IAFOR > The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (BAMC) > BAMC2020 Overview

BAMC2020 Overview

Join us in Barcelona for BAMC2020!

September 17–20, 2020 | University of Barcelona, Spain

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Welcome to The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture held at and in partnership with the University of Barcelona, Spain.

IAFOR is very excited to be returning to the vibrant city of Barcelona, and continuing our relationship with the University. Barcelona is one of Europe’s most diverse and exciting cities, that has long been at the intersection of different cultures, religions, languages and peoples. Its rich intellectual and artistic traditions have made the city the home to writers, visionaries, artists and dissidents of all backgrounds. It continues to be a place where ideas and ideologies jostle for position, conservatism and change, a place of questioning and subversion; high, low, popular culture and counterculture. As a city it has embraced difference and been forced to embrace difference like few others, and its long history and its present attest to, and contextualise questions of independence, globalisation and belonging, as issues driven by regionalism, nationalism and ethnocentrism play out in the city’s political arenas.

Barcelona is therefore an excellent venue to explore the IAFOR2020 conference theme of “Embracing Difference”, and this conference, held alongside a parallel event in Education, will invite scholars, academics and practitioners to come together from around the world to exchange ideas and invite research collaborations that will be all the richer for exploring, embracing and celebrating our differences.

Inspiring Global Research Collaborations

IAFOR's unique global platform facilitates discussion around specific subject areas, with the goal of generating new knowledge and understanding, forging and expanding new international, intercultural and interdisciplinary research networks and partnerships. We have no doubt that BAMC2020 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice and for the meeting of people and ideas.

We look forward to seeing you in the vibrant, historic city of Barcelona!

– The BAMC2020 Organising Committee

Isabel Alonso-Breto, University of Barcelona, Spain
Sue Ballyn, University of Barcelona, Spain
Montserrat Camps-Gaset, University of Barcelona, Spain
Joseph Haldane, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Donald E. Hall, University of Rochester, USA
Baden Offord, Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia
Cornelis Martin Renes, University of Barcelona, Spain

IAFOR Journal of Education (Scopus Indexed Journal)

This conference is associated with the Scopus and DOAJ listed IAFOR Journal of Education.
 

Key Information
  • Venue & Location: University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Dates: Thursday, September 17, 2020 ​to Sunday, September 20, 2020
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: April 30, 2020*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: June 30, 2020
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: August 07, 2020

*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.

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Speakers

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Programme

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Organising Committee

The Organising Committee of The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (BAMC) is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Organising Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Advisory 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 Organising 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.

  • Isabel Alonso-Breto
    Isabel Alonso-Breto
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Sue Ballyn
    Sue Ballyn
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • Montserrat Camps-Gaset
    Montserrat Camps-Gaset
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Baden Offord
    Baden Offord
    Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia
  • Cornelis Martin Renes
    Cornelis Martin Renes
    University of Barcelona, Spain

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2020 Review Committee

The BAMC2020 Review Committee will be announced here shortly.

IAFOR's peer review process, which involves both reciprocal review and the use of Review Committees, is overseen by conference Organising Committee members under the guidance of the Academic Governing Board. Review Committee members are established academics who hold PhDs or other terminal degrees in their fields and who have previous peer review experience.

If you would like to apply to serve on the BAMC2019 Review Committee, please visit our application page.

Apply to Join the Review Committee

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Isabel Alonso-Breto
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Isabel Alonso-Breto obtained her PhD from the University of Barcelona in 2003, where she is currently a Senior Lecturer. A scholar in the area of Postcolonial Studies, she has worked on authors of Caribbean, Canadian, Indian and South-African origin, while her present research focusses on literature and life writing by Sri Lankan authors, mostly of the diaspora. A visiting scholar in recent years at the Universities of Toronto (Canada) and Marburg (Germany), Dr Alonso-Breto has been the guest editor of several issues of academic journals such as Coolabah and Indialogs, and is the general editor of the miscellaneous journal Blue Gum. Also interested in the social role of creative writing and translation, she has several pieces to her credit in this regard. Lately she has translated into Spanish the anthology Siembra solo Palabras, by Sri Lankan Tamil poet Cheran, published in 2019. Dr Alonso-Breto is a member of Ratnakara, a research group devoted to the study of the literatures and cultures of the Indian Ocean, and the Vice-Director of the Centre for Australian and Transnational Studies at the University of Barcelona.

Sue Ballyn
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Sue Ballyn is the Founder and Honorary Director of the Centre for Australian and Transnational Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona 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 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 25th 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 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.

Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Founder, 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 research and teaching is on history, politics, international affairs and international education, as well as governance and decision making. 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 is 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), where he teaches Ethics and Governance on the MBA programme, and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Education (USA), collaborating on the development of the Global PhD programme.

Dr Haldane has given invited lectures and presentations to universities and conferences around the world, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and advised universities, NGOs and governments on issues relating to international education policy, public-private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder forums. He was the project lead on the 2019 Kansai Resilience Forum, held by the Japanese Government through the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Office in collaboration with IAFOR.

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.

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.

Montserrat Camps-Gaset
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Montserrat Camps-Gaset (Barcelona 1958) graduated in Classical Philology at the University of Barcelona in 1980. Her MA thesis on Maleficent Women in Archaic and Classical Greece won the Faculty prize. In 1985, she read her PhD thesis on Ancient Greek Festivals. In 1982, she also graduated in Theology in Barcelona. In 1989, she became Senior Lecturer at the Barcelona University. In 1992 and 1993, she went to the University of Leipzig thanks to a special development program of the DAAD for East Germany universities.

Apart from Catalan and Spanish, her native tongues, she speaks English, French and German fluently, has a good knowledge of Italian and Modern Greek and a basic level of Russian.
Her main interests are Mythology, First Christianism, Early Byzantine authors, and Classical Tradition. Her interests include folklore, women studies and national identity.

She has translated many works from Greek, German and Modern Greek into Catalan. She is currently working on the Catalan edition of Plato’s Laws in four volumes, and on a Catalan version of the Corpus Hermeticum. She has also translated books for children and youngsters from English and German into Catalan and Spanish. In 2013, she taught a Seminar on Literary Translation at the University of Leipzig.

She has published a book in French on Ancient Greek Festivals, and papers on Ancient Greek Religion, Women Studies, Mythology and EarlyChristianism, as well as Classical Tradition in modern writers. In 1998, she published a book of poetry.

At Barcelona University, she has been Head of the Greek Department (2001-2004) and Dean of the Philological Faculty (2004-2008), and has participated on the University Board for many years.
She is a member of several societies for Classical Studies and for Literature, such as the Catalan Pen Club.

Since 2008, she is a member of the CEAT’s Executive Committee. Thinking that academic activity must also include an engagement in communicating with a broader audience, she has undertaken the honour of codirecting the Centre as a new academic challenge for developing its capacity of producing and sharing knowledge.

Baden Offord
Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia & Cultural Studies Association of Australasia

Biography

Baden Offord is an internationally recognized specialist in human rights, sexuality, education and culture. In 2012 he was a sponsored speaker to the 14th EU-NGO Human Rights Forum in Brussels where he spoke on ASEAN and sexual justice issues. In the same year he conducted a three-week lecture tour of Japan sponsored by the Australian Prime Minister’s Educational Assistance Funds post the Great Eastern Tohoku Earthquake in 2011.

Among his publications are the books Homosexual Rights as Human Rights: Activism in Indonesia, Singapore and Australia (2003), Activating Human Rights (co-edited with Elizabeth Porter, 2006), Activating Human Rights Education (co-edited with Christopher Newell, 2008), and Activating Human Rights and Peace: Theories, Practices, Contexts (co-edited with Bee Chen Goh and Rob Garbutt, 2012). His most recent co-authored publication in the field of Australian Cultural Studies is titled Inside Australian Culture: Legacies of Enlightenment Values (with Kerruish, Garbutt, Wessell and Pavlovic, 2014), which is a collaborative work with the Indian cultural theorist Ashis Nandy. His latest chapter, ‘Queer activist intersections in Southeast Asia: human rights and cultural studies,’ appears in Ways of Knowing About Human Rights in Asia (ed. Vera Mackie, London, Routledge, 2015).

He has held visiting positions at The University of Barcelona, La Trobe University, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and Rajghat Education Centre, Varanasi. In 2010-2011 he held the Chair (Visiting Professor) in Australian Studies, Centre for Pacific Studies and American Studies, The University of Tokyo. In Japan he has given lectures and research seminars at Chuo, Otemon Gakuin, Sophia, Tohoku and Keio Universities.

Prior to his appointment at Curtin University, he was Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Southern Cross University, where he was a faculty member from 1999 to 2014.

Professor Baden 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.

Cornelis Martin Renes
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Cornelis Martin Renes graduated from the University of Barcelona with a BA in 2001, an MA in 2006 and PhD in 2010. He joined the English and German Philology staff in 2001. His main teaching areas have been English poetry from the Renaissance to contemporary times, and postcolonial studies with a special emphasis on the Asia-Pacific area and Australia in particular. He wrote his thesis on indigenous Australian literature and identity formation. He co-directs the Australian Studies Centre at the university, which was recognised as an official University of Barcelona Centre in 2000. Since the 2000s his main area of research has been indigenous Australian literature, and more recently he has become a member of a research project, POCRIF, which looks at postcolonial crime fiction and is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education. He currently holds the positions of Adjunct Lecturer, Co-Director of the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona, and Member of the EASA (European Association for Studies of Australia) Board. He maintains steady contact with Australian academia through visiting fellowships.