Past ECAH Conferences

The European Conference on Arts & Humanities (ECAH) brings together delegates from many different national, cultural and linguistic backgrounds to London, UK, to present new research and exchange ideas. This exceptional platform welcomes speakers and delegates for challenging debate and stimulating discussions around the latest concepts and newest approaches.

IAFOR's conferences are encouraging and nurturing environments where ideas can be shared and tested, where research synergies and collaborations can be formed, and where some of the biggest names in the field have the opportunity to interact with up-and-coming faculty members.

IAFOR’s arts and humanities conferences are organised in partnership with some of the world’s most reputable institutions, including the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (USA), Birkbeck, University of London (UK), University of Sussex (UK), Waseda University (Japan), Moscow State University (Russia), Barcelona University (Spain) and Virginia Tech (USA), and feature programmes developed by leading academics to ensure both timeliness and academic rigour.


ECAH2022

July 21–24, 2022 | University College London (UCL), Institute of Education, UK, and Online


ECAH2021

July 22–25, 2021 | Online from London, UK


ECAH2020

July 24–26, 2020 | Online from London, UK


ECAH2019

Conference Theme: "Reclaiming the Future"

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


ECAH2018

Conference Theme: "Fearful Futures"

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


ECAH2017

Conference Theme: "History, Story, Narrative"

July 11 – July 12, 2017 | The Jurys Inn Brighton Waterfront, Brighton, UK


ECAH2016

Conference Theme: “Justice”

June 29 – July 3, 2016 | The Jurys Inn Brighton Waterfront, Brighton, UK


ECAH2015

Conference Theme: “Power”

July 13–16, 2015 | Thistle Brighton, Brighton, UK

Conference Report

For our second consecutive year, the European Conference on Arts & Humanities was held alongside The European Conference Literature & Librarianship, The European Conference on Media, Communication & Film and The European Conference on Cultural Studies at Thistle Brighton, Brighton, United Kingdom From July 13 – July 16, 2015. This final conference weekend was a very successful conclusion to our third European Conference Series.

Around 165 delegates from over 35 countries gathered in Brighton, United Kingdom came together to study and analysis the different expressions of power, from serious existential questions at the personal level to complex social and even political problems at a wider level amongst the interdisciplinary approaches of Film, Media and Communications, Librarianship, Literature, the Arts and Humanities with the resultant exchanges stimulating synergies that crossed national, religious, cultural, social and artistic boundaries, a mission central to the global vision of IAFOR.

IAFOR would like to thank our Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers Dr Paul Lowe, Marcus Chidgey, Rodney F. Hill, Jon Elford, Dr Elizabeth Burrows, Professor Regenia Gagnier, and Professor Svetlana Ter-Minasova, who made the final European conference week such a positive experience for those in attendance. We would also like to thank our brilliant team of Conference Co-chairs and Program Advisors Professor Gary E. Swanson, Professor Baden Offord, Professor Donald E. Hall, Dr Myles Chilton, Dr Dickson Chiu, Dr Patrick Lo and our chair of the IAFOR International Advisory Board Professor Stuart D. B. Picken.


ECAH2014

Conference Theme: “Individual, Community & Society: Conflict, Resolution & Synergy”

July 17–20, 2014 | Thistle Brighton, Brighton, UK


ECAH2013

Conference Theme: “Connectedness, Identity and Alienation”

July 18–21, 2013 | Thistle Brighton, Brighton, UK

Conference Report

The last of IAFOR’s European Conference series saw the Inaugural European Conference on Arts and Humanities (ECAH) paired with the Inaugural European Conference on Language Learning (ECLL). The ECAH event was chaired by IAFOR IAB Chair, Professor Stuart Picken with the ECLL event chaired by Professor Steve Cornwell of Osaka Jogakuin University.

This event saw 250 people from more than 50 countries in an incredibly diverse celebration of interdisciplinary and intercultural study. The theme for the Arts and Humanities conference was “Connectedness, Identity and Alienation” and our selection of featured speakers came at this topic from a number of different angles: Aaron Sachs, Professor of History at Cornell University (USA) took delegates back a century to the end of the First World War and Modernist theories which tried to make sense of this low point in European civilization in a paper entitled, “From Trauma to Rediscovery: Lewis Mumford and the Modern Search for Connection through Time and Space”. Professor Roberto Bertoni of Trinity College Dublin took us to the present to look at questions of identity and alienation in the highly mediatized society of modern day Korea with a presentation on “The Innocent Man (착한 남자): Alienation of Characters and Audience, Acquisition of New Identity, Catharsis”. Daniela Nadj, currently a lecturer in law at the University of Westminster delivered a powerful and wide-ranging address on “The Juridicalisation of Gender-Based Violence against Women in the Current Political and Legal Moment – A Critical Feminist Observation of International Wartime Sexual Violence Jurisprudence”. The paper provided a critical feminist analysis of international wartime sexual violence jurisprudence, as it is constructed in current feminist scholarship and the surrounding debate, and elicited much debate among the international delegates.

The European Conference on Language Learning saw featured speakers from a number of different countries look at concepts of “Connectedness, Identity and Alienation” as they relate to different aspects of language, including Professors Kiyomi Chinen, Masako Douglas, and Hiroko Kataoka from California State University, Long Beach, USA, who looked at issues surrounding heritage-language education with particular relation to Japanese in California. Professor Olesya Orlova, of Kemerovo State University (Russia) looked at language in the Russian context in a paper entitled “National Stereotypes as Means of Connectedness, Identity and Alienation”. Finally, Dr Miho Inaba of Lund University (Sweden) looked at autonomous learning in the acquisition of languages, asking: “What is the Role of “language classes” in Autonomous Learning?: The Implications from Japanese Language Learners’ L2 Activities Outside the Classroom”

We would again like to extend our gratitude to the conference chairs, the featured speakers, and student volunteers from Blatchington Mill Sixth Form College for helping to staff the event, and look forward to welcoming delegates back to Brighton in 2014.