IAFOR > The European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH) > ECAH2019

ECAH2019

Conference Theme: "Reclaiming the Future"

July 12–13, 2019 | The Jurys Inn Brighton Waterfront, Brighton, UK

We live in a period characterised by rises in regionalism, nationalism and authoritarianism; a time of great global uncertainty and anxiety, as well as inequality and iniquity which both reflects and drives political divide, and undermines international systems of cooperation. Clashes of identities, beliefs and ideologies are evident in academia, media and the arts, contributing to a feeling that humanity is spiralling out of control; that our relationships with each other, as well as with the earth and environment, have never been worse.

Yet, as humans, we are not conditioned by fear alone, but instead by a remarkable ingenuity, and a capacity for hope, self-reflection, activism and action. This agency to improve our own lives, and those of others, is the theme of this international conference, inviting us to consider the ways in which we contextualise and process the past, reimagining ourselves, our relationships, and our environments; driving positive change and reclaiming the future as a time we look towards with hope, and even optimism.

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Programme

  • Van Gogh’s Last Supper: Striking New Evidence
    Van Gogh’s Last Supper: Striking New Evidence
    Keynote Presentation: Jared Baxter
  • Haute Couture in Occupied Paris and Beyond, in World War Two: Issues of Nazi Cultural and Economic Control and the Diffusion and Consumption of Luxury Paris Fashion in War Time
    Haute Couture in Occupied Paris and Beyond, in World War Two: Issues of Nazi Cultural and Economic Control and the Diffusion and Consumption of Luxury Paris Fashion in War Time
    Keynote Presentation: Lou Taylor
  • The Impact of Geography and History on Moulding the National Character and Identity: A View from Russia
    The Impact of Geography and History on Moulding the National Character and Identity: A View from Russia
    Keynote Presentation: Svetlana Ter-Minasova
  • Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
    Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall
  • The Demise of Homo sapiens: Thought and Perception in the Kingdom of Technology
    The Demise of Homo sapiens: Thought and Perception in the Kingdom of Technology
    Featured Presentation: Alfonso J. García-Osuna
  • Reimagining the Future
    Reimagining the Future
    Plenary Panel: Anne Boddington, Bruce Brown, Matthew Coats & Donald E. Hall

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Speakers

  • Jared Baxter
    Jared Baxter
    Independent Researcher, USA
  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Kingston University, UK
  • Bruce Brown
    Bruce Brown
    Royal College of Art, UK
  • Matthew Coats
    Matthew Coats
    University of Brighton, UK
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • Alfonso J. García Osuna
    Alfonso J. García Osuna
    Hofstra University, USA
  • Svetlana Ter-Minasova
    Svetlana Ter-Minasova
    Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
  • Lou Taylor
    Lou Taylor
    University of Brighton, UK

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Organising Committee

The Organising Committee of The 11th European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH) is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Organising Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Advisory 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 Organising 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
  • Bruce Brown
    Bruce Brown
    Royal College of Art, UK
  • Matthew Coats
    Matthew Coats
    University of Brighton, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • Gary E. Swanson
    Gary E. Swanson
    University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

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ECAH2019 Review Committee

  • Dr Alexander Klemm, Webster University of Thailand, Thailand
  • Dr Lily Zamir, Davis Yellin College, Israel
  • Professor Majed S. Al-Lehaibi, Jazan University , Saudi Arabia
  • Professor Natacha Muriel López Gallucci, Federal Universiti of Cariri, Brazil
  • Professor Santosa Soewarlan, Indonesia Institute of The Arts, Indonesia
  • Professor Xiaofan Gong, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, China
  • Professor Zohreh Mirhosseini, Islamic Azad University-Tehran North Branch, Iran

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.

Apply to Join the Review Committee

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Van Gogh’s Last Supper: Striking New Evidence
Keynote Presentation: Jared Baxter

Having demonstrated, in academic journals and the media at-large, the likelihood that Vincent van Gogh painted a Symbolist depiction of the Last Supper, I revisit the subject, Cafe Terrace at Night (1888), by offering new evidence, a deeper understanding of the painter’s ethos and progress while he conceived it, and finally a call, a plea, to certain individuals, in the search to recover specific pieces of physical evidence.

New evidence includes: settling the case Cafe Terrace at Night should be considered Symbolist, van Gogh’s exposure to Frederick von Uhde’s depiction of the Last Supper from the 1887 Paris Salon, a robust evaluation of Paul Gauguin’s Vision After the Sermon (1888) as a response piece to Cafe Terrace, French art critic and Symbolist champion G. Albert Aurier’s original ownership and admiration of the painting, and the profound effects of two articles from the July, 1888 Revue des Deux Mondes that inspired Vincent to contrive for a brotherhood of twelve artist-monks who would forge a 'Southern Renaissance' that was distinctly Symbolist.

Read presenter biographies.

Haute Couture in Occupied Paris and Beyond, in World War Two: Issues of Nazi Cultural and Economic Control and the Diffusion and Consumption of Luxury Paris Fashion in War Time
Keynote Presentation: Lou Taylor

The themes of this conference propose discussion on ‘the ways in which we contextualise and process the past and issues inequality and iniquity and today’s rise in nationalism.’ All of these issues arise inevitably when we examine the history of Paris couture in WW2. In the midst of traumatic upheavals of World War Two, a text with such a focus - still a contentious issue - might seem perverse and my long commitment to examining this topic will be explained.

French couture fashion leading up to WW2 was an unrivalled, lucrative, international business, the jewel the crown of French culture. Once Paris was occupied from June 1940 and France divided, Otto Abbetz, the ‘German Ambassador’ in Paris, a keen Nazi, immediately activated Goebells’ Propaganda-Staffel policies for the establishment of Franco-German ‘cultural collaboration’. This was based on the premise that an active continuation of French intellectual life, re-aligned on a Nazi axis, would enhance the illusion that a ‘normal life’ was continuing in Paris -despite the deportation of Jews, the torturing of Resistants in the cellars of the Hotel de Ville, the looting of art collections and forced labour schemes. Hence the luxury high society life of the Tout Paris collaborating circles. Hence too the continuation of the work of Paris couture which can now be seen as a highly successful example of Nazi ‘cultural collaboration,’ despite the wishes of most of the couturiers. The trade could have been shut down in an instant but with their ‘ruthless sense of national and personal entitlement to own everything in their path‘ (Kershaw 1999:240) the Nazi authorities permitted its continuation.

This presentation will examine style development and making under conditions of extreme shortages, the consumers and resistors at home and in Allied and Occupied countries and the fate of Jewish fashion industry professionals in France, and all over Europe.

Read presenter biographies.

The Impact of Geography and History on Moulding the National Character and Identity: A View from Russia
Keynote Presentation: Svetlana Ter-Minasova

The fact that Geography has a considerable impact on a people's History and together they determine a people's way of life has been known since very old days: Herodotus, the famous "Father of History", stated it very clearly and convincingly in Ancient Greece in the 5th century BC. Indeed, the habitat of people determines their means of survival depending on their food supply and production, habits, traditions, national anthropological cultures, arts, etc.

Language as the main means of communication and both – a mirror and a tool of culture – reflects and at the same time moulds the national identity and the national character.

These statements are illustrated by examples from the Russian and English languages and cultures as the output of the geography and history of the nations speaking these languages.

Read presenter biographies.

Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

While the current political moment certainly invites a sense of defeatism among those of us in arts, humanities, and cultural studies—and makes a retreat into cynicism and political apathy an attractive option—the times call for a renewed sense of commitment and a much more assertive response. We on the cultural left—especially in higher education—have a base level responsibility to lead the way out of our climate of reactionary nationalism and anti-intellectualism. We are the ones best able to imagine a different future and articulate its desirability. Practitioners in the arts, humanities, and cultural studies are best positioned to provide the utopic thinking that has the power to motivate. In returning to some of the core tenets of activist-based queer theory, and melding those with the tentative and probing dialogics offered by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, we have tools to rally those who feel oppressed and defeated by current political rhetoric. A calculated, cautious, but deliberately vocal optimism serves the interests of our students, our profession, and our fellow citizens. The cultural right asks us to withdraw, to be silent, to give up hope—our best response is to do the opposite. By imagining and articulating a more egalitarian, cosmopolitan, and desirably queer future, we can direct attention to the true cynics—those who believe that top-down power will be accepted without question and that sexism/racism/homophobia can be normalized in order to divide, scare, and manipulate the masses. We—artists, writers, philosophers, and theorists—have the creativity and mental nimbleness to challenge and change the world, if we accept our responsibility as educators and re-commit ourselves to doing so.

Read presenter biographies.

The Demise of Homo sapiens: Thought and Perception in the Kingdom of Technology
Featured Presentation: Alfonso J. García-Osuna

The currency of the public discussion converging on issues such as fake news, sham testimonials, manipulation of images and political swindles signals the need for a vigorous, comprehensive debate regarding the state of our culture. Much is being said regarding this issue, with arguments aligning behind the general assumption that there is something amiss in the way in which we interact, create social capital and fashion political associations. This unease has animated this paper's attempt to isolate what circumstances might be historically specific to the current cultural malaise. Social critics, in their desire to find evidence of the fraud, duplicity and general immorality that is at the heart of our ailments, never tire of pointing to the political establishment as the foremost cause and offender. While not defending politicians under any circumstances, I will argue that the muddle and disarray that characterise current politics are incidental to a much more pernicious threat. What is commonly overlooked, especially by media analysts and observers, is the distinctive contribution of technology to the degradation of culture.

Read presenter biographies.

Reimagining the Future
Plenary Panel: Anne Boddington, Bruce Brown, Matthew Coats & Donald E. Hall

Anne Boddington, Kingston University, UK
Bruce Brown, Royal College of Art, UK
Matthew Coats, University of Brighton, UK
Donald E. Hall, University of Rochester, USA

Members of the Conference Organising Committee will discuss the conference theme of “Reimagining the Future” with reference to both the current regional and global political contexts, and taking inspiration from the morning’s speakers, set the scene for the hopes and expectations of the rest of the conference.

Read presenter biographies.

Jared Baxter
Independent Researcher, USA

Biography

Jared Baxter is an independent researcher living in Washougal, Washington, USA. Over the last six years, his research has focused on Vincent van Gogh, in particular, how Vincent's enduring embrace of Christianity manifested itself in his later life and artwork. His research has been published in the January, 2014 Art History Supplement, and the July, 2014 Anistoriton Journal of History, Archaeology and Art History. Numerous mainstream outlets have also commented on his work including The Huffington Post, ArtNet News, The Siouxland Observer, and The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown.

Mr Baxter has participated in several previous IAFOR conferences, including as a Featured Speaker at the 2015 Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities (ACAH) and as the Keynote Speaker at the 2016 European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH). He has also accepted invitations to other academic conferences, including the 2015 Dutch Association of Aesthetics and the 2016 International Conference on The Arts in Society.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Van Gogh’s Last Supper: Striking New Evidence
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
Matthew Coats
University of Brighton, UK

Biography

Matthew Coats was educated at the London College of Fashion and, until 2017, was a fabric designer at Chanel in Paris, working for Karl Lagerfeld. After spending several years working as a fashion designer for both luxury and high-street brands, he is now lecturing in Fashion at the University of Brighton, having previously lectured in Creative Direction at Birmingham City University. Alongside his work in education, he also runs his own fashion-led interior textiles business. As a designer, his work is focused on combining modern technology with traditional fabric weaving, and is executed in a vibrant, colourful style. Having also worked as an agent at one of London’s leading model agencies, Storm, Matthew is familiar with the many sides of the fashion industry. He feels passionately about the cultural significance of the industry and the continuing importance of high-quality fashion education.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
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
Alfonso J. García Osuna
Hofstra University, USA

Biography

Alfonso J. García Osuna has taught at Hofstra University in New York, United States of America, for over thirty years. He specialises in medieval and early modern literature, receiving his PhD (1989) from the Graduate School of the City University of New York. He has completed post-doctoral work at the University of Valladolid, Spain, has published six books, and is a frequent contributor to specialised journals. Alfonso received primary and secondary education in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, the place where his family originated and where he grew up. An avid cyclist, he has completed the Road to Santiago, an 867-kilometre route through northern Spain, six times.

Dr García Osuna is Editor of the IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities. He is a member of the Arts & Humanities section of IAFOR’s International Academic Advisory Board.

Featured Presentation (2019) | The Demise of Homo sapiens: Thought and Perception in the Kingdom of Technology

Previous Presentations

Spotlight Presentation (2017) | Re-Creating the Past: Fascist Comics and the Rehabilitation of History
Svetlana Ter-Minasova
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

Biography

Professor Svetlana Ter-Minasova is President of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Area Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, and Distinguished Professor in the University. She holds a Doctorate of Philology from the University, has published more than 200 books and papers on Foreign Language Teaching, Linguistics and Cultural Studies, and has lectured widely throughout the world.

She is Chair of the Russian Ministry of Education’s Foreign Language Research and Methodology Council, President and founder of both the National Association of Teachers of English in Russia, and the National Association of Applied Linguistics. She holds the Lomonosov Award, Fulbright’s 50th Anniversary Award, and was named Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Birmingham, in the UK, the State University of New York, in the USA, and the Russian-Armenian University, in Armenia. She is Yunshan Professor of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China, and Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences, in Georgia. She is also Visiting Professor at P.G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University and National Research Tomsk State University, in Russia.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | The Impact of Geography and History on Moulding the National Character and Identity: A View from Russia
Lou Taylor
University of Brighton, UK

Biography

Lou Taylor is a dress historian who has played a vital developmental role in establishing the discipline and has been with the University of Brighton for many decades. Her academic career has focused on the development of critical approaches to the discussion of the objects of clothing in their historical, material culture and museology settings, through teaching, publishing, exhibition curating and PhD supervision.

Taylor's application of material culture and consumption studies has positively transformed dress history. She is driven by the conviction that transdisciplinary approaches to the construction of history, including working with surviving garments, offers a fresh, close understanding of the cultural "eye" of a specific period or community.

She is the author of Mourning Dress: A Costume and Social History, Allen and Unwin, 1983; The Study of Dress History and Establishing Dress History, Manchester University Press, 2002 and 2004; She has co-written with Amy de la Haye and Eleanor Thompson, Fancy and Fancy Dress: The Messel Dress Collection, 1870-2005, Philip Wilson and the Museum of Brighton, 2005; and co-edited with Marie Mcloughlin, the forthcoming, Paris Fashion and World War Two: Global Diffusion and Nazi Control, Bloomsbury Press, 2019.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Haute Couture in Occupied Paris and Beyond, in World War Two: Issues of Nazi Cultural and Economic Control and the Diffusion and Consumption of Luxury Paris Fashion in War Time
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
Matthew Coats
University of Brighton, UK

Biography

Matthew Coats was educated at the London College of Fashion and, until 2017, was a fabric designer at Chanel in Paris, working for Karl Lagerfeld. After spending several years working as a fashion designer for both luxury and high-street brands, he is now lecturing in Fashion at the University of Brighton, having previously lectured in Creative Direction at Birmingham City University. Alongside his work in education, he also runs his own fashion-led interior textiles business. As a designer, his work is focused on combining modern technology with traditional fabric weaving, and is executed in a vibrant, colourful style. Having also worked as an agent at one of London’s leading model agencies, Storm, Matthew is familiar with the many sides of the fashion industry. He feels passionately about the cultural significance of the industry and the continuing importance of high-quality fashion education.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
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
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.