IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS) > ACAS2022

ACAS2022

ACAS is organised by IAFOR in association with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) in Osaka University, Japan.

ACAS2022

June 06-09, 2022 | Held online from Tokyo, Japan

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Programme

  • The Agony of Limbo and the Imprisonment of the Innocent: Tales from the Frontline, The Ongoing Saga of Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’
    The Agony of Limbo and the Imprisonment of the Innocent: Tales from the Frontline, The Ongoing Saga of Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’
    Keynote Presentation: Arnold Zable
  • Narratives of Fear, Scarcity, and Resistance: Eco-Anxieties and the End of the World in Contemporary Horror Film and Media
    Narratives of Fear, Scarcity, and Resistance: Eco-Anxieties and the End of the World in Contemporary Horror Film and Media
    Keynote Presentation: Lorna Piatti-Farnell
  • Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
    Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
    Panel Presentation: Earvin Charles Cabalquinto, Gerard Goggin, Laavanya Kathiravelu & Koen Leurs
  • Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
    Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
    Panel Presentation: Umberto Ansaldo, Pilar Kasat, Seini F Taumoepeau & Marcelle Townsend-Cross

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Speakers

  • Muhammad Noor
    Muhammad Noor
    The Rohingya Project
  • Earvin Charles Cabalquinto
    Earvin Charles Cabalquinto
    Deakin University, Australia
  • Koen Leurs
    Koen Leurs
    Utrecht University, Netherlands
  • Laavanya Kathiravelu
    Laavanya Kathiravelu
    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • Marcelle Townsend-Cross
    Marcelle Townsend-Cross
    University of Sydney, Australia
  • Seini F Taumoepeau
    Seini F Taumoepeau
    Artist, Performer, Activist & Radio Presenter
  • Pilar Kasat
    Pilar Kasat
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Arnold Zable
    Arnold Zable
    Writer, Australia
  • Lorna Piatti-Farnell
    Lorna Piatti-Farnell
    Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
  • Umberto Ansaldo
    Umberto Ansaldo
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Gerard Goggin
    Gerard Goggin
    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

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Organising Committee

  • Baden Offord
    Baden Offord
    Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia
  • Lorna Piatti-Farnell
    Lorna Piatti-Farnell
    Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
  • Yasue Arimitsu
    Yasue Arimitsu
    Doshisha University, Japan
  • Darlene Machell Espena
    Darlene Machell Espena
    Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore
  • Umberto Ansaldo
    Umberto Ansaldo
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Gerard Goggin
    Gerard Goggin
    Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • Keiko Bang
    Keiko Bang
    Bang Singapore Pte Ltd
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, United States
  • Sue Ballyn
    Sue Ballyn
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Seiko Yasumoto
    Seiko Yasumoto
    University of Sydney, Australia

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ACAS2022 Review Committee

  • Professor Sara Abdoh, Faculty of Applied Arts, Benha University, Egypt
  • Dr Allan Basas, University of Santo Tomas, Philippines
  • Dr Yanjun Cai, Sun Yat-sen University, China
  • Professor Naumana Kiran, University of the Punjab, Pakistan
  • Dr Chai Lee Lim, Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China
  • Dr Ogbonna Onyeisi, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria
  • Dr Zhaoxun Song, the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • Dr Zi Yan, Waseda University, Japan
  • Dr Yuki Yokohama, Kanto Gakuin University, Japan

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Conference Outline

Tuesday, June 7Wednesday, June 8Thursday, June 9Virtual Presentations

10:45-11:00: Announcements, Recognition of IAFOR Scholarship Winners, & Welcome Address
Joseph Haldane, IAFOR, Japan

11:00-12:00: Panel Discussion
Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
Pilar Kasat, Curtin University, Australia
Seini F Taumoepeau, Artist, Performer, Activist & Radio Presenter, Australia
Marcelle Townsend-Cross, University of Sydney, Australia
Umberto Ansaldo, Curtin University, Australia (Moderator)

12:00-12:10: Break

12:10-12:55: Keynote Presentation
Narratives of Fear, Scarcity, and Resistance: Eco-Anxieties and the End of the World in Contemporary Horror Film and Media
Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

12:55-13:05: Break

13:05-14:05: Panel Discussion
Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
Earvin Charles Cabalquinto, Deakin University, Australia
Laavanya Kathiravelu, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Koen Leurs, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Muhammad Noor, The Rohingya Project

10:00-11:40: Live-Stream Presentation Session 1
Room A: Symposium – Transcending the Cold War Paradigm: Revisiting the Economic Diplomacy in Late 20th Century Asia
63640 | Entrepreneurs, Cadets, and Compradors: The Making of Beijing’s Regional Trading Network in Southeast Asia, 1950-1959
63662 | Japan’s Development Assistance to Southeast Asia: Focusing on the Agricultural Development Fund 1965-1968
63671 | The Gulf Crisis and War: Japanese’s Threat Perception of Being Involved in a War
63653 | Trading with the Enemy: The COCOM and the U.S. Computer Export to China, 1977-1980

Room B: South-East Asian Studies
63873 | Tabuan: Its Resilience in the Context of Marginalized Sectors
63829 | COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Decision-making Factors in Vietnam: A Qualitative Research
63859 | An Indonesian Model? Civil Society and Refugee Protection in Indonesia
62628 | Inclusivity and Equity for Whom? Sustainable Development Goal 4’s Enactment for Ethnic Minorities in Laos

11:40-11:50: Break

11:50-13:30: Live-Stream Presentation Session 2
Room A: Education
63795 | Management Strategies of Universities on the Utilization of Sports Facilities: A Multiple Case Study
62197 | Mapping the Musical Resources in Ilocano Language into the Grade 1 Curriculum for Ilokano Schools
63774 | Student Mobility in Internationalization Initiatives of Selected HEIs: Experiences
63664 | Thoughts on Social Responsibility Teaching and Learning in the Context of Middle Eastern University

Room B: Politics & International Relations
63608 | Japan’s and South Korea’s Democracy Promotion: Asian Responses to the February Coup in Myanmar
62528 | Founding Father or Traitor to the Nation? Contested Memories of Syngman Rhee in Mid-1990s South Korea
63875 | Beyond Reclaiming Space: Resilience to Ethnic Recentering in South Korea
63879 | Thailand as Another Stage of Modern Sino-Japanese Relations

13:30-13:40: Break

13:40-14:25: Keynote Presentation
The Agony of Limbo and the Imprisonment of the Innocent: Tales from the Frontline, The Ongoing Saga of Australia’s 'Pacific Solution'
Arnold Zable, Writer, Australia

16:00-17:40: Live-Stream Presentation Session 1
Room A: Interdisciplinary Asian Studies
63256 | From Strangers to Participants: Hui Intellectuals’ Involvement With the Transnational Muslim Network in the Early Twentieth Century
64123 | Indigenizing Order and Agency: A Southeast Asian Perspective on the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ and the Rising China
62843 | Thomas Cook & Son, Burma and Colonialism, 1886-1948
63826 | Power and COVID-19: How the Pandemic Benefitted India’s Position in Kashmir

Room B: Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies
62746 | Chinese Language Teacher Identity Development Through Rapid Digitalization of Language Preparatory Courses
63820 | Narrating Modern Chinese Women’s Lives
62596 | In a Search to Belong: “The Lived Experience of Being a Refugee”
61776 | More than a Costume: Hanfu Fever and the Discourses on Chinese Cultural Nationalism and Identity

17:40-17:50: Break

17:50-19:05: Live-Stream Presentation Session 2
Room A: Chinese Studies
62846 | The Piano in a Chinese New Zealand Diaspora Setting: Musical Biography and Cultural Identity
62744 | Between Law and Justice: Self-defense Principle in Late Qing China Penal Cases
62838 | Exploring How Academic Performance Influences Female’s Choice of STEM Field in China: A Mediating Effect at Psychological and Cultural Levels

Room B: Cultural & Areas Studies
63878 | Challenges and Opportunities: Musicals in China in the Era of Covid-19 Pandemic
63884 | Transitional Community under COVID-19: University as the Actor of Regional Revitalization
63128 | Creating Brand Identity in Museums: The Troy Museum

19:05-19:15: Break

19:15-20:55: Live-Stream Presentation Session 3
Room A: Japanese Studies
61906 | Persevering With Intercultural Performing Arts During a Pandemic: Semiotic Clusters and an Online Noh Performance
62842 | Traditional Folk Textile Dyeing in Japan: Diversity and Continuity of the Craftspeople’s Ateliers (kōbō)
62638 | National Trauma and Resilience in the Works of Murakami Haruki

Room B: Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies
63630 | Fantazied Romanticity: Rethinking the Roles of Curtained Motel in Thai Contemporary Culture
62854 | Understanding Wabi and Sabi in the Context of Japanese Aesthetics
63822 | A Study of Subject’s Plight in David Henry Hwang’s M.Butterfly
63853 | The Collective Construction of Romantic Narratives among Chinese Real Person Slash Fandom Communities

20:55-21:05: Break

21:05-22:45: Live-Stream Presentation Session 4
Room A: Asian Studies: Symbolism & Beliefs
63069 | Tapedn, Floods and the (Endless) Pandemic: Reemergence of Indigenous Beliefs among Kensiu in Baling, Kedah
61938 | The Multifarious Temple Art of Jayavarman VII and the French Orientalist Interest in Cambodia
63863 | Symbolization, Self-Symbolization and De-symbolization – Exploring the Indigenous Totems in Taiwan

Room B: Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies
63876 | Mass Ignorance of the Human in Web 2.0: Virtual Celebrities and the Emancipation of/ from Idolatory
62858 | Mental Stress in The Streaming World: Decision Fatigue in Leisure Time Among Young Adults in Dubai
63897 | "Out-of-Factory" Activities in Public Spaces: Filipino Male Migrant Workers in Seoul
62856 | Practising Urban Commons Between Autonomy and Togetherness: Revisiting the Precariat Movement in Tokyo and Seoul From a Comparative View

22:45-22:55: Conference Closing Session

62533 | Promoting Food and Sustainable Agriculture Traditions of Japan through Study Abroad Opportunities
62767 | The Chinese Interior during the Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.)
63273 | Practical Exploration: A Research About the Strategies, Core Content, and Implement of the Palace Museum Transmedia Narrative Communication
63422 | Real Men Fantasy: Explore The Media Representation of Effeminate Males in China
63639 | Health Impact Perceived by University Students at Three Sites in Asia: Two Years into the Pandemic
61802 | Copper Workers and Their Technology – A Survey of Chotanagpur Region
62569 | Punica Granatum (Zakuro in Japanese). Basis for a Reflection on Cultural History
62840 | Shindo Jujo’s Island of Treasures: A Rebel Myth for Okinawa
63686 | Japanese Characteristics as Seen in Iroha Karuta
62173 | Family Caregiving as a Spiritual Experience: Experience of Spirituality of Korean Family Caregivers in Elder Caregiving
62924 | Crisis, and the Importance of Traditional Wisdom in the Folklore of the Bengal Delta, in the Age of the Anthropocene
63562 | Historical Study of Chinese Clan Associations in Singapore
63756 | Significance of a King in the South-east Section of the Silk Road in the Period Between Ancient and Medieval Times
62859 | Blaan Lingen: Folk Music as a Depiction of Culture and Expression of Traditional Values
63203 | Dialogue Between Religion and Technology: Case Study of Fo Guang Go
63872 | Culture as Data: Notes on the Ontological and Methodological Implications of the Network Turn
63781 | Visual Culture Strategies for Right-Brain Learning in the Early Stages of Maltese as a Foreign Language
62435 | Preparing Periphery: Climate Infrastructure as National Security in the Greater United States
62799 | Unveiling the Pragmatics of Maguindanaon Greetings
62848 | The Differences of Online Dating Profiles Between Gay Adults of Younger and Older Age Ranges
62543 | The Reimagined Migrant Portrait – Exploring the Lives of Chinese and Taiwanese Minorities Living in South Africa

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The Agony of Limbo and the Imprisonment of the Innocent: Tales from the Frontline, The Ongoing Saga of Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’
Keynote Presentation: Arnold Zable

Australian novelist, storyteller, and human rights activist Arnold Zable will weave tales, testimony, poems, and observations regarding refugees who have been indefinitely detained, and imprisoned, in offshore camps in Nauru and Manus Island — which has become known as “the Pacific Solution” — and of refugees incarcerated in detention centres on the Australian mainland. Some were driven to the point of madness, some to suicide. Many have been traumatised. The source of the detainees’ agony had been, above all, the indefinite nature of their detention, their state of limbo, or as Viktor Frankl called it, in his reflection on camp life in an earlier era: their 'provisional existence of unknown limit.' Yet, there have also been many extraordinary acts of resistance — inmates themselves, who bore witness to their own suffering and the suffering of their fellow inmates in many forms — among them literature, journalism, art, music, story, documentation, testimony, and courageous activism. There have been refugee advocates who reached out to offer support, solidarity, and on release, a place to stay. Many refugees remain in limbo. The struggle is ongoing. As too, is the documentation of a period in Australian history which must be understood, and never forgotten.

Read presenter's biographies
Narratives of Fear, Scarcity, and Resistance: Eco-Anxieties and the End of the World in Contemporary Horror Film and Media
Keynote Presentation: Lorna Piatti-Farnell

This presentation will address the rise in 'horror and fantasy content' in film and other serialised media on SVOD platform forms such as Netflix in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in terms of cultural subversion and coping mechanisms, while also examining the 'changing face' of horror, and what we might expect going forward.

Read presenter's biographies
Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
Panel Presentation: Earvin Charles Cabalquinto, Gerard Goggin, Laavanya Kathiravelu & Koen Leurs

The contemporary mobilities, experiences, cultural belonging, identifications and dis-identifications, power relations as well as contexts for migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons and others, involves significant reliance on and imbrication with digital media. Over many centuries, moving elsewhere, to escape persecution, to pursue a better life, or seek work or education, to find connection or community with family, friends, and others, has importantly involved a wide range of communication and media.

In recent times, letter writing, messages, gifts, electronic media, cultural participation and consumption at a distance (for instance, via video tapes of television programs), have been interlaced with increasingly prevalent forms of digital media, technologies, and platforms. The smartphone, social media, and apps have become a by-word for this, and constitute sites of struggle, control, resistance, as well as sharing, belonging, and cultural safety and survival. Digital media literacy has now become a crucial, rich resource in reframing migration and refugee issues. During the past two and a half years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the digitalization of society, and the new kinds of immobilities and spatial and other injustices created have only accentuated migration’s digital turn.

In this panel, we hear from leading practitioners and scholars in the burgeoning area of digital migration, refugee, and mobilities work.

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Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
Panel Presentation: Umberto Ansaldo, Pilar Kasat, Seini F Taumoepeau & Marcelle Townsend-Cross

Contemporary narratives of environmental and human rights protection, racial and other connected forms of social justice, are increasingly informed and guided by indigenous struggles, indigenous intellectuals and allied scholars and activists. “Those struggles are far from over, but the premises with which many of us operate are far different than they were. These usually begin as changes in consciousness and new narratives” (Rebecca Solnit 2022).

Global warming, COVID-19, widespread political unrest, entrenched economic inequality, the dispossession and displacement of peoples, the prospect of war and other crises are evidence that we live in precarious times. Indigenous peoples and their ways of knowing and belonging and deep resilience guide us all in the formation of new narratives towards a sustainable ecology of living in the world. To say that such perspectives challenge accepted ideas of co-existence and what is now taken for granted as the dominant western template applied across the world, would be an understatement. Indigenous knowledges foreground and bring an awareness of the relationship between land, kinship, and humanity (Irene Watson, 2005).

Indigenous ways of knowing not only provide us with answers that help us address the current crises but also ask us questions that we need to address now. These are questions of epistemic justice that relate to the politics of knowledge production, academic power-sharing, addressing misrepresentations and distortions of their history and place in the world. They challenge us to imagine what we should do to let indigenous people teach and guide us in the practice of knowing about indigenous ways of knowing.

From a range of indigenous and culturally diverse voices drawn from Africa, Australia, Oceania and South America, the speakers will discuss how they understand the importance of indigenous ways of knowing. They will explore how indigenous cultures are informed by their traditions and diverse lived experience, including going beyond the inadequacy of western colonial imperialism, to provide answers to the challenges around us.

Read presenter's biographies
Muhammad Noor
The Rohingya Project

Biography

A Rohingya himself, Noor is the Founder and Managing Director of the Rohingya Project, a Blockchain-based organisation that aims to bring social and financial inclusion to stateless people. Noor is also founder and director for several institutions and organisations such as the world first Rohingya TV broadcast station, Rohingya Vision (RVISION), which is watched by millions all over the world.

He is the Founder and Chairman of the Rohingya Football Club (RFC), the Rohingya National Team to play at the CONIFA World Cup. He is also Founder of the Rohingya Archive, which preserves history and genocidal evidence. He is the Project Manager of the Rohingya Quran Translation, the first project of its kind. He is actively involved in the humanitarian field, working with various international organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Red Cross, the International Organization for Migration as well as several embassies. Noor Founded the Rohingya Language Council, digitised Rohingya alphabets, developed the first Rohingya font and was one of the main contributors to the Rohingya Unicode, which was released in 2018 and led to the development of a unicode font and keyboard for different devices. Noor is also the author of Born to Struggle: The Child of Rohingya Refugees and His Inspiring Journey, which was published in March 2019, based on his personal life experiences.

Noor is doing a Master's in Business Intelligence, and holds an Honours Degree in Computing from the University of Greenwich, United Kingdom. He has more than 15 years of experience as a business owner, corporate senior executive, TV station operator, news reporter, journalist, talk show anchor, corporate negotiator and project manager. He is actively involved in the the fields of blockchain, crypto, NFT, the metaverse, data science, security and privacy. Noor also trains and motivates people from all walks of life in self-development, management and technology, both locally and internationally. Mr Noor speaks five Middle and East-Asian languages fluently. One of his ambitions is to implement technology to serve humanity.

Panel Discussion (2022) | Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
Earvin Charles Cabalquinto
Deakin University, Australia

Biography

Dr Earvin Charles B. Cabalquinto is Lecturer in Communication at Deakin University, Australia. He is also a member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. He is an Honorary Visiting Fellow in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. His expertise lies in the intersecting field of digital media, (im)mobilities and migration research. His research has been published in top-notch journal publications and specialised edited book collections. He is the author of the book (Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media (2022), published under the Studies in Mobile Communication series of Oxford University Press (OUP). He is also the author of Philippine Digital Cultures: Brokerage Dynamics on YouTube, a forthcoming collaborative book under Amsterdam University Press (AUP). His current project interrogates the consequences of digital divide in Australia by examining the everyday digital media practices of older adults from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds during and beyond pandemic times. He sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of Cultural Studies. He is also the social media editor of the Asian Journal of Communication.

Panel Discussion (2022) | Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
Koen Leurs
Utrecht University, Netherlands

Biography

Koen Leurs is Assistant Professor in Media, Gender and Postcolonial Studies at the Graduate Gender Program, Department of Media and Culture, Utrecht University, Netherlands. Leurs’ research and teaching interests include technology, migration, gender, cities and youth culture as well as research ethics, creative, participatory and digital methods. He was the chair of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), Diaspora, Migration and the Media section 2016-2021. His publications include Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0 (Amsterdam University Press, 2015) and Digital Migration Studies (forthcoming with Sage, 2023). He also co-edited the Handbook of Media and Migration (Sage, 2020) and special issues “Forced migration and Digital Connectivity” for Social Media + Society and “Connected Migrants” for Popular Communication.

Panel Discussion (2022) | Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
Laavanya Kathiravelu
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Biography

Laavanya Kathiravelu is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Her research sits at the intersections of international migration, race and ethnic studies and contemporary urban diversity, particularly in Asia and the Persian Gulf. Her first book was Migrant Dubai (Palgrave, 2016), which interrogated the experiences of low wage migrant workers in the emirate of Dubai. She has also published widely on issues of race, inequality and migration in Singapore. Prior to joining NTU, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. She was also a Fung Fellow at Princeton University between 2015-16. In 2019, she was recipient of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Fellowship (SSHRF) and recognised as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons (TOYP) in the area of academic leadership. Laavanya is a board member of the migrant welfare organisation, HOME and comments regularly on public forums and through op-eds on issues of migration, race and diversity in Singapore. In 2022, she is a Fulbright Scholar based at the City University of New York (CUNY).

Panel Discussion (2022) | Digital Journeys: Refugees, Migration, Media
Marcelle Townsend-Cross
University of Sydney, Australia

Biography

Marcelle is a mixed heritage First Nations woman of Biripi, Worimi and Irish descent. Marcelle is an educator and researcher who currently teaches Aboriginal Studies at the University Centre for Rural Health in Lismore for the University of Sydney, Australia. For over twenty years she has worked in higher education developing and delivering Indigenous Australian Studies subjects and degree courses at Southern Cross University’s Gnibi College (1999 – 2010); Griffith University’s School of Human Services and Social Work (2011 – 2013) and Long Island University’s Global College (2012 – 2021). Marcelle holds a PhD (2018) and a Master of Education (2009) from the University of Technology Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Music and Indigenous Studies from Southern Cross University (1995).

Marcelle’s Indigenous Australian heritage inspires her dual research focus on the history and contemporary manifestations and impacts of colonialism in Australia and on teaching and learning for social justice and social change.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
Seini F Taumoepeau
Artist, Performer, Activist & Radio Presenter

Biography

(She/Her) is Orator and Songwoman with an intersectional Oceania–Pacific lens and First Nations focus. She practises Faivā (performance of space). An Indigenous woman of the Mōana, direct descendant of ancient Polynesian celestial navigators and chiefly lineage. Analogue to digital interdisciplinary artist and coach/mentor from Sydney’s early hip hop generation, Sēini continues navigational principles with leadership: Founder of OceaniaX and LELEI Wellness. She works with the invisible and intangible, carrying medicine in presence, hands and voice, commanding her aesthetic in harmony and rhythm. Sēini is known by names: SistaNative, Napangardi (Skin-name) and Cantora (Capoeira Name). From Kingdom of Tonga origins and an Australian veteran with a career spanning more than 30 years as performance artist, presenter/broadcaster and creative industries professional. Sēini extends the narratives of Indigenous Oceania in the arts, media, culture, education and personal development sectors. Her storytelling praxis occupies the outskirts, fringe or margins – exploring connectivity, hōhoko (genealogy), ritual, ceremony, communication, relational intersectionality and displacement across Tā Vā (time–space) reality. Emerging Elder and lifelong scholar, Sēini brings Oceanic wisdom and indigenous science to the forefront, as an extension of the emergent Indigenous cultures of her people of the Mōana. Wayfinding the horizon.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
Pilar Kasat
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Dr Pilar Kasat is a Chilean-Australian living in the ancient country of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation (Perth, Western Australia). Dr Kasat completed her PhD, “Singing the Women Back Up: Arts for Social Change and the Empowerment of Women” in 2020 and a postdoctoral fellowship with Curtin University in December 2021. She has more than twenty years of direct involvement in participatory arts. As a practitioner and in leadership roles, Dr Kasat developed a track record of creative intercultural dialogue with First Nations and people of colour within a social justice framework. Dr Kasat is the chairwoman of Art on the Move, the inaugural chair of Women of Colour Australia, and previously the deputy chair of Diversity Arts Australia. Her writing collaborations on the role of the arts to drive social change have been published in international academic journals and national industry magazines.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
Arnold Zable
Writer, Australia

Biography

Arnold Zable is an acclaimed Australian writer, novelist, storyteller, and human rights activist. His books include Jewels and Ashes, Café Scheherazade, Scraps of Heaven, Sea of Many Returns, The Fig Tree, Violin Lessons, The Fighter, and most recently, The Watermill. He has published numerous stories, features, essays, columns, in a range of literary journals and papers, and works for theatre. He has a doctorate from the School of Creative Arts, Melbourne University, titled ‘The Immigrant Experience’, and for the past two decades he has written widely on the journeys, and the detention of refugees, and people seeking asylum in Australia. Zable has lectured widely on the art of story, literature, and human rights issues and was appointed a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne from 2012 to 2014. He has conducted numerous workshops for refugees, bushfire survivors, the deaf, the homeless, problem gamblers, and other groups focusing on story as a means of self-understanding. His awards include the 2013 Voltaire, and the 2017 Australia Council Fellowship for Literature, and The 2021 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. He is the immediate past president and current patron of PEN International, Melbourne.

Keynote Presentation (2022) | The Agony of Limbo and the Imprisonment of the Innocent: Tales from the Frontline, The Ongoing Saga of Australia’s 'Pacific Solution'
Lorna Piatti-Farnell
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Biography

Lorna Piatti-Farnell is Professor of Film and Popular Culture at Auckland University of Technology where she is also the Director of the Popular Culture Research Centre. Prior to her move to New Zealand in 2010, she held appointments at De Montfort and Bishop Grosseteste universities in the UK. She is the Founder and President of the Gothic Association of New Zealand and Australia (GANZA). She holds an international reputation for leadership in the intersecting fields of Gothic Studies, Food Cultures, Popular Media, and Cultural History, and is known for her successful interdisciplinary collaborations. Her current and forthcoming work examines the connections between popular media and cultural identities, including the multi-faceted socio-historical representation of popular icons, social media participation and digital identities, and the meaning of Gothic horror in times of crisis. She has published widely in her areas of expertise, including Gothic Afterlives: Reincarnations of Horror in Film and Popular Media (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Consuming Gothic: Food and Horror in Film (Palgrave 2017), and The Vampire in Contemporary Popular Literature (Routledge, 2014). She is currently completing her latest monograph, entitled Poison: A Cultural History of the Mortal Arts (Reaktion, 2021).

Keynote Presentation (2022) | Narratives of Fear, Scarcity, and Resistance: Eco-Anxieties and the End of the World in Contemporary Horror Film and Media
Umberto Ansaldo
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Professor Umberto Ansaldo is Head of School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University, reporting to the Provost. He was previously the Head of the School of　Literature, Art and Media at the University of Sydney, and the Head of the School of　Humanities at the University of Hong Kong.

Professor Ansaldo’s disciplinary roots are in linguistics – most specifically in the study of language contact, linguistic typology, and language documentation. He is the author of four books to date (with CUP, OUP, Routledge, and Stockholm University Press), has edited or co-edited a further 11 volumes and journal special collections, and has authored multiple journal articles and book chapters. His most recent output is the co-editorship of The Routledge Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Languages (Routledge, 2021).

At the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Professor Ansaldo led the Humanities Area of Inquiry on the Common Core Curriculum Committee in HKU’s major revision of its curriculum (2010-2013), a time when, along with the University of Melbourne, HKU was leading in reimagining undergraduate curricula. As Chair of Linguistics, he was instrumental in establishing the Department in the top ten programs in Linguistics (QS rankings), and number one in Hong Kong. He also sat on HKU’s Senate and HKU’s Campus Development & Planning Committee. In the latter role, he was involved in the completion of the new Humanities Tower at the Centennial Campus, and the physical relocation of the Faculty from the Main Building.

At the University of Sydney, Professor Ansaldo sat on the University Executive Research Committee and led his School through a transformative period in terms of curriculum innovation and research engagement. He was in charge of overseeing the incorporation of the Sydney College of the Arts into the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. This included integrating existing and developing new curricula, forging research synergies, and leading the renovation of a purpose-built facility, with associated financial, technical, and HR responsibilities. He also piloted the first three micro-credit units in the Faculty.

Professor Ansaldo has throughout his career secured competitive research grants and leveraged industry funding for the advancement of the humanities and social sciences. One of his proudest achievements was his role in securing financial support to develop and host an exhibition on language and the brain, the “Talking Brains” exhibition that launched successfully at the CosmoCaixa in 2017. This type of engagement and championing of the Humanities is what Umberto is most passionate about.

Umberto lived and worked in Sweden, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Hong Kong, before moving to Australia. He speaks seven languages including Mandarin – he is well-acquainted with Asia and has conducted fieldwork in Muslim communities of the Indian Ocean, and has strong international networks in Southeast Asia, Japan, and Europe. One of the factors that attracted him to Curtin is the University’s Global Vision, which he believes is the future path of higher education and research.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
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
Baden Offord
Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia

Biography

Baden Offord is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Curtin University, Australia. Born in Aotearoa/New Zealand of Māori and Pākehā heritage, he has lived most of his life in Australia, as well as several years in Spain, South India, and Japan. An internationally respected scholar in human rights, education, sexuality and culture, his latest book (co-edited with Fleay, Hartley, Woldeyes and Chan) is Activating Cultural and Social Change: The Pedagogies of Human Rights (London, Routledge: 2022).

Professor Offord has held academic appointments as the Dr Haruhisa Handa Chair of Human Rights in the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University (2015-2020); as Chair (Visiting Professor) of Australian Studies, Centre for Pacific and American Studies at The University of Tokyo (2010-2011); as Visiting Professor at the University of Barcelona; and as Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Southern Cross University (1999-2014). He has also had visiting positions at Indiana University, the University of Auckland, and La Trobe University. In 2021 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) ‘for distinguished service in tertiary education in the field of human rights, social justice and cultural diversity.'

Professor Offord is a member of IAFOR’s Academic Governing Board. He is Chair of the Cultural & Area Studies section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Lorna Piatti-Farnell
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Biography

Lorna Piatti-Farnell is Professor of Film and Popular Culture at Auckland University of Technology where she is also the Director of the Popular Culture Research Centre. Prior to her move to New Zealand in 2010, she held appointments at De Montfort and Bishop Grosseteste universities in the UK. She is the Founder and President of the Gothic Association of New Zealand and Australia (GANZA). She holds an international reputation for leadership in the intersecting fields of Gothic Studies, Food Cultures, Popular Media, and Cultural History, and is known for her successful interdisciplinary collaborations. Her current and forthcoming work examines the connections between popular media and cultural identities, including the multi-faceted socio-historical representation of popular icons, social media participation and digital identities, and the meaning of Gothic horror in times of crisis. She has published widely in her areas of expertise, including Gothic Afterlives: Reincarnations of Horror in Film and Popular Media (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Consuming Gothic: Food and Horror in Film (Palgrave 2017), and The Vampire in Contemporary Popular Literature (Routledge, 2014). She is currently completing her latest monograph, entitled Poison: A Cultural History of the Mortal Arts (Reaktion, 2021).

Keynote Presentation (2022) | Narratives of Fear, Scarcity, and Resistance: Eco-Anxieties and the End of the World in Contemporary Horror Film and Media
Yasue Arimitsu
Doshisha University, Japan

Biography

Yasue Arimitsu is Professor Emeritus at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. She taught English and Australian Literature at Tezukayama Gakuin University in Osaka (1988–1995), at Doshisha University in Kyoto (1995–2014), and at Otsuma Women’s University in Tokyo (2017–2019). She translated a number of Australian and New Zealand short stories into Japanese, which appeared as Diamond Dog: A Collection of Contemporary Australian Short Stories (Gendai Kikakshitsu Publishers, 2008). She is currently working on the “Ten-Year-Project” of translating contemporary Australian novels. Until now, six novels have been published and ten novels will be published in total. Besides translations, Professor Arimitsu authored Australian Identity: Struggle and Transformation in Australian Literature (Tokyo UP, 2003), which was awarded the Australia-Japan Foundation Sir Neil Currie Special Prize, and co-edited Contemporary Australian Studies: Literature, History, Film and Media Studies in a Globalizing Age (Tōkyō Otowa-Shobo Tsurumi-Shoten, 2017). She was the President of the Australian Studies Association of Japan (2010–2013), and the President of the Australia New Zealand Literary Society of Japan (2014–2018).

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2017) | Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Studies in Today’s University Systems
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Cultural Studies Today
Darlene Machell Espena
Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore

Biography

Darlene Machell Espena is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Singapore Management University (SMU), where she has taught courses on International Relations on Film, Film in Southeast Asia, Cultural History of the Cold War in Asia, and Big Questions. She earned her PhD in History (2017) and MSc in Asian Studies (2012) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU). Her research includes cinema, dance, and politics in postcolonial Southeast Asia, cultural history of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, and cultural discourses on education in Singapore. Before joining SMU in August 2018, she was a Research Fellow at Singapore’s National Institute of Education (NIE). She has held teaching positions at De La Salle University and Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. Her current book project is entitled “Heralding the Nation: Cinema and Politics in Postcolonial Southeast Asia, 1945-1967.”

Umberto Ansaldo
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Professor Umberto Ansaldo is Head of School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry at Curtin University, reporting to the Provost. He was previously the Head of the School of　Literature, Art and Media at the University of Sydney, and the Head of the School of　Humanities at the University of Hong Kong.

Professor Ansaldo’s disciplinary roots are in linguistics – most specifically in the study of language contact, linguistic typology, and language documentation. He is the author of four books to date (with CUP, OUP, Routledge, and Stockholm University Press), has edited or co-edited a further 11 volumes and journal special collections, and has authored multiple journal articles and book chapters. His most recent output is the co-editorship of The Routledge Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Languages (Routledge, 2021).

At the University of Hong Kong (HKU), Professor Ansaldo led the Humanities Area of Inquiry on the Common Core Curriculum Committee in HKU’s major revision of its curriculum (2010-2013), a time when, along with the University of Melbourne, HKU was leading in reimagining undergraduate curricula. As Chair of Linguistics, he was instrumental in establishing the Department in the top ten programs in Linguistics (QS rankings), and number one in Hong Kong. He also sat on HKU’s Senate and HKU’s Campus Development & Planning Committee. In the latter role, he was involved in the completion of the new Humanities Tower at the Centennial Campus, and the physical relocation of the Faculty from the Main Building.

At the University of Sydney, Professor Ansaldo sat on the University Executive Research Committee and led his School through a transformative period in terms of curriculum innovation and research engagement. He was in charge of overseeing the incorporation of the Sydney College of the Arts into the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. This included integrating existing and developing new curricula, forging research synergies, and leading the renovation of a purpose-built facility, with associated financial, technical, and HR responsibilities. He also piloted the first three micro-credit units in the Faculty.

Professor Ansaldo has throughout his career secured competitive research grants and leveraged industry funding for the advancement of the humanities and social sciences. One of his proudest achievements was his role in securing financial support to develop and host an exhibition on language and the brain, the “Talking Brains” exhibition that launched successfully at the CosmoCaixa in 2017. This type of engagement and championing of the Humanities is what Umberto is most passionate about.

Umberto lived and worked in Sweden, The Netherlands, Singapore, and Hong Kong, before moving to Australia. He speaks seven languages including Mandarin – he is well-acquainted with Asia and has conducted fieldwork in Muslim communities of the Indian Ocean, and has strong international networks in Southeast Asia, Japan, and Europe. One of the factors that attracted him to Curtin is the University’s Global Vision, which he believes is the future path of higher education and research.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Precarity and Resilience
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
Keiko Bang
Bang Singapore Pte Ltd

Biography

Keiko Hagihara Bang is the founder and CEO of Bang Singapore Pte Ltd, a boutique media firm focused on fandom, influencers, branded content, e-commerce and technology-led storytelling. Her 35-year career spans time serving as a reporter for media such as CNN, NHK and what is today CNBC, and as a creator of critically-acclaimed independent documentaries for the world, from the Asia-Pacific region. She has produced more than 50 award-winning films including: Zheng He: Emperor of the Seas, Mysterious Hanging Coffins of China, Guge: The Lost Kingdom of Tibet, Jackie Chan, John Woo, Hip Korea, Secrets of the Samurai and many others.

In Japan, she successfully created a landmark co-production with PBS, TV Asahi and ZDF of the first non-Japanese documentary on the Battleship Yamato as seen from the Japanese point of view. Bang also worked for 5 years with the Ministry of Information and Communications (Somusho) on pioneering co-production schemes which engendered more than 40 hours of programming between rural Japanese broadcasters and other Asian countries, and culminated in Bang’s launch of Asian Side of the Doc (French) in Tokyo, the first ever major documentary conference to be held in Japan. Bang was also the first independent Asian production company to rank on Realscreen’s “World’s 100 Most Influential Documentary Companies”. In addition to her work on the creative side, Keiko is a serial entrepreneur and has worked with more than 150 companies, 7 governments and 50 media partners on co-productions, country branding and C-Level media strategy across twenty-four countries in Asia. Bang is a Member of the International Academy of Arts & Sciences, Chairperson of the New Media Taskforce and Advisor to the Documentary Committee of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, and to the VR Braintrust (IDFA). She is also a Member of the Asian Academy Awards, and Advisor to the Emerging Future Institute, The Rohingya Blockchain Project, and Teach North Korean Refugees. She is the Founder of The Beautiful Minds Global Girls’ Education Broadcaster Project with UNESCO.

Previous ACAS Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2019) | I am a Fan of Fandom
Donald E. Hall
University of Rochester, United States

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
Keynote Presentation (2018) | The Cities We Fled
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Cultural Studies Today
Sue Ballyn
University of Barcelona, 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
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