IAFOR > The European Conference on Media, Communication & Film (EuroMedia) > EuroMedia2020 Overview

EuroMedia2020 Overview

EuroMedia2020 | July 24–26, 2020

Held in partnership with University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, this international conference encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue, by bringing together university scholars working in the UK, Europe, and beyond to share ideas and research. 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), think tanks (the East-West Center), as well as collaborative projects with the United Nations in New York, and the Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office, and right here in London with University College London (UCL), Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Sussex, for this conference!

With the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, 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 EuroMedia2020 and ECAH2020 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice, for the meeting of people and ideas.

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Plenary Presentations

Keynote Presentation
Dislocation/Invitation
Donald Hall, University of Rochester, United States

Panel Presentation
Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
Matthew Coats, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
Bel Jacobs, writer, speaker, United Kingdom
John Lau, London College of Fashion, United Kingdom
Sophie Skach, Fashion designer and Researcher, United Kingdom
Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, Foundry Powered by IFA Paris, France

Keynote Presentation
Viral Lessons
Anne Boddington, Kingston University, United Kingdom

Keynote Presentation
Crossing Divides and Embracing Difference
Emily Kasriel, BBC, United Kingdom

Panel Presentation
The Age of the Zombie: Social Distancing without Social Media Distancing
Lorna Piatti-Farnell, Auckland University of Technology, New-Zealand
Donna Lee Brien, Central Queensland University, Australia

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Programme

  • Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
    Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
    Panel Presentation: Matthew Coats, Bel Jacobs, John Lau, Sophie Skach & Peter Jeun Ho Tsang
  • Viral Lessons
    Viral Lessons
    Keynote Presentation: Anne Boddington
  • Crossing Divides and Embracing Difference
    Crossing Divides and Embracing Difference
    Keynote Presentation: Emily Kasriel
  • The Age of the Zombie: Social Distancing without Social Media Distancing
    The Age of the Zombie: Social Distancing without Social Media Distancing
    Panel Presentation: Lorna Piatti-Farnell & Donna Lee Brien
  • Dislocation/Invitation
    Dislocation/Invitation
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

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Speakers

  • Sophie Skach
    Sophie Skach
    Fashion Designer and Researcher, UK
  • Bel Jacobs
    Bel Jacobs
    Writer and Speaker, United Kingdom
  • John Lau
    John Lau
    London College of Fashion, United Kingdom
  • Peter Jeun Ho Tsang
    Peter Jeun Ho Tsang
    Foundry Powered by IFA Paris, France
  • Emily Kasriel
    Emily Kasriel
    BBC, UK
  • Donna Lee Brien
    Donna Lee Brien
    Central Queensland University, Australia
  • Lorna Piatti-Farnell
    Lorna Piatti-Farnell
    Auckland University of Technology, New-Zealand
  • Matthew Coats
    Matthew Coats
    University of Brighton, UK
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Kingston University, UK
  • Gary E. Swanson
    Gary E. Swanson
    University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

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Organising Committee

The Conference Programme Committee is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Conference Programme Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Board. The Organising Committee is responsible for nominating and vetting Keynote and Featured Speakers; developing the conference programme, including special workshops, panels, targeted sessions, and so forth; event outreach and promotion; recommending and attracting future Conference Programme Committee members; working with IAFOR to select PhD students and early career academics for IAFOR-funded grants and scholarships; and overseeing the reviewing of abstracts submitted to the conference.

  • Matthew Coats
    Matthew Coats
    University of Brighton, UK
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • Bruce Brown
    Bruce Brown
    Royal College of Art, UK
  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Kingston University, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Gary E. Swanson
    Gary E. Swanson
    University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)
  • James Rowlins
    James Rowlins
    Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

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EuroMedia2020 Review Committee

  • Dr César Viana Teixeira, Pontifical University of Goiás, Brazil
  • Dr Joseph Wogu, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria
  • Dr Hsin-Pey Peng, Zhaoqing University, China
  • Professor Rebecca Lind, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
  • Professor Xenia Negrea, University of Craiova, Romania

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Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
Panel Presentation: Matthew Coats, Bel Jacobs, John Lau, Sophie Skach & Peter Jeun Ho Tsang

For years, many in the fashion industry have chosen not to speak out on injustices in the world for fear of alienating consumers, and have considered taking a stance on civil rights and equality as unimportant. But these same consumers are starting to question what that means for the character of a brand, and why many creatives aren’t being held accountable for their actions, that have a direct impact on our political climate. It’s becoming ever clearer that the fashion industry can’t be apolitical, and you can’t separate politics from fashion.

Whilst the term ‘fashion’ has been historically used to describe the latest trends and how something is made into a particular form, the industry, and the wider creative industries, find themselves in the midst of an escalating evaluation culture.

In an increasingly online, globally-connected world, and with consumers acting in huge numbers to create a new voice and new type of critical discourse through online social media platforms that provide a direct link to the industry heavyweights, fashion and politics have never been more interlinked. From calling-out discriminatory industry standards to holding brands and businesses accountable for environmental abuses, the creative industries are democratising in a way we have never seen before, with fashion at the forefront of this discourse. Change is happening rapidly, with the new landscape developing on an almost daily basis. The consequences are huge and will affect each part of the fashion industry—from design educators to marketeers to practising designers. Add to this the COVID-19 global health crisis, and it becomes evident that the fashion industry as we know it will never be the same again.

Speakers:

Matthew Coats, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
Bel Jacobs, Writer and Speaker, United Kingdom
John Lau, London College of Fashion, United Kingdom
Sophie Skach, Fashion Designer and Researcher, UK
Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, Foundry Powered by IFA Paris, France

Read presenters' biographies
Viral Lessons
Keynote Presentation: Anne Boddington

Many have likened the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic to the experience of war time, except with all the people on the same side against an invisible invader that is indiscriminate, transgresses national borders and disproportionally attacks the socially and economically vulnerable. Across the world, countries and communities have been “locked-down” and retreated to the relatively “safety” of their domestic environments. Our cities and educational institutions were closed and stood silent, their usual vivacious inhabitants physically dispersed, but digitally connected, while the sun shone, Spring “sprung”, summer arrived, and the natural environment flourished with our absence. We retreated, but institutions continued to function, significantly weakened and often struggling to react fast enough to “work differently”, online and “at home”. Work, home, social lives and our different personas all overlaid upon one another. Individually and collectively we have all been forced to confront the ways we manage each of these lives and how they do or don’t intersect and interconnect. In the University context, governance and resilience have been tested, as was the leadership and practical capacity and capability of working and learning remotely. What to do, how to behave, who and what mattered to us as social beings all questioned by COVID’s threat. A threat, that, like climate emergency, artificial intelligence and racial (in)equality has long been known about; but where other technocratic and economic values had perhaps overwritten our preparedness for what we have had to confront.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of “lockdown” and the pitching of wealth against health, this existential moment has presented an opportunity to reflect, prior to addressing the far more challenging task of rethinking and re-opening our worlds, economies and institutions. This presentation focuses specifically on living with COVID-19 and devising a framework and a series of principles for unlocking universities and reflecting on the role, purpose and contribution. It then takes a more detailed look at the lessons we might take from our “viral experiences” and how we might reflect upon and revisit creative education and its social, cultural and economic contribution in our “next normal” and imminent futures.

Read presenters' biography
Crossing Divides and Embracing Difference
Keynote Presentation: Emily Kasriel

Join Emily Kasriel, Editor of the BBC Crossing Divides season, bringing people together in a divided world for a session in which you’ll learn all about the groundbreaking season which attracted over 40 million page views on the BBC. You will also get a taste of Deep Listening and have a go trying this out with a fellow participant in a break out room.

Most of us think we are above average listeners. But often when we think we are listening we are actually distracted by the voices in our head. And when we are talking with people we disagree with most strongly these inner distractions can get noisy as we judge what we are hearing while we rehearse counter-arguments. Imagine if you knew how to listen so that the person who was speaking felt truly heard?

During the last two years leading the BBC Crossing Divides season, I’ve been on the hunt of how to bring people with conflicting ideas together, drawing on my own experience as an Executive Coach, training with conflict mediators, and being an expert speaker in an MA module on Listening. I’ve spoken to psychologists, lawyers, organisational behaviour academics and facilitators such as Better Angels, all of whom are using a variant of deep listening.

You’ll leave inspired by the power of connecting across divides and empowered with a technique you can use with colleagues, partners and with family – vital during times of challenge stress and encountering difference.

Read presenters' biography
The Age of the Zombie: Social Distancing without Social Media Distancing
Panel Presentation: Lorna Piatti-Farnell & Donna Lee Brien

In an era of confusion and anxiety, isolation, quarantines and lockdowns, this panel will look at media and (popular) cultural responses, through digital narratives, and memes. In our blurred life online, our professional and personal lives flow into each other, time warps, and social distancing doesn’t mean social media distancing. What of questions of freedoms, of privacy, or security and of governance in a time of impending doom, real or imagined? Outside our curtains and the safety of confinement, and endless media distraction, is a world without people. Is this the age of the Zombie?

Read presenters' biography
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
Sophie Skach
Fashion Designer and Researcher, UK

Biography

Sophie Skach is a fashion designer and researcher based in London. Having studied menswear and knitwear design technology, as well as mathematics in Austria (Modeschule Wien Hetzendorf, TU Wien, Kunstuniversitaet Linz) and the UK (London College of Fashion), she has presented her collections on international catwalks and has closely collaborated with the textile industry. As a designer and consultant, she worked with large companies (e.g Swarovski), as well as for fashion start-ups around Europe (e.g. Son Of A Tailor, aéthérée).

Since 2015, Sophie has been pursuing a PhD at Queen Mary University of London as part of the Media & Arts Technology Centre for Doctoral Training. Her interdisciplinary research combines her experience in fashion, textiles and tailoring with digital media, wearable technology and behavioural studies.

Working in a Cognitive Science research group, her research investigates how embedded textile sensors can be used to pick up nonverbal behaviour during social interaction. Integrated in garments as a body-centric sensing system, fabrics can be used to track body movement and touch interactions. As an example, Sophie has developed trousers with integrated textile pressure sensors that are able to identify a variety of postures, as well as conversational cues.

Both, in the academic environment and public platforms in design and fashion, Sophie showcases her works to engage and stimulate a discourse about the role and potential of fashion in wearable technology, establishing e-textiles as a new modality for social computing.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
Bel Jacobs
Writer and Speaker, United Kingdom

Biography

Between 1999 and 2013, Bel Jacobs was Style Editor for Metro, building the paper's reputation for fashion content with a focus on ethical alternatives. The fall of Rana Plaza in 2013 forced a re-assessment. Bel is a writer, speaker and activist with a focus on animal rights, the climate emergency and alternatives to the toxic fashion system. She is one of the coordinators for Extinction Rebellion's Fashion Action team.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
John Lau
London College of Fashion, United Kingdom

Biography

John Lau is the Associate Dean of the School of Design and Technology at London College of Fashion. With a broad background within the fashion industry he was a womenswear designer in London, progressing his career in fashion magazines as a fashion editor in New York, and latterly a creative director of a diffusion line for a luxury brand before moving on to production management in Hong Kong.

John has been in academia for over a decade and as an executive academic, leads a world-leading portfolio of programmes across clothing, textiles, accessories, footwear and jewellery. He is regularly called upon for expert opinion, most recently by BBC, South China Morning Post, and i-D.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
Peter Jeun Ho Tsang
Foundry Powered by IFA Paris, France

Biography

Peter Jeun Ho is pioneering the fields of fashion tech and innovation, with his second fashion tech lab, Foundry Powered by IFA Paris, recently opened its doors in the 19th district of Paris. Peter holds an MA in Digital Fashion from London College of Fashion and has worked with technology companies large and small to conceptualise, execute and deploy various fashion tech solutions through his venture studio, Beyond Form. His previous lab, The Dandy Lab, was nominated for several awards including 'Best New Retail Concept' WGSN Futures 2016 and was commended by Internet Retailing 2015 for 'The Digital Store Award'.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change
Emily Kasriel
BBC, UK

Biography

As Head of Editorial Partnerships & Special Projects at the BBC World Service Group, Emily has set up and directs a number of high profile projects. During the last two years she’s been leading the BBC Crossing Divides season, bringing people together in a fragmented world. Through this work she’s been developing work on Deep Listening, drawing on her experience as an Executive Coach, training with conflict mediators, and drawing on a range of expertise. She has also trained over 200 members of the UK public in this skill at a BBC Crossing Divides Live Festival, and is now a Practitioner in Residence working on Deep Listening at the LSE’s Marshall Institute.

Emily’s Crossing Divides season was born out of the Solutions-Focused Journalism project, kick-starting a culture change across the BBC. To this end she ran the SoICanBreathe season looking at ways to cut air pollution. Emily also directs the BBC World News Komla Dumor Award, finding and supporting top journalism talent in Africa.

Previously she was a Senior Advisor to the Skoll Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, creating partnerships to source more diverse Social Entrepreneur awardees and a Visiting Fellow at Said Business School, University of Oxford. She is also on the board of the grant-giving HH Wingate Foundation.

Emily has written for the BBC website, The Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Prospect and the Financial Times, plus hosts panels and events globally.

In her award winning BBC career, Emily previously founded, edited and occasionally presented The Forum, the flagship weekly interdisciplinary radio discussion show after running the Arts and Religion departments of the BBC World Service, and has reported and produced for the BBC across five continents.

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Crossing Divides and Embracing Difference
Donna Lee Brien
Central Queensland University, Australia

Biography

Donna Lee Brien, PhD, is Professor of Creative Industries at Central Queensland University, Australia, where she leads the Creative Arts Research Training Academy. Her research focuses on popular genres of creative writing, especially non-fiction writing, including biography, memoir and food writing. Also completing research into research higher degrees, her most recent books are The Doctoral Experience: Student Stories from the Creative Arts and Humanities, Eds., Donna Lee Brien, Craig Batty, Elizabeth Ellison & Alison Owens, 2019, and Writing the Australia Beach: Local Site, Global idea, Eds., Elizabeth Ellison & Donna Lee Brien, 2020.

Panel Presentation (2020) | The Age of the Zombie: Social Distancing without Social Media Distancing
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. She is a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and serves on the advisory boards for several research entities in the UK, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. 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, forthcoming 2021).

Panel Presentation (2020) | The Age of the Zombie: Social Distancing without Social Media Distancing
Matthew Coats
University of Brighton, UK

Biography

Matthew Coats was educated at the London College of Fashion and, until 2017, was a fabric designer at Chanel in Paris, working for Karl Lagerfeld. After spending several years working as a fashion designer for both luxury and high-street brands, he is now lecturing in Fashion at the University of Brighton, having previously lectured in Creative Direction at Birmingham City University. Alongside his work in education, he also runs his own fashion-led interior textiles business. As a designer, his work is focused on combining modern technology with traditional fabric weaving, and is executed in a vibrant, colourful style. Having also worked as an agent at one of London’s leading model agencies, Storm, Matthew is familiar with the many sides of the fashion industry. He feels passionately about the cultural significance of the industry and the continuing importance of high-quality fashion education.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Donald E. Hall
University of Rochester, USA

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.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation (2019) | Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today
Anne Boddington
Kingston University, UK

Biography

Anne Boddington is Professor of Design Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business and Innovation at Kingston University in the UK and recently appointed as the Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. Professor Boddington has extensive experience of the leadership, management and evaluation of art and design education and art and design research in higher education across the UK and internationally. She is an experienced chair and has held trustee and governance roles across the creative and cultural sector including as trustee of the Design Council, an independent Governor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), an affiliate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a member of the executive of the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and a member of the advisory board of the Arts & Humanities Research Council. She has an international reputation in creative education and research and has been a partner, a collaborator, a reviewer and evaluator for a wide range of international projects and reviews across different nations in Europe, the Middle East, Southern and east Asia and North America.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Viral Lessons
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today
Gary E. Swanson
University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

Biography

Gary E. Swanson is currently the Mildred S. Hansen Endowed Chair and Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence at the University of Northern Colorado, USA. From 2005-2007 Professor Swanson was a Fulbright scholar to China and lectured at Tsinghua University and the Communication University of China. In summer 2008 he was Commentator for China Central Television International (CCTV-9) and their live coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Swanson repeated his assignment covering the London Olympics for CCTV-4 in the summer of 2012. Previously, he was professor and director of television for nine years at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he taught mostly graduate broadcast students. He has been an educator for 26 years; 20 years spent teaching at the university level. Swanson is an internationally recognized and highly acclaimed documentary producer, director, editor, photojournalist, consultant and educator. He has given keynote speeches, presented workshopsretd and lectured at embassies, conferences, festivals, and universities throughout China, South Africa, India, Papua New Guinea, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Greece, Germany, Jordan, Spain, Portugal, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Swanson has compiled a distinguished professional broadcast career spanning 13 years: From 1978 to 1991, Swanson worked for the National Broadcasting Company where he was honored with national EMMY's for producing and editing: 'The Silent Shame,' a prime-time investigative documentary; 'Military Medicine,' a two-part investigative series on NBC News; and 'Hotel Crime,' an investigative news magazine piece. Swanson was an editor for 'breaking news' and features for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, the Today Show, Sunrise, Sunday Today, NBC Overnight, A Closer Look, Monitor, and other prime time news magazines. Swanson covered 'breaking news' in 26 states and Canada for the network including trips and campaigns of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Swanson was the Fulbright distinguished lecturer and consultant in television news to the government of Portugal in 1989. In 1992, he covered the XXV Olympics in Barcelona, Spain for NBC News as field producer and cameraman. Swanson has earned more than 75 awards for broadcast excellence and photojournalism including three national EMMY's, the duPont Columbia Award, two CINE 'Golden Eagles,' 16 TELLY's, the Monte Carlo International Award, the Hamburg International Media Festival's Globe Award, the Videographer Award, The Communicator Award, the Ohio State Award, the CINDY Award, the 2011 Communitas Outstanding Professor and Educator award, the 2013 Professor of the Year award, and many others. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana with a Bachelor's degree in Education in 1974, and a Master's degree in Journalism in 1993.

Matthew Coats
University of Brighton, UK

Biography

Matthew Coats was educated at the London College of Fashion and, until 2017, was a fabric designer at Chanel in Paris, working for Karl Lagerfeld. After spending several years working as a fashion designer for both luxury and high-street brands, he is now lecturing in Fashion at the University of Brighton, having previously lectured in Creative Direction at Birmingham City University. Alongside his work in education, he also runs his own fashion-led interior textiles business. As a designer, his work is focused on combining modern technology with traditional fabric weaving, and is executed in a vibrant, colourful style. Having also worked as an agent at one of London’s leading model agencies, Storm, Matthew is familiar with the many sides of the fashion industry. He feels passionately about the cultural significance of the industry and the continuing importance of high-quality fashion education.

Plenary Panel (2020) | Embracing Difference: Fashion, Design and the Rhetoric of Social Change

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Donald E. Hall
University of Rochester, USA

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.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation (2019) | Resisting the Cynical Turn: Projections of a Desirably Queer Future
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities Today
Bruce Brown
Royal College of Art, UK

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.

Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Design and Democracy
Anne Boddington
Kingston University, UK

Biography

Anne Boddington is Professor of Design Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business and Innovation at Kingston University in the UK and recently appointed as the Sub Panel Chair for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory for the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. Professor Boddington has extensive experience of the leadership, management and evaluation of art and design education and art and design research in higher education across the UK and internationally. She is an experienced chair and has held trustee and governance roles across the creative and cultural sector including as trustee of the Design Council, an independent Governor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), an affiliate member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), a member of the executive of the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design (CHEAD) and a member of the advisory board of the Arts & Humanities Research Council. She has an international reputation in creative education and research and has been a partner, a collaborator, a reviewer and evaluator for a wide range of international projects and reviews across different nations in Europe, the Middle East, Southern and east Asia and North America.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Building Back Better: Are Universities Fit for Purpose?

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Viral Lessons
Plenary Panel (2019) | Reimagining the Future
Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | The Challenges of Doing Research and Creative Activity in the Arts and Humanities 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.

Featured Interview (2021) | Selfless: Journeys through Identity and Social Class

Previous Presentations

Plenary Panel Presentation (2018) | Fearful Futures
Gary E. Swanson
University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

Biography

Gary E. Swanson is currently the Mildred S. Hansen Endowed Chair and Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence at the University of Northern Colorado, USA. From 2005-2007 Professor Swanson was a Fulbright scholar to China and lectured at Tsinghua University and the Communication University of China. In summer 2008 he was Commentator for China Central Television International (CCTV-9) and their live coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Swanson repeated his assignment covering the London Olympics for CCTV-4 in the summer of 2012. Previously, he was professor and director of television for nine years at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he taught mostly graduate broadcast students. He has been an educator for 26 years; 20 years spent teaching at the university level. Swanson is an internationally recognized and highly acclaimed documentary producer, director, editor, photojournalist, consultant and educator. He has given keynote speeches, presented workshopsretd and lectured at embassies, conferences, festivals, and universities throughout China, South Africa, India, Papua New Guinea, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Greece, Germany, Jordan, Spain, Portugal, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Swanson has compiled a distinguished professional broadcast career spanning 13 years: From 1978 to 1991, Swanson worked for the National Broadcasting Company where he was honored with national EMMY's for producing and editing: 'The Silent Shame,' a prime-time investigative documentary; 'Military Medicine,' a two-part investigative series on NBC News; and 'Hotel Crime,' an investigative news magazine piece. Swanson was an editor for 'breaking news' and features for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, the Today Show, Sunrise, Sunday Today, NBC Overnight, A Closer Look, Monitor, and other prime time news magazines. Swanson covered 'breaking news' in 26 states and Canada for the network including trips and campaigns of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Swanson was the Fulbright distinguished lecturer and consultant in television news to the government of Portugal in 1989. In 1992, he covered the XXV Olympics in Barcelona, Spain for NBC News as field producer and cameraman. Swanson has earned more than 75 awards for broadcast excellence and photojournalism including three national EMMY's, the duPont Columbia Award, two CINE 'Golden Eagles,' 16 TELLY's, the Monte Carlo International Award, the Hamburg International Media Festival's Globe Award, the Videographer Award, The Communicator Award, the Ohio State Award, the CINDY Award, the 2011 Communitas Outstanding Professor and Educator award, the 2013 Professor of the Year award, and many others. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana with a Bachelor's degree in Education in 1974, and a Master's degree in Journalism in 1993.

James Rowlins
Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Biography

James Rowlins left his native England for Paris, France, where he studied for a BA (Hons) and MA specialising in French cinema. His passion for visual culture subsequently took him to Los Angeles, where he earned a doctorate at the University of Southern California, USA. In addition to exploring literature and film through a theoretical lens, as well as dabbling in filmmaking, his dissertation focused on the crossover between post-war American film noir and the French New Wave, arguing that the subversive manipulation of the Hollywood genre formula by the auteurs constitutes a political aesthetic. He has published articles on contemporary French fiction, film and existentialism, cinematic phenomenology and new perspectives on the New Wave. He has held teaching positions in Europe, America and Japan, and is currently a Lecturer in the Humanities and the Arts Department at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

Previous Presentations

Featured Interview Session (2021) | Interview with Tracy Mathewson, Writer/Director of award-winning short film CALIFORNIA
Featured Presentation & Film Screening (2018) | Introducing Brighton Rocks
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