IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies (ACCS) > ACCS2020

ACCS2020

ACCS2020 | May 27-30, 2020

Held in partnership with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, this international conference encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue. 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), a think tank (the East-West Center), as well as collaborative projects with the United Nations in New York, and here, with the Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office.

With the IAFOR Research Centre, 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 ACCS2020 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice, and for the meeting of people and ideas.

The 10th Asian Conference on Cultural Studies (ACCS2020) will be held alongside The 10th Asian Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS2020).

Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, ACCS2020 was held Online via Zoom.

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Plenary Presentations


Plenary Panel Discussion
Design and Democracy
Bruce Brown, Royal College of Art, United Kingdom
Saito Nagayuki, International Professional University of Technology, Japan
Ryuji Yamazaki-Skov, Osaka University, Japan
Moderator: Joseph Haldane, IAFOR, Japan

This panel is co-organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Japan (KAS)


Plenary Panel Discussion
The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Crisis of Global Politics: A View from Asia
Jaewoo Choo, Kyunghee University, South Korea
Brendan Howe, Ewha Women’s University, South Korea
Kei Koga, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Mingjiang Li, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
June Park, National Research Foundation of Korea, South Korea
Haruko Satoh, Osaka University, Japan
Yang Xianfeng, Yonsei University, South Korea

This panel is sponsored by The Korea Foundation


Keynote Presentation
Dislocation/Invitation
Donald E. Hall, University of Rochester, USA


Plenary Panel Discussion
Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
Gerard Goggin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Mark Pegrum, The University of Western Australia, Australia
Moderator: Joseph Haldane, IAFOR, Japan

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Programme

  • Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
    Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
    Plenary Panel Discussion: Gerard Goggin, Mark Pegrum & Joseph Haldane
  • Design and Democracy
    Design and Democracy
    Featured Panel Presentation: Bruce Brown, Ryuji Yamazaki & Nagayuki Saito
  • Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
    Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
    Plenary Panel Discussion: June Park, Jaewoo Choo, Haruko Satoh, Xiangfeng Yang, Mingjiang Li, Brendan Howe & Kei Koga
  • Dislocation/Invitation
    Dislocation/Invitation
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

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Speakers

  • Bruce Brown
    Bruce Brown
    Royal College of Art, UK
  • Jaewoo Choo
    Jaewoo Choo
    Kyung Hee University, South Korea
  • Gerard Goggin
    Gerard Goggin
    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    Binghamton University, USA
  • Brendan Howe
    Brendan Howe
    Ewha Womans University, South Korea
  • Kei Koga
    Kei Koga
    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • Mingjiang Li
    Mingjiang Li
    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • June Park
    June Park
    National Research Foundation of Korea, South Korea
  • Mark Pegrum
    Mark Pegrum
    The University of Western Australia, Australia
  • Nagayuki Saito
    Nagayuki Saito
    International Professional University of Technology, Japan
  • Haruko Satoh
    Haruko Satoh
    Osaka University, Japan
  • Ryuji Yamazaki
    Ryuji Yamazaki
    Osaka University, Japan
  • Xiangfeng Yang
    Xiangfeng Yang
    Yonsei University, South Korea

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Organising Committee

  • Sue Ballyn
    Sue Ballyn
    Barcelona University, Spain
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    Binghamton University, USA
  • Baden Offord
    Baden Offord
    Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia
  • Seiko Yasumoto
    Seiko Yasumoto
    University of Sydney, Australia

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Review Committee

  • Dr Doaa Almostadi, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University For Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia
  • Professor Andreas Anestis, American College of Thessaloniki, Greece
  • Dr Alexandre Avdulov, Saint Mary's University, Canada
  • Dr Benjamin Ireland, Texas Christian University, United States
  • Professor William Kunz, University of Washington Tacoma, United States
  • Dr Chin-Pang Lei, University of Macau, Macau
  • Dr Edem Peters, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria
  • Dr Yanin Rugwongwan, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand
  • Dr Yoshihiko Yamamoto, Shizuoka University, Japan
  • Dr Byrad Yyelland, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, Qatar

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Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
Plenary Panel Discussion: Gerard Goggin, Mark Pegrum & Joseph Haldane

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a number of issues into focus relating to governance, decision-making and transparency in and between nation states, not least as these involve communication and technology. This panel will compare and contrast responses from several national contexts, and look at questions of privacy and freedoms in the context of lockdowns, and the conflicting roles of technology to both free and constrain.

Read presenter biographies
Design and Democracy
Featured Panel Presentation: Bruce Brown, Ryuji Yamazaki & Nagayuki Saito

Organized as part of ACAS/ACCS2020, in association with the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre at Osaka University, this Panel is co-organised by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Japan (KAS).

Introduction

For most people the terms “design” and “excess” are vaguely understood—so they are more powerful in the hands of people wanting to use them to influence human behavior and individual choice. This is important if we are to defend the democratic right of all citizens to exercise freedom of choice (and to give them choices to make); yet to also recognise that, in a world based on mass communications, any attempt to manage the democratic exercise of free will, on behalf of all citizens, can produce seemingly irrational results leading to social instability.

From this dilemma has emerged a paradox in which freedom of choice is both a perceived human right and an illusion of political authority. This is an issue of design. But, as has often been observed, “theories of design developed in the twentieth century have ignored these issues”. From the mid twentieth century onwards the design profession expanded in line with the mass production of consumer goods. This abundance of stuff stimulated a culture of desire that served to distract people’s attention away from the human condition and the exercise of political will.

From the late twentieth century onwards the advent of digital technologies revolutionised these earlier systems of production, distribution and consumption to create a world of individuals and tribes where the process of distraction has been further heightened through an excess of stuff and data. As observed by the American sociologist, Herbert Simon, “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”. This said, the massive changes taking place to design over the last fifty years have largely gone unnoticed. Design has moved from being “a plan to make an artifact” into a space where “to design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones”.

If we are to take seriously the claim that “the modern world lacks harmony” then designers need to understand and reclaim this territory—to believe that design has the power to influence human behaviour for better and for worse. What is at stake here is our belief in the right of all people to human dignity through democracy. In this context we may have to recognise that the wealth of excess accompanying freedom of choice is part of the human condition—but learn to manage it productively through design.

Discussion

In order to explore the intersections of design with democracy there are two (amongst many) potential themes for debate.

The Attention Economy: is a theory that the annual avalanche of data and information we now experience is like anesthetic that neutralizes our attention and subsequent ability to make informed decisions. The economic theory underpinning this is that our attention is now such a scarce commodity that is being sold to the highest bidder. It is a design problem because as our attention spans decrease and we become more exposed to a lot of conflicting stimuli, designers (of products, apps, even art, etc.) need to capture our attention and so steer us to prioritize and give attention to "the things that matter". Defining "the things that matter and are worth our attention" becomes a democratic question because these definitions in most societies are championed by the dominant groups while the marginalized groups try to forward alternative definitions to varying levels of success (be they among classes, between corporations, between governments).

Responsible Design: The new, and powerful, interactions between data, technology, privacy and security, and design raise serious questions. For example:

Read presenter biographies
Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Plenary Panel Discussion: June Park, Jaewoo Choo, Haruko Satoh, Xiangfeng Yang, Mingjiang Li, Brendan Howe & Kei Koga

The Covid-19 pandemic is now not only a global health crisis but much more. It has unleashed a cultural war in global politics, shaken the foundation of the healthy functioning of the global economy, thrown into sharp relief the fragility of the UN system when the US leadership is absent, and plunged societies all over the world into anxiety about an uncertain future. The IAFOR Research Centre at OSIPP (Osaka School of International Public Policy) has convened this special panel, as part of its “Korea and Japan in the Evolving China-US Relations” project sponsored by the Korea Foundation, to discuss the following two issues that are relevant to globally relevant Asian middle powers, Japan and Korea: (a) the impact of China-US relations on the system of global governance; (b) the claim that Asians' "authoritarian tendency” is an asset to tackling the outbreak.

Read presenter biographies
Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

IAFOR’s special theme in 2020 is “Embracing Difference”, which builds on two previous years’ themes: examinations of fear for what the future might hold (2018), followed a year later by explorations of our ability to shape alternate futures (2019). The continuing timeliness of both topics has been fuelled not only by global political trends, but also (and in ways that largely account for those trends) the fact that individuals today are being confronted incessantly with forms and intensities of “difference” as never before in human history. Unless we are wholly off the grid of media and extra-communal encounter (as we might find with self-isolating religious communities), we are confronted daily with lifestyles, belief systems, languages, and ways of being that are radically different from our own. Whether face-to-face or mediated, these continuing micro-shocks of encounters with epistemological difference can be terrifying, exhilarating, disorienting, or even erotically stimulating (if not several of those at once). Much hinges on how we decide to process such encounters, a choice for which, I argue, we bear responsibility. To the extent that we can actively choose to frame such “dislocations” as desirable “invitations”– to question the rightness of our own stances, the security of our own “truths,” and the limitations of our own knowledge – we can welcome encounters with difference as necessary for learning and growth. Too often, of course, they are processed much more narrowly as violent threats to insular selfhood, to national and cultural primacy, and to religious absolutes. We as teachers, scholars and public intellectuals have a role to play in reframing a public debate on the fundamental value of “difference”. Beyond our common and often tepid proclamation of respect for “diversity”, it is imperative that we promote and defend the inherently generative effect of the “unsettledness” that terrifies so many of our fellow citizens. Invitations to rethink our “selves”, our beliefs, and our values should be celebrated as inherently educational opportunities, rather than feared as apocalyptic threats to coherence or community.

Read presenters' biography
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.

Panel Presentation (2020) | Design and Democracy
Jaewoo Choo
Kyung Hee University, South Korea

Biography

Jaewoo Choo is Professor of Chinese foreign policy in the Department of Chinese Studies at Kyung Hee University, and Vice President of One Belt One Road Institute in Korea. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University (BA in Government) and Peking University (MA & PhD in International Relations). His research interests are Chinese foreign policy, multilateral security cooperation, US-China relations, and China-North Korea relations. Recent publications include US-China relations for Koreans: From Korean War to THAAD Conflicts (Seoul: Kyung-In Publishing House, 2017), US and China’s Strategy on the Korean Peninsula: Reading from the Facts (Seoul: Paper & Tree, 2018).

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Gerard Goggin
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Biography

Gerard Goggin is the Wee Kim Wee Chair in Communication Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Goggin is an internationally renowned scholar in communication, cultural, and media studies, whose pioneering research on the cultural and social dynamics of digital technology has been widely influential.

He has made benchmark contributions to the understanding of mobile communication, international Internets and their histories, with key books such as Cell Phone Culture (2006), Global Mobile Media (2011), Routledge Companion to Mobile Media (2014), Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories (2017) and Location Technology in International Contexts (2020). Goggin is also a world-leading researcher in the area of accessibility, digital technology, justice, and rights, especially relating to the cutting-edge area of disability. In this area, he has published a number of collaborative authored and edited books including Digital Disability (2003), Disability in Australia (2005), Disability and the Media (2015), Normality & Disability (2018), and the Routledge Companion to Disability and Media (2020).

Professor Goggin has had a longstanding engagement in communications, technology, and social policy, and was a founding board member of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). In 2018 he was the Chair of the Humanities and Creative Arts Panel of the inaugural Australian Research Council Engagement & Impact assessment.

In recognition of his contributions to the study of communication, Professor Goggin was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and a Fellow of the International Communication Association. Currently he serves as Secretary-General of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).

Panel Discussion (2022) | Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media

Previous Presentations

Panel Discussion (2020) | Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
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.

Panel Discussion (2020) | Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
Donald E. Hall
Binghamton University, USA

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Provost 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 the IAFOR Academic Governing Board.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | The Work of the University in Perilous Times

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2023) | There Is No New Normal
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation (2019) | Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
Keynote Presentation (2018) | The Cities We Fled
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Cultural Studies Today
Brendan Howe
Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Biography

Brendan Howe is Professor of International Relations and former Associate Dean and Department Chair of the Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University. South Korea. He is also currently the President of the Asian Political and International Studies Association, and an Honorary Ambassador of Public Diplomacy and advisor for the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has held visiting professorships and research fellowships at the Freie Universität Berlin, De La Salle University (Philippines), the University of Sydney, Korea National Defence University, the East-West Center (Honolulu), Georgetown University, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Educated at the University of Oxford, the University of Kent at Canterbury, Trinity College Dublin, and Georgetown University, his ongoing research agendas focus on traditional and non-traditional security in East Asia, human security, middle powers, public diplomacy, post-crisis development, comprehensive peacebuilding and conflict transformation. He has authored, co-authored, or edited more than 90 related publications including UN Governance: Peace and Human Security in Cambodia and Timor-Leste (Springer, 2020), Regional Cooperation for Peace and Development (Routledge, 2018), National Security, State Centricity, and Governance in East Asia (Springer, 2017), Peacekeeping and the Asia-Pacific (Brill, 2016), Democratic Governance in East Asia (Springer, 2015), Post-Conflict Development in East Asia (Ashgate, 2014), and The Protection and Promotion of Human Security in East Asia (Palgrave, 2013).

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Kei Koga
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Biography

Kei Koga is Assistant Professor at the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). His research focuses on IR theory, International Security, International Institutions, and East Asian security, including transformation of US-bilateral security networks and ASEAN-led institutions in the Indo-Pacific region. Previously, he was visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in 2017; a Japan-US Partnership Fellow at the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS), Tokyo, in 2012-2014; Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Studies Program, The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, in 2012-2013; a Vasey Fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS in 2009-2010; and RSIS-MacArthur visiting associate fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU in 2010.

He has published on topics that include East Asian security, US and Japanese foreign policies, the US-Japan alliance, and ASEAN. His recent publications include Reinventing Regional Security Institutions in Asia and Africa (Routledge 2017); Japan's ‘Indo-Pacific’ question: countering China or shaping a new regional order? (International Affairs, 2020); The Concept of “Hedging” Revisited: The Case of Japan's Foreign Policy Strategy in East Asia's Power Shift (International Studies Review, 2018); and ASEAN’s Evolving Institutional Strategy: Managing Great Power Politics in South China Sea Disputes (Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2018). His current book project is Managing Great Power Politics: ASEAN, Institutional Strategy, and South China Sea. He received his PhD in International Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Mingjiang Li
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Biography

Dr Li Mingjiang is an Associate Professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also the Coordinator of the China Program at RSIS. He received his PhD in Political Science from Boston University. His main research interests include China-ASEAN relations, Sino-US relations, Asia-Pacific security, and domestic sources of Chinese foreign policy. He is the author (including editor and co-editor) of 14 books. His recent books are New Dynamics in US-China Relations: Contending for the Asia Pacific (lead editor, Routledge, 2014) and Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split (Routledge, 2012). He has published papers in various peer-reviewed publications including International Affairs, Asian Politics & Policy, Asian Perspectives, the Oxford Bibliographies, Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs, Journal of Strategic Studies, Global Governance, Cold War History, Journal of Contemporary China, the Chinese Journal of International Politics, the Chinese Journal of Political Science, China: An International Journal, China Security, Harvard Asia Quarterly, Security Challenges, and others.

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
June Park
National Research Foundation of Korea, South Korea

Biography

June Park is a political economist specialising in US foreign economic policymaking on the export-oriented countries of Northeast Asia – China, Japan and South Korea. She works on trade, energy, and tech conflicts with a broader range of regional focuses not just on the United States and East Asia, but also Europe and the Middle East. She also conducts policy-oriented research on the two Koreas. Her grand theme of research is why countries fight and how, using what. She studies why countries have different policy outcomes by analysing governance structures – domestic institutions, leadership, and bureaucracies that shape the policy formation process. She is currently a Next Generation Researcher of the National Research Foundation of Korea and an Academic Book Publication Member at the National Library of Korea, now finalising her first book manuscript, Trade Wars & Currency Conflict: China, South Korea, and Japan’s Responses to U.S. Pressures.

Her second book project, Europe's Challenges & Responses: Between Faustian Bargains with China and U.S. Pressures since Brexit, also utilises the framework of institutional variance but moves the stage to Europe and broadens the scope to pressures from two great powers: China and the United States. She examines each of the policy responses from Germany, France and the UK post-Brexit to China and the United States in the trade, energy and tech policy realms in the era of geoeconomic conflict between the United States and China.

In response to the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus, she launched a standalone project entitled, “Governing a Pandemic: Beyond Massive Tracking and Data Privacy in South Korea to Counter COVID-19”. The project centres on the questions of a social contract on conditional AI-oriented surveillance, patents on health-related technology, and bureaucratic governance in governing a pandemic focusing on the South Korean case.

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Mark Pegrum
The University of Western Australia, Australia

Biography

Mark Pegrum is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at The University of Western Australia in Perth, where he is the Deputy Head of School (International), with responsibility for overseeing offshore programmes and international connections. In his courses, he specialises in digital technologies in education, with a particular focus on mobile learning. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and his teaching has been recognised through Faculty and University Excellence in Teaching Awards, as well as a 2010 national Australian Learning & Teaching Council (ALTC) Excellence in Teaching Award.

His current research focuses on mobile technologies, digital literacies, augmented reality, and mobile learning trails and games. His books include: Brave New Classrooms: Democratic Education and the Internet, co-edited with Joe Lockard, and published by Peter Lang in 2007; From Blogs to Bombs: The Future of Digital Technologies in Education, published by UWA Publishing in 2009; Digital Literacies, co-authored with Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly, and published by Pearson in 2013; and Mobile Learning: Languages, Literacies and Cultures, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014.

Mark Pegrum is currently working on a new book entitled Mobile Lenses on Learning: Languages and Literacies on the Move, due for publication by Springer in 2019. To date, some of his work has been translated into Chinese and Portuguese. Mark Pegrum is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, a member of the Editorial Boards of Interactive Technology and Smart Education, Language Learning & Technology and Technology in Language Teaching & Learning, and until recently he was a member of the Editorial Board of System. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Laureate-Cambridge Online Language Learning Research Network (OLLReN); a member of the Advisory Panels for the Digital Education Show Asia and EduTECH Asia; a member of the Programme Committee for the International Mobile Learning Festival; a member of the International Review Panel for mLearn; the Co-Convenor, with Hayo Reinders, of the AILA research network Mobile Gaming in Language Learning & Teaching; and an external reviewer for the 2018-2019 UNICEF Digital Literacy & Skills scoping project.

Mark Pegrum currently teaches in Perth and Singapore and has given presentations and run seminars on e-learning and m-learning in Australia and New Zealand, Asia and the Middle East, the UK and Europe, and North and South America.

Panel Discussion (2020) | Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
Nagayuki Saito
International Professional University of Technology, Japan

Biography

Dr Nagayuki Saito is a professor at the International Professional University of Technology in Tokyo and a special research Fellow at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. He is a former Policy Analyst of OECD, Directorate for Science, and a Technology and Industry lecturer at Ochanomizu University, Aoyama Gakuin University. His field of expertise is social informatics, behavioural economics, information and communication policy, and from the standpoint of evidence-based policy making, he is studying the use of behavioural insight for policy planning. His research theme is young people's Internet use and environment improvement policy. He has also been working on visualization of youth's Internet literacy. In the research project of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, he was engaged to develop the Internet Literacy Assessment for Students (ILAS). Representative research books include Internet Literacy in Japan, OECD Publishing.

Panel Presentation (2020) | Design and Democracy
Haruko Satoh
Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Haruko Satoh is Specially Appointed Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), where she teaches Japan’s relations with Asia and identity in international relations. She is also co-director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre and she was previously part of the MEXT Reinventing Japan project on “Peace and Human Security in Asia (PAHSA)” with six Southeast Asian and four Japanese universities.

In the past she has worked at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), Chatham House, and Gaiko Forum. Her interests are primarily in state theory, Japanese nationalism and identity politics. Recent publications include: “China in Japan’s Nation-state Identity” in James DJ Brown & Jeff Kingston (eds) Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia (Routledge, 2018); “Japan’s ‘Postmodern’ Possibility with China: A View from Kansai” in Lam Peng Er (ed), China-Japan Relations in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); “Rethinking Security in Japan: In Search of a Post-‘Postwar’ Narrative” in Jain & Lam (Eds.), Japan’s Strategic Challenges in a Changing Regional Environment (World Scientific, 2012); “Through the Looking-glass: China’s Rise as Seen from Japan”, (co-authored with Toshiya Hoshino), Journal of Asian Public Policy, 5(2), 181–198, (July 2012); “Post- 3.11 Japan: A Matter of Restoring Trust?”, ISPI Analysis No. 83 (December 2011); “Legitimacy Deficit in Japan: The Road to True Popular Sovereignty” in Kane, Loy & Patapan (Eds.), Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), “Japan: Re-engaging with China Meaningfully” in Tang, Li & Acharya (eds), Living with China: Regional States and China through Crises and Turning Points, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Professor Haruko Satoh is a member of IAFOR’s Board of Directors, as well as Chair of the Politics, Law & International Relations section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Ryuji Yamazaki
Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Ryuji Yamazaki (Yamazaki-Skov), Ph.D. is a Specially Appointed Associate Professor at Symbiotic Intelligent Systems Research Center, Institute for Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan. He received a M.A. degree in Philosophy from Chuo University, Tokyo, and a Ph.D. in Knowledge Science from Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Ishikawa, in 2004 and 2010. He has worked as a Researcher at JAIST, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Kyoto, Japan, as an Invited Researcher, member of the PENSOR project (Philosophical Enquiries into Social Robotics) at Aarhus University, Denmark, and as an Assistant Professor at School of Social Sciences, Waseda University, Japan. His current research interest is in new media studies with a focus on social robotics, phenomenology of embodiment, clinical philosophy and ethics, and robo-philosophy.

Panel Presentation (2020) | Design and Democracy
Xiangfeng Yang
Yonsei University, South Korea

Biography

Xiangfeng Yang is an associate professor at Yonsei University in South Korea. A Chinese national, he received his PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC). His research has appeared in, among others, International Affairs (2018, 2020), Journal of Contemporary China, Current History, Issues & Studies, Pacific Focus, and Chinese Journal of International Politics.

Plenary Panel Discussion (2020) | Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of global politics: A view from Asia
Sue Ballyn
Barcelona University, Spain

Biography

Sue Ballyn is the Founder and Honorary Director of the Centre for Australian and Transnational Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona, Spain, from where she graduated with a BA in 1982. Her MA thesis on the writings of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes won the Faculty prize in 1983. In 1986, she won the Faculty prize again, this time for her PhD thesis on Australian poetry, the first PhD on Australian literature in Spain.

She joined the English and German Philology Department on graduation in 1982 and has remained at the university ever since. In 1990, she founded the Australian Studies Program which was recognised as an official University of Barcelona Observatory-Studies Centre in 2000, known as CEA, Observatorio Centre d’Estudis Australians. It is the only Australian Studies Centre in Spain and one of the most active in Europe.

Over the last twenty-five years, Sue Ballyn’s research has been focused on foreign convicts transported to Australia, in particular Spanish, Portuguese, Hispanics and Sephardim, and she works closely with the Female Convicts Research Centre, Tasmania. She has published and lectured widely in the area, very often in collaboration with Professor Lucy Frost. May 25, 2018 will see the publication of a book on Adelaide de la Thoreza, a Spanish convict, written by herself and Lucy Frost.

More recently she has become involved in a project on ageing in literature DEDAL-LIT at Lleida University, Spain, which in turn formed part of a European project on ageing: SIforAge. As part of this project she is working on Human Rights and the Elderly, an area she started to research in 1992. In 2020, a book of interviews with elderly women, with the working title Stories of Experience, will be published as a result of this project. These oral stories are drawn from field work she has carried out in Barcelona.

She was recently involved in a ministry funded Project, run out of the Australian Studies Centre and headed by Dr Bill Phillips, on Postcolonial Crime Fiction (POCRIF). This last project has inevitably intertwined itself with her work on convicts and Australia. Her present work focuses on Sephardi Jews in Asian diaspora, and the construction of ageing.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Can we agree to disagree? Unreclaimable Futures

Previous Presentations

Spotlight Presentation (2017) | “(…) For those in peril on the sea”: The Important Role of Surgeons on Convict Transports
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Cultural Studies 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.

Panel Discussion (2020) | Communication, Technology and Transparency in Times of COVID
Donald E. Hall
Binghamton University, USA

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Provost 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 the IAFOR Academic Governing Board.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | The Work of the University in Perilous Times

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2023) | There Is No New Normal
Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation (2019) | Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
Keynote Presentation (2018) | The Cities We Fled
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Cultural Studies Today
Baden Offord
Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia

Biography

Baden Offord was born in Aotearoa/New Zealand of Maori and Pakeha heritage, and has lived most of his life in Australia, as well as several years in Spain, South India and Japan. Baden holds the Dr Haruhisa Handa Chair of Human Rights and is a Senior Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights and Director of the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University. His research focuses on human rights, belonging, sexuality and gender, refugee studies, critical suicide studies, critical race studies, disability, eco-cultural studies and critical pedagogy. He has held visiting positions at The University of Barcelona; Critical Studies in Education Te Kura O te Kōtuinga Akoranga Mātauranga, University of Auckland; Kinsey Institute, Indiana University and Rajghat Centre, Varanasi, India. He was the 2010-2011 Chair (Visiting Professor) of Australian Studies in the Centre for Pacific Studies and American Studies, The University of Tokyo, and is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University. His most recent critical/lyric essay is: “Beyond Our Nuclear Entanglement,” Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities, (2017), 22:3, 17-25. More recent articles include: "A case for reimagining Australia: Dialogic registers of the Other, truth-telling and a will to justice." (with Chan, Farquhar, Garbutt, Kerr, Shiosaki and Woldeyes), Coolabah 24 & 25: 199-212, 2018; and "Decolonizing Human Rights Education: Critical Pedagogy Praxis in Higher Education." (with Woldeyes) The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives 17 (1): 24-36, 2018.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | An Eco-humanising Post To The Future
Seiko Yasumoto
University of Sydney, Australia

Biography

Dr Seiko Yasumoto lectures and carries out research on Japanese and East Asian media and cultural studies at the University of Sydney. Her primary research, which she has published widely, includes Japanese government media policy and broadcasting media within the domain of popular culture. The scope includes transmission of content, textual analysis, copyright, media industries, adaptation theory, youth culture, audience analysis and trans-national media cultural flows in Japan and East Asia. She is the editor of the IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies, guest editor of the Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia special edition on Global Media 2010 and co-editor of the scholarly journal Ilha Do Desterro a Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies: Expression, Identity and Society.Vol.2006. She was the Japan and North, East Asia regional representative of the Asian Studies of Association of Australia (2009-2012), is an editorial board member of the Oriental Society of Australia, the East Asian Popular Culture Association and Journalism and Mass communication USA. She holds a prestigious Teaching Excellence Award from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney, Australia.

Previous Presentations

Spotlight Presentation (2017) | Cross-Cultural Engagement and Media Integration in Japan and East Asia