference presentations worldwide, including an appearance for TEDtalk ArenaCircle and keynote speeches at conferences in Japan, China, and Thailand (in the latter he also served as conference chair for MEDCOM 2016). Awards received include Outstanding Professor from the National Speakers Association, Administrator of the Year from the National Communication Association’s National States Advisory Council, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rocky Mountain Communication Association. He currently serves as Executive Director and editor-in-chief of the Society for the Academic Study of Social Imagery.

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Classic Rock in the Year of Revolt: Using the Illusion of Life to Examine the Hits of 1968
Mark Nelson
Photographer & Filmmaker

Mark Nelson is a photographer and filmmaker. He has made documentaries for National Geographic including Timeless Journeys India and The River Series for TVF International London. His most recent work Berlin: Alexanderplatz has been his biggest challenge with the soundtrack to the film created before shooting. His photographic works are held in private collections in New York and Paris, with recent solo shows in Berlin and his home city of Brighton, UK.

Film Screening (2018) | Berlin: Alexanderplatz
James Rowlins
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Biography

James Rowlins left his native England for Paris, France, where he studied for a BA (Hons) and MA specialising in French cinema. His passion for visual culture subsequently took him to Los Angeles, where he earned a doctorate at the University of Southern California, USA. In addition to exploring literature and film through a theoretical lens, as well as dabbling in filmmaking, his dissertation focused on the crossover between post-war American film noir and the French New Wave, arguing that the subversive manipulation of the Hollywood genre formula by the auteurs constitutes a political aesthetic. He has published articles on contemporary French fiction, film and existentialism, cinematic phenomenology and new perspectives on the New Wave. He has held teaching positions in Europe, America and Japan, and is currently a Lecturer in the Humanities and the Arts Department at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.


Previous Presentations

Featured Interview Session (2021) | Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film CALIFORNIA
Featured Presentation & Film Screening (2018) | Introducing Brighton Rocks
Anne Boddington
Kingston University, UK

Biography

Anne Boddington is Professor of Design Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business and Innovation at Kingston University in the UK and recently appointed as the Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. Professor Boddington has extensive experience of the leadership, management and evaluation of art and design education and art and design research in higher education across the UK and internationally. She is an experienced chair and has held trustee and governance roles across the creative and cultural sector including as trustee of the Design Council, an independent Governor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), an affiliate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a member of the executive of the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and a member of the advisory board of the Arts & Humanities Research Council. She has an international reputation in creative education and research and has been a partner, a collaborator, a reviewer and evaluator for a wide range of international projects and reviews across different nations in Europe, the Middle East, Southern and East Asia and North America.


Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Viral Lessons
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today
Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

A Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance, Dr Haldane is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), a Visiting Professor at the School of Business at Doshisha University (Japan), and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (USA).

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

Featured Interview (2021) | Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Donald E. Hall
University of Rochester, USA

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA. Prior to moving to Rochester, he was Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Dean Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivities and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Arts, Humanities, Media & Culture division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation (2019) | Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today
James Rowlins
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Biography

James Rowlins left his native England for Paris, France, where he studied for a BA (Hons) and MA specialising in French cinema. His passion for visual culture subsequently took him to Los Angeles, where he earned a doctorate at the University of Southern California, USA. In addition to exploring literature and film through a theoretical lens, as well as dabbling in filmmaking, his dissertation focused on the crossover between post-war American film noir and the French New Wave, arguing that the subversive manipulation of the Hollywood genre formula by the auteurs constitutes a political aesthetic. He has published articles on contemporary French fiction, film and existentialism, cinematic phenomenology and new perspectives on the New Wave. He has held teaching positions in Europe, America and Japan, and is currently a Lecturer in the Humanities and the Arts Department at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.


Previous Presentations

Featured Interview Session (2021) | Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film CALIFORNIA
Featured Presentation & Film Screening (2018) | Introducing Brighton Rocks
Gary E. Swanson
University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

Biography

Gary E. Swanson is currently the Mildred S. Hansen Endowed Chair and Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence at the University of Northern Colorado, USA. From 2005-2007 Professor Swanson was a Fulbright scholar to China and lectured at Tsinghua University and the Communication University of China. In summer 2008 he was Commentator for China Central Television International (CCTV-9) and their live coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Swanson repeated his assignment covering the London Olympics for CCTV-4 in the summer of 2012. Previously, he was professor and director of television for nine years at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he taught mostly graduate broadcast students. He has been an educator for 26 years; 20 years spent teaching at the university level. Swanson is an internationally recognized and highly acclaimed documentary producer, director, editor, photojournalist, consultant and educator. He has given keynote speeches, presented workshopsretd and lectured at embassies, conferences, festivals, and universities throughout China, South Africa, India, Papua New Guinea, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Greece, Germany, Jordan, Spain, Portugal, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Swanson has compiled a distinguished professional broadcast career spanning 13 years: From 1978 to 1991, Swanson worked for the National Broadcasting Company where he was honored with national EMMY's for producing and editing: 'The Silent Shame,' a prime-time investigative documentary; 'Military Medicine,' a two-part investigative series on NBC News; and 'Hotel Crime,' an investigative news magazine piece. Swanson was an editor for 'breaking news' and features for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, the Today Show, Sunrise, Sunday Today, NBC Overnight, A Closer Look, Monitor, and other prime time news magazines. Swanson covered 'breaking news' in 26 states and Canada for the network including trips and campaigns of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Swanson was the Fulbright distinguished lecturer and consultant in television news to the government of Portugal in 1989. In 1992, he covered the XXV Olympics in Barcelona, Spain for NBC News as field producer and cameraman. Swanson has earned more than 75 awards for broadcast excellence and photojournalism including three national EMMY's, the duPont Columbia Award, two CINE 'Golden Eagles,' 16 TELLY's, the Monte Carlo International Award, the Hamburg International Media Festival's Globe Award, the Videographer Award, The Communicator Award, the Ohio State Award, the CINDY Award, the 2011 Communitas Outstanding Professor and Educator award, the 2013 Professor of the Year award, and many others. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana with a Bachelor's degree in Education in 1974, and a Master's degree in Journalism in 1993.