IAFOR > The European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH) > ECAH2021

ECAH2021

ECAH2021

Held online from UCL, Institute of Education, UK | July 22–25, 2021

Click to download as a PDF
Subscribe to Mailing List

Back to Top

Programme

  • Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?
    Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?
    Panel Presentation: Anne Boddington & Donald Hall
  • Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film “CALIFORNIA”
    Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film “CALIFORNIA”
    Featured Interview: Tracy Mathewson & James Rowlins
  • Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class
    Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class
    Featured Interview: Geoffrey Beattie

Back to Top

Speakers

  • Geoffrey Beattie
    Geoffrey Beattie
    Edge Hill University, United Kingdom
  • 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
  • Tracy Mathewson
    Tracy Mathewson
    Writer & Director, UK
  • James Rowlins
    James Rowlins
    Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Back to Top

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
  • 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
  • James Rowlins
    James Rowlins
    Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
  • Gary E. Swanson
    Gary E. Swanson
    University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

Back to Top

ECAH2021 Review Committee

  • Dr Tomas Chochole, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic
  • Professor Xiaofan Gong, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, China
  • Dr Ji-Eun Kim, Yonsei University, South Korea
  • Dr Zainor Izat Zainal, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
  • Dr Jytee Holmqvist, HBU-UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) School of Media, Communication & Creative Industries, United Kingdom
  • Professor Rebecca Lind, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
  • Professor Xenia Negrea, University of Craiova, Romania
  • Dr Hsin-Pey Peng, Zhaoqing University, China
  • Dr Kriti Singh, Sharda University, India

Back to Top

IAFOR Academic Grant & Scholarship Recipients

Our warmest congratulations go to Liudmila Zaichenko who has been selected by the conference Organising Committee to receive an IAFOR scholarship to present her research at ECAH/EuroMedia2021.

Liudmila Zaichenko | IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

Liudmila Zaichenko is currently a PhD student at Tallinn University, Estonia. She obtained her Master Degree from the Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg and her Specialist Degree in Journalism, St. Petersburg State University (Russia). Before coming to academic research Liudmila had been engaged in all kinds of research and marketing projects in various fields, including higher education and real estate. She previously held analytic and management positions in the international companies in mentioned fields. Since 2019 Liudmila has been working as a contract researcher for the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation project. At the moment she is jointly sharing responsibilities as a senior lecturer at the Higher School of Economics, St.Petersburg campus and a PhD researcher at Tallinn University, Estonia.

Cultural-cognitive Institutional Level Shaping the Agency of Minority Teachers in Post-soviet Estonia
Liudmila Zaichenko, Tallinn University, Estonia

In this study, I report on how professional agency of minority schools teachers in Estonia can be constrained by certain institutional barriers, including barriers which occur on a cultural-cognitive level and may be grounded in dispositions and beliefs of the society. This is significant because minority teachers in many countries may face dramatic obstacles in the course of building their ‘integration projects’ inside the host nation-state. The case of post-soviet Estonia may evidence how these teachers' professional agency as a potential tool for transformation and integration may be ‘mediated ideationally’ and constrained by the path-dependent institutional mechanisms, which don't provide for the transformative dimension of agency to occur. I believe that this study is appropriate for the chosen stream because it addresses the problems of integration and inequalities inside the national education context. The case of Estonia seems to be of a particular interest as this country has shown outstanding progress in development and integration in the European space during the recent 30 years, however it still is distinct in its highest segregation in all societal domains. Education system is one of the examples of this institutional disequilibrium. I dare to hope the readership of the journal may find valuable insights from this qualitative study about the path-dependency of institutional cultural-cognitive levels, which shape agentic orientations of ethnic minorities.

IAFOR's grants and scholarships programme provides financial support to PhD students and early career academics, with the aim of helping them pursue research excellence and achieve their academic goals through interdisciplinary study and interaction. Awards are based on the appropriateness of the educational opportunity in relation to the applicant's field of study, financial need, and contributions to their community and to IAFOR's mission of interdisciplinarity. Scholarships are awarded based on availability of funds from IAFOR and vary with each conference.

Click here to learn more about IAFOR grants and scholarships.

Back to Top

Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?
Panel Presentation: Anne Boddington & Donald Hall

While societies have always shifted and morphed, the coronavirus pandemic has seen institutions forced into change and great speed, creating both destructive chaos, as well as disruptive innovation. Within the higher education sector, these changes have raised huge existential and philosophical challenges for individual universities, as their role and existence has been questioned as never before. In this discussion, two senior leaders in UK and US Higher Education, Anne Boddington and Donald Hall, will discuss the challenges and opportunities brought about by the COVID crisis, and also the role of the arts and humanities, which have been further marginalized in many institutions.

Read presenter biographies
Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film “CALIFORNIA”
Featured Interview: Tracy Mathewson & James Rowlins

Discussion of issues relating to transnational drama, female agency, millennial fiction, and what makes for a perfect short film.
Questions by Dr James Rowlins.

Tracy Mathewson is an award-winning writer/director originally from California, now living in London. Her PhD in Film by Creative Practice, “Post-Truth Justice, and the Feminine Way” is presently under consideration with the University of York.

CALIFORNIA (2021 – Drama, 13 min)

Awarded Best Made in LA Short and Best Actress from Los Angeles Rocks Film Festival and Exceptional Merit from WRPN Women’s International Film Festival. Calli, a young woman trying to make it in LA, wants to have a relationship with her father back in England but has to come to terms with the phone call that changed everything for her. It’s a story about family, responsibility, and how Love is not turning your back on someone even when they’ve failed you.

Read presenter biographies
Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class
Featured Interview: Geoffrey Beattie

Geoff Beattie has come a long way from his humble beginnings in Belfast, as this stellar student became one of the world’s foremost experts on non-verbal communication following his studies at Birmingham and Cambridge Universities. Throughout his career, he has balanced being both an academic of international renown with parallel explorations into reportage, social commentary and journalism, and even found the time to write works of nonfiction. He is perhaps most well known from his burgeoning career as a populariser and interpreter of psychology on numerous television programmes, including his most high profile position: being the resident psychologist on the UK version of the worldwide sensation, Big Brother.

In this interview, Professor Beattie speaks to IAFOR Chairman and CEO, Joseph Haldane about his life and work, and his recently published autobiography, Selfless, and the intellectual, physical and moral journeys Beattie has undertaken throughout his life.

Read presenter's biography
Geoffrey Beattie
Edge Hill University, United Kingdom

Biography

Geoffrey Beattie is Professor of Psychology at Edge Hill University, UK. Previously, he was Professor of Psychology at the University of Manchester, UK, as well as a Professorial Research Fellow at the university’s Sustainable Consumption Institute. He has also been Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He received his PhD from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK, and is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has also been President of the Psychology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published over 100 articles in academic journals, including Nature and Nature Climate Change and was awarded the Spearman Medal by the BPS for “published psychological research of outstanding merit”, and the Mouton d’Or for the best research paper in semiotics.

He is the author of twenty six books with various Chinese, Taiwanese, Brazilian, Italian, Finnish and German editions. We Are the People: Journeys Through the Heart of Protestant Ulster (Heinemann) and The Corner Boys (Victor Gollancz) were both shortlisted for the Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize; On the Ropes: Boxing as a Way of Life (Victor Gollancz) was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year; Trophy Hunting: A Psychological Perspective (Routledge) was shortlisted for a Taylor & Francis Outstanding Book and Digital Product Award in the Outstanding Professional Category in 2019.

He has presented a number of television programmes in the UK on BBC1’s Life’s Too Short and Family SOS’, Channel 4’s Dump Your Mates in Four Days, and UKTV’s The Farm of Fussy Eaters. He was also the resident on-screen psychologist for Big Brother for eleven series on Channel 4 in the UK specialising in body language and social behaviour. His latest book Selfless: A Psychologist’s Journey through Identity and Social Class (Routledge) was reviewed by Professor Marcel Danesi from the University of Toronto, Canada who wrote: “What is the Self? How is it related to consciousness? This dilemma has entertained some of the greatest minds of human history. This book contributes in a significant way to that history, written by one of today’s great thinkers, Geoffrey Beattie. In this unique book, Beattie brings us into his own world of Self-construction. We thus come away understanding what psychology should really be....It is required reading by anyone interested in understanding what consciousness is and how it emerges throughout the life cycle.”

Featured Interview (2021) | Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class
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
Tracy Mathewson
Writer & Director, UK

Biography

Tracy Mathewson is an award-winning writer/director originally from California, now living in London. Her doctoral thesis in Film by Creative Practice, “Post-Truth, Justice, and the Feminine Way” examines the evolution of justice and female agency in American conspiracy film and is presently under consideration with the University of York. Her research has been published in print for Film International and her series of visual essays entitled “Weapons of Mass Disruption” is now available online. Tracy’s 2016 short film “Appellation” won Best Direction at Berlin Sci-Fi Film Festival and was nominated for the Directing Award at BAFTA-recognised Underwire. Her most recent short, “California” was shot in July of 2020 and has so far been awarded best “Made in LA Short" and “Best Actress” from Los Angeles Rocks Film Festival and “Exceptional Merit” from WRPN Women’s International Festival. Website: www.tracym.com

Featured Interview Session (2021) | Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film CALIFORNIA
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
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
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.