IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS) > ACAS2019 > Programme

Programme

The Asian Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS) is an interdisciplinary conference held alongside The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies (ACCS). Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other.

This page provides details of presentations and other programming. For more information about presenters, please visit the Speakers page.

  • Inhabiting the Open
    Inhabiting the Open
    Keynote Presentation: John Nguyet Erni

Previous Programming

View details of programming for past ACAS conferences via the links below.

ACAS2018 ACAS2017 ACAS2016
ACAS2015 ACAS2014 ACAS2013
ACAS2012 ACAS2011
Inhabiting the Open
Keynote Presentation: John Nguyet Erni

In its engagement with community life, especially through educational spaces, cultural studies plays a special role in instilling a determination for struggle for freedom and a strong sense of creativity, both of which are much needed in times of increasing global complexity. For many of us who work with young people in educational settings, we have learned that one of the keys to unlock their critical imagination for a liveable future – one underscored by freedom and creativity – is about “being open.” Yet how many times have we encountered the saying “to be open”? Especially in an education environment, we craft our visions around the need to train our students to be open-minded individuals who are, ideally, cross-culturally exposed, multiply linguistically competent, and globally actionable. In modern education, to meet the challenges of this increasingly complex world, we liberal thinkers form our curricula around “the open,” through theoretical variants like comparative culturalism and moral variants like diversity training. Yet once we try to pin down “the open” within established categories and conventions of thought, no experience could be more elusive. What is the open? Based on my cultural research on minorities, I shall share my thinking on how not to “exhabit” the social and cultural horizon so as to be poised to reclaim the future.

Read presenter biographies.