Conference Theme: “Power”
April 2–5, 2015 | Osaka International Conference Center, Osaka, Japan
The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities 2015 (ACAH2015) was held alongside The Asian Conference on Literature & Librarianship 2015 (LibrAsia2015) in the culturally rich Kansai region of Japan, home to the modern metropolis of Osaka/Kobe and the historical capitals of Nara and Kyoto. It was in these wonderful surroundings that we welcomed more than 350 attendees from more than 40 countries to an event promising to stimulate personal and professional research collaborations around the conference theme for this year, “Power”. That promise was fulfilled in a diverse and truly interdisciplinary IAFOR gathering. Power remains one of the most contested, debated, omnipresent yet ungraspable of concepts. While the fact of power remains constant, changes in political, social, economic and cultural conditions require us as scholars to periodically take stock of, analyse and trace the workings and origins of power. Our 350 delegates grasped the opportunity to explore and discuss this theme with great passion within the disciplinary orbits of Arts, Humanities, Literature and Librarianship and the forthcoming conference proceedings will certainly bear this passion and energy for outstanding research and deliberation out.
LibrAsia annually hosts the award ceremony for the IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award. This year the winner was named as Boris Nazansky of Croatia by Keynote Speaker Dr A Robert Lee. IAFOR was also thrilled to welcome Emiko Miyashita and Hana Fujimoto of the Haiku International Association back to LibrAsia to run their popular Haiku Workshop, during which participants were invited to write their own poems and listen to some of the most famous examples of the poetry form.
It was an honour to play host to award-winning Osaka-based Akutagawa Senior High School Drum Club whose performance was an exemplary illustration of the “Power” theme, and was a highlight of the conference. IAFOR values the local cultural community and our delegates’ experience of it, so we go to every length to reflect this in our rich and varied programme of events.
ACAH2015 Conference Photographs
Human interaction is at the root of all knowledge creation, and hence the great importance of the conference in introducing, testing and spreading ideas through challenging, rigorous and thought provoking discussion and debate. But beyond that, a conference is also a great chance to meet people from around the world, and to extend and grow ones’s professional network, and above all, to make friends.
It may be impossible to tell the story of the conference, or rather the many hundreds of interlocking stories that go to make up the conference, but the documentary photography in this slideshow aims to give a taster of the more serious academic side of the event, as well as the lighter side…