“Connectedness, Identity and Alienation: The 21st Century Enigma”
April 4–7, 2013 | The Ramada Osaka, Osaka, Japan
Over 275 delegates from over 40 countries were welcomed to Osaka for The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities 2013 (ACAH2013) and The Asian Conference on Literature & Librarianship 2013 (LibrAsia2013). The conference, which had the theme of “Connectedness, Identity and Alienation: The 21st Century Enigma”, was fortunate to have a high caliber of feature speakers and presenters.
The 2013 keynote address by Professor Mark Williams of Akita International University was titled "Life after Death? Writing within the Alienated Self in Post-War Japan". It was a fascinating insight into the lives of Japanese authors Shimao Toshio and Shiina Rinzo and the role that literature played in dealing with the horror and trauma of war. This years featured speaker at the conference was Professor Tien-Hiu Chiang from the National University of Tainan, Taiwan. Professor Chiang, a widely noted and published scholar, gave an address on how teachers contribute towards the pedagogy of normalised cultural capital, which results in the phenomenon of cultural reproduction within their students.
A continuing feature of IAFORs Osaka based conferences is the showcasing of the Arts and Culture of Japan. The 2013 conference saw the awarding of the third annual Vladmir Devide Haiku Poetry Award to Krzysztof Kokot of Poland, as well as a creative Haiku writing workshop given by prominent Haiku exponents Emiko Miyashita and Hana Fujimoto. The performance of the Taiko drums by leading Japanese group Batiholic was also a cultural highlight for the conference attendees. The conference attendees also had the opportunity to gain knowledge and practical experience of the Japanese art of Calligraphy, with an informative demonstration given Calligraphy students from Ritsumeikan University.