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

ECAH2021 Overview

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Join us in London (and online) for ECAH2021!

UCL, Institute of Education | July 22–25, 2021

Held in partnership with University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, this international conference encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue, by bringing together university scholars working in the UK, Europe, and beyond to share ideas and research. This event will afford an exceptional opportunity for renewing old acquaintances, making new contacts, networking, and facilitating partnerships across national and disciplinary borders.

Since its founding in 2009, IAFOR has brought people and ideas together in a variety of events and platforms to promote and celebrate interdisciplinary study, and underline its importance. Over the past year we have engaged in many cross-sectoral projects, including those with universities (the University of Barcelona, Hofstra University, UCL, University of Belgrade and Moscow State University), think tanks (the East-West Center), as well as collaborative projects with the United Nations in New York, and the Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office, and right here in London with University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, for this conference!

With the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, we have engaged in a number of interdisciplinary initiatives we believe will have an important impact on domestic and international public policy conversations. It is through conferences like these that we expand our network and partners, and we have no doubt that ECAH2021 and MediAsia2021 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice, for the meeting of people and ideas. We expect the resultant professional and personal collaborations to endure for many years, and we look forward to seeing you in London!

ECAH2021 will be held alongside The 9th European Conference on Media, Communication & Film (EuroMedia2021). Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other.

In conjunction with our Global Partners, including University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, we look forward to meeting you in London for ECAH2021.

– The ECAH2021 Organising Committee

Anne Boddington, Kingston University, UK
Bruce Brown, Royal College of Art, UK
Matthew Coats, University of Brighton, UK
Joseph Haldane, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Donald E. Hall, University of Rochester, USA
Gary E. Swanson, University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

Key Information
  • Venue & Location: UCL, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way (and online)
  • Dates: Thursday, July 22, 2021 ​to Sunday, July 25, 2021
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: March 05, 2021*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: May 07, 2021
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: June 11, 2021

*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.

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Programme

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    Speakers

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      Organising Committee

      The Organising Committee of The 9th 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
      • 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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      ECAH2021 Review Committee

      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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      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.

      Keynote Presentation (2020) | Viral Lessons

      Previous Presentations

      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.

      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.

      Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation

      Previous Presentations

      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 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.

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