Above: Dr Megumi Rosenberg of the World Health Organization (WHO) engages with the audience in a “Health Across the Lifecourse” plenary panel at the Asian Conferences on the Social Sciences (ACSS2018), Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (ACSEE2018), and Aging and Gerontology (AGen2018), while Hiroshi Ishida, Professor of Sociology, in the University of Tokyo, looks on. Held in June, under the umbrella theme of "Surviving and Thriving”, Kobe is also home to the WHO Centre for Health Development, which although based in Japan, is fully part of the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva. The panel was chaired by James W. McNally, Research Scientist at the University of Michigan.
Below left: Philip Sugai of Doshisha Business School, Japan, delivers a featured presentation titled “Towards a Universal Standard of Value through Blockchain” in which he speaks of his work creating and testing a theoretical model for the application of blockchain technology to marketing practice with the aim of deepening scholarly and practical knowledge of how value is created, measured and managed for customers, firms, employees, partners, society and the planet. Below right: Lowell Sheppard, Asia Pacific Director of the HOPE International Development Agency, delivers a featured presentation on “Surviving and Thriving”, drawing on his experience working in and writing about intensely dysfunctional communities, the result of war, disaster and extreme poverty.
Bottom left: Professor William Baber of Kyoto University’s Graduate School of Management, Japan delivers a workshop presentation introducing and review some general aspects of negotiating in professional contexts. Bottom right: Kathryn M. Lavender, a project manager at the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA) at the University of Michigan engages with attendees of a featured data research workshop.
Above: The Asian Conferences on Cultural Studies (ACCS2018) and Asian Studies (ACAS2018) were held concurrently under the theme "Fearful Futures: Cultural Studies and the Question of Agency in the Twenty-First Century" at the Art Center of Kobe in May. Here Haruko Satoh chairs a plenary panel titled “Fearful Futures: Rescuing Asian Democracy”. Professor Satoh is professor at Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) where she lectures on Japan’s relations with Asia and identity in international relations, and co-director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre. The panelists from left to right are Colin Dürkop, Visiting Fellow at Kyoto University, Japan and formerly of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS); Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a leading Thai public intellectual, who is also associate professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies; and Takuma Melber, coordinator of the Master’s programme Transcultural Studies Programme at The University of Heidelberg.
Below left: Helen Gilbert, Professor of Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London, delivers a keynote on “Indigenous Resurgence and Environmental Justice on the Global Stage”. Below right: Vinay Lal is Professor of History and Asian American Studies at UCLA, and one of the world’s foremost scholars of Indian history, historiography, and culture in India. In a wide-ranging lecture on “The Challenge of the Global South”
he highlighted what he termed the challenge of Bandung, which is to try to understand whether the Global South can mount an intellectual and socio-cultural defence that would facilitate the conditions for an ecologically genuine survival of plurality. Bottom left: Poet and academic Tammy Lai-Ming Ho of Hong Kong Baptist University answers questions following her keynote on “Poetic Resistance and Empowerment”, which looked at how Western literature and culture are incorporated into the expression of a unique Hong Kong identity. Bottom right: Donald E. Hall, Dean of Lehigh University’s College of Arts and Sciences, delivers a keynote presentation titled “The Cities We Fled”, discussing the city of his birth: Birmingham, Alabama (USA), which encouraged the audiences to consider their own relationship with their own cities as sites of pleasure and pain.
Above left: Professor Diane Hawley Nagatomo of Ochanomizu University, Japan, delivers the opening Keynote Presentation at The Asian Conference on Language Learning (ACLL2018), held in Kobe, Japan. The conference theme was “Surviving and Thriving:
Education in Times of Change”, and Professor Nagatomo reflected this in her address exploring questions of gender, and personal and professional identity among Western female English Language Teachers in Japan “Surviving and Thriving in the Gendered Waters of Japan: Ten Women’s Stories”. Above right: The second Keynote Speaker was Professor Bonny Norton of the University of British Columbia, Canada, who joined the conference by video link, and also tackled questions of identity in her insightful Keynote Presentation on “Identity and Language Learning in an Unequal Digital World”.
Below left: Professor Ken Urano of Hokkai-Gakuen University, Japan, listens to questions following his Featured Presentation at ACLL2018, titled “Task-Based Language Teaching in an English for Business Purposes Program”. Below right: Professor Emerita Judy Noguchi delivers a Featured Presentation on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) entitled “A New Paradigm for English Language Teaching in Asian Contexts”. A Professor Emerita of Kobe Gakuin University, Judy Noguchi served as the first Dean of its Faculty of Global Communication. She served as Vice-President of JACET (The Japan Association of College English Teachers) from 2015 to 2017 and as President of JACET Kansai Chapter from 2010 to 2015.
Above left: Professor Umberto Ansaldo, Chair of the School of Humanities at The University of Hong Kong, delivers a wide-ranging keynote that looked at controversial questions of language preservation and conservation in “Heritage in Language?”, as part of a plenary panel on Language and Heritage. The panel explored issues surrounding the role of heritage languages in contemporary society and education, both from theoretical perspectives as well as practical solutions. Above right: Dr Lisa Lim, Head of the Department of English and at the University of Hong Kong and a noted scholar on the sociolinguistics of globalisation, delivered a keynote on
“Heritage in Language: Nurturing Collective, Socially Relevant and Transformative Research in Education”. Here she is pictured in an exchange during the moderated panel which followed both presentations.
Below left: Professor Steve Cornwell IAFOR President, also Vice-President of Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan, takes part in a Featured Panel Presentation on “Language Learning in a Time of Complexity and Change” at ACLL2018, which asked and encouraged delegates to reflect and draw on their own experiences in language learning education. Below centre: Professor Ted O’Neill of Gakushuin University, Japan, and an IAFOR Vice-President, speaks as part of the same panel on his experience helping to found a new faculty at the university. Below right: Professor Jo Mynard, Director of the Self-Access Learning Centre (SALC) at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) in Japan in a light-hearted moment engaging with a member of the audience in the same panel.
Above left: Professor Eun Kyung Min of Seoul National University, South Korea delivers a Keynote Presentation entitled “The Prospect ... towards the East”: Reorienting Eighteenth-Century British Literature”. Her research interests include Enlightenment ethics and aesthetics, the history of literary canon formation, and early modern cultural history; she is also interested in Asian literature in English, Asian American Literature, and Asian cultural production in general. Her keynote was delivered as a part of The Asian Conference of Arts and Humanities (ACAH2018), where the conference theme was "Recentering: Asian Spaces, Cultures and Ideas in the 21st Century". Above centre: Professor Li Ou of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong responds to a question following her Keynote Presentation entitled “British Romanticism in China: Received, Revised, and Resurrected”. Li Ou is Associate Professor at Department of English, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Ou’s research interests include Romantic poetry and cultural/literary relations between China and Britain. Above right: Professor Georges Depeyrot of the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, and Director of the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative, introduces the scope of the programme to delegates at ACAH2018. Professor Depeyrot is a monetary historian and Board Member of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France. He is the author or co-author of more than one hundred volumes, and is the founding director of the Moneta publishing house, the most important collection of books on the topic of money. Professor Depeyrot is a member of the board of trustees of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique.
Below left: Dr Yutaka Mino of the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan delivers a Keynote Presentation on The Ceramic Road as part of the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative at ACAH2018. Dr Mino is the Director of the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, where the conference plenary session was held, and one of Japan’s leading museum curators, as well as a Chinese ceramic and art historian of international renown. Below right: Dr Shoso Shimbo is a leading exponent of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Dr Shimbo was selected by Belle magazine as one of six “Australia’s top floral designers” and has won multiple awards including the Gold Award at the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show. He is a director of the International Society of Ikebana Studies and he teaches “Japanese Aesthetics: From Ikebana to Contemporary Art” at RMIT. Here he is seen with his beautiful creation, following a demonstration at the ACAH Welcome Reception.
Above: The 2018 ACAH Conference in Kobe hosted a series of IAFOR Silk Road Initiative associated presentations on the conference theme of "Recentering: Asian Spaces, Cultures and Ideas in the 21st Century", using this as the lense through which researchers associated with the Initiative discussed a range of topics, covering art and culture, as well as history, politics, and international relations, and a special symposium was organised with the cooperatIon of Kobe University and the Nara National Museum, both of which organisations IAFOR will work on a planned Silk Road Conference in 2019. Pictured here after the presentations (from left to right) are Dr Sakae Naito, Chief Curator of the Nara National Museum and expert on Buddhist art; Kiyomitsu Yui, Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Centre for EU Academic Collaboration at Kobe University; Professor Hiroko Masumoto, Dean of the Graduate School of Humanities of Kobe University; Professor Noriyuki Inoue, Vice-President of Kobe University, and Professor Georges Depeyrot, Director of the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative. For more information about the IAFOR Silk Road Initiative, please visit www.silkroad.iafor.org.
Below left: Professor Ka-ho Joshua Mok listens to a response to his Keynote Presentation on “The Quest for World-class University Status: The Role of Liberal Arts University Nurturing Leaders for Uncertain Futures”. Professor Mok is the Vice-President and concurrently Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and one of the world’s leading scholars in international higher education research. His recent published works have focused on comparative social development and social policy responses in the Greater China region and East Asia. He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Public Policy (London:
Routledge) and Asian Education and Development Studies (Emerald) as well as a Book Series Editor for Routledge and Springer. Below middle: Dr Xu Di of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA discusses issues of education and ethics as part of a plenary panel entitled
“The Challenge to Survive and Thrive in the 21st Global Learning Space/Community: Technology and Ethics”. Xu Di is an educational philosopher and professor in the department of Education Foundations, at the College of Education in the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa whose research focuses on bridging Eastern and Western philosophy for educational practices. Below right: Professor Curtis Ho delivers a presentation as part of the same panel. Professor Ho is Department Chair and Graduate Chair of the Learning Design and Technology department at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, who is a noted expert in educational media research, interactive multimedia, web-based instruction, distance education, video technology, and computer-based education.
Above left: Professor Dexter Da Silva, Professor of Educational Psychology at Keisen University in Tokyo, delivers a presentation as part of the Featured Panel entitled “Psychological Literacy: The Most Important Literacy for the 21st Century”, at the jointly held Asian Conference on Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences, and the Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy in Kobe.
Dr Da Silva He has taught EFL at junior high school, language schools and universities in Sydney, Australia, and for more than two decades has been living and teaching at the tertiary level in Japan. Above right: Professor Ronald Mellado Miller of Brigham Young University, Hawaii, fields questions during the same panel. An academic psychologist, Dr Miller’s main interests are in the areas of applied statistical analysis and predictive modelling. He has led research in Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa, working with governments and NGOs to improve educational and other social outcomes.
Below left: Dr James W. McNally of the University of Michigan, USA and the NACDA Program on Aging, in a lighter moment during his Featured Presentation on a serious topic; “Patterns of Depression Among Elderly Asian Immigrants to the United States Over the Past Decade”. Dr McNally is the Director of the NACDA Program on Aging, a data archive containing over 1,500 studies related to health and the aging lifecourse. He has worked extensively on issues related to international aging and changing perspectives on the role of family support in the later stages of the aging lifecourse. A Vice-President of IAFOR, he is the Chair of the Social Sciences
& Sustainability division of the International Academic Advisory Board. Below right: Professor Frank S. Ravitch of Michigan State University College of Law, USA, is a constitutional lawyer with an international reputation who works across the fields of ethics, religion and law. He has authored several books, including Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America (Cambridge University Press, 2016); Marketing Creation: The Law and Intelligent Design (Cambridge University Press 2012), and Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses (NYU Press 2007), as well as amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court. Here he delivers a wide-ranging, timely and powerful Keynote Presentation entitled “Law, Religion and Authoritarianism: From State Shinto to Religio-Trumpism”, in which he draws some uncomfortable parallels between the present political situation in the USA with darker moments in Japan’s past.
Dubai’s Festival City again hosted The IAFOR International Conferences on Education and Language Learning (IICEDubai and IICLLDubai), and attracted delegates from across the region as well as further afield as research and presentations focussed on the conference theme of Surviving and Thriving: Education in Times of Change. Both research focussed and more practical presentations and workshops were organised over the three days of the conference, and included presentations by representatives of the UAE Ministry of Education.
Above left: Dr Christine Coombe of Dubai Men's College, UAE, responds to questions following her Keynote Address entitled Classroom Management: Empirical and Practical Perspectives. Dr Coombe is a widely published academic, a past president of TESOL International and sits on the IAFOR International Academic Advisory Board. Above right: Dr Deena Boraie delivers a Keynote Address, “Exploring English Language Education in the MENA Region Now and in the Future”, in which she drew on her experiences in Egypt. Dr Boraie is dean and professor of practice at the School of Continuing Education at The American University in Cairo.
Below left: Dr Martin Spraggon of the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government expands on the local context, giving an overview of educational policy, in his Featured Presentation on “Key Trends, Challenges and Opportunities in the Field of Higher Education in the UAE”.Below right: Dr Sufian Abu-Rmaileh of the UAE University listens to delegates giving feedback after his engaging presentation entitled “Using Critical Thinking Techniques in the Classroom”. Dr Abu-Rmaileh is a past president of TESOL Arabia.
Bottom left: Professor Mustafa Hashim Taha of the American University of Sharjah, UAE, examined entertainment education with an emphasis on the role of theatre in promoting political reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa in his thought-provoking and wide ranging Keynote Presentation. Bottom right: Dr Virginia Bodolica of the American University of Sharjah, UAE delivers a Featured Presentation that addressed the wider conference theme of Surviving and Thriving in Times of Change with her featured address on
“In the Era of Disruptive Transformations: Embracing the Imperative of Dynamic Adaptation to the Evolving World of Work”.
Some 250 scholars and educators from more than 40 countries came together for the IAFOR International Conferences on Education (IICEHawaii2018), and Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (IICSEEHawaii2018) at the Hawaii International Convention Center in Honolulu, Hawaii for an event held in partnership with the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and with the support of the East West Center, Brigham Young University, and the World Bank.
Above left: Dr Joseph Haldane, Chairman and CEO of IAFOR chaired a plenary panel entitled “Educational Policy: Does the Democratisation of Education in Educational Systems Fuel Economic and Social Inequality?”. Above right: Professor Xu Di and David P. Ericson, both renowned educational philosophers based at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, delivered addresses first, giving both the local context and then drawing on examples from other countries, before Dr Haldane then opened the floor to questions and then a more general discussion of the topic.
Below left: Dr Xiaoyan Liang is a Lead Education Specialist in the World Bank, with a focus on educational development in Africa and East Asia. Her wide ranging keynote, “Education in a Changing World: New Partnership and Changing Paradigm for Education Development”, was sponsored by the World Bank. Below right: Dr Andy Curtis of Anaheim University, USA, a language educator with an international reputation, and past president of TESOL International, delivered a funny but stinging keynote entitled “‘Ignorance is Bliss’: The New Anti-Education Movement”, that looked at educators navigating a world in which political leaders often boast of their ignorance, rather than education.
Above left: Dr Failautusi ‘Tusi’ Avegalio is the director of the Pacific Business Center Program and the executive director of the Honolulu Minority Business Enterprise Center at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa’s Shidler College of Business. Descended from a long line of Samoan chiefs, Dr Tusi was raised in the coastal village of Leone in American Samoa before receiving university education in the United States, and becoming a professor. Here he delivers a keynote address that looks at the importance of respecting indigenous knowledge and wisdom in the context of modern educational systems. Above centre: Dr Sela V. Panapasa of the University of Michigan, USA, addresses the
“Surviving and Thriving in Times of Change” theme of the conference in her excellent keynote address entitled, “Anticipating Educational Needs That Ensure a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Workforce for a Changing U.S. Population”. Dr Panapasa is a sociologist who was born in Fiji, and who has worked extensively throughout the Pacific Islands. Above right: Dr Sheri-Ann Daniels is the executive director of Papa Ola Lōkahi, the Native Hawaiian health board, and chair of Nā Limahana o Lonopūhā, the Native Hawaiian Health Consortium. Here she delivers a keynote presentation entitled “Native Hawaiian Health: Opportunities to Develop A Healthy Leadership and Workforce”.
“Surviving and Thriving in Times of Change” theme of the conference in her excellent keynote address entitled, “Anticipating Educational Needs That Ensure a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Workforce for a Changing U.S. Population”. Dr Panapasa is a sociologist who was born in Fiji, and who has worked extensively throughout the Pacific Islands. Above right: Dr Sheri-Ann Daniels is the executive director of Papa Ola Lōkahi, the Native Hawaiian health board, and chair of Nā Limahana o Lonopūhā, the Native Hawaiian Health Consortium. Here she delivers a keynote presentation entitled “Native Hawaiian Health: Opportunities to Develop A Healthy Leadership and Workforce”.