The Asian Conference on Literature 2017 (LibrAsia2017)

Dear Colleague, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) invites you to participate in The Asian Conference on Literature 2017 (LibrAsia2017), held Thursday, March 30 - Sunday, April 2, 2017. Submit your abstract by November 15, 2016 to join IAFOR and delegates from around the world in the beautiful city of Kobe, Japan. Registration includes admission to The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities 2017 (ACAH2017), which is to be held alongside LibrAsia2017 as part of the same event. This gathering of academics at the intersection of nation, culture and discipline promises a unique environment for conversation, information exchange and networking. Join us at LibrAsia2017 for interdisciplinary discussion around the shared conference theme of: "History, Story and Narrative" We hope that the broad nature of this theme will encourage the submission of works from a variety of interesting perspectives. IAFOR welcomes submissions to LibrAsia2017 from all over the world. We encourage you to join us in Kobe to share your research and knowledge in an international, intercultural and interdisciplinary setting. To submit an abstract for presentation or participate as an audience member, please visit the website or contact us for more information. Abstract Submission Deadline: November 15, 2016 Submit your abstract: www.iafor.org/cfp Visit the conference website: www.librasia.iafor.org Enquiries: librasia@iafor.org In conjunction with our global partners, we look forward to extending you a warm welcome in 2017. ------------- ***Join IAFOR at LibrAsia2017 and: – Deliver your research findings to a global audience – Have your work published in the Conference Proceedings and considered for the peer-reviewed, open-access IAFOR Journals – Benefit from IAFOR's interdisciplinary focus by hearing about the latest research in the Literature, Arts, Humanities, and more – Participate in a truly international, interdisciplinary and intercultural event – Take part in interactive audience sessions – Network with international colleagues **Register now to take advantage of Early Bird Registration and save over 20%. Early Bird Registration is open until December 15, 2016. Please see the registration page for details: www.iafor.org/librasia2017-registration *If you have attended an IAFOR conference within the past year, or belong to an affiliated university or institution, we offer additional discounts in appreciation of your support. Please contact us at librasia@iafor.org for details. ------------- ***Conference Theme: "History, Story, Narrative" Historians are far from the only interested party in writing history. In a sense it is an interest we all share – whether we are talking politics, region, family birthright, or even personal experience. We are both spectators to the process of history while being intimately situated within its impact and formations. How, then, best to write it? Is it always the victor's version? Have we not begun increasingly to write "history from below," that lived by those who are not at the top of the power hierarchy? Are accounts of history always gender-inflected, hitherto at least men rather than women? Who gets to tell history if the issue is colonialism or class? How does geography, the power of place, intersect with history? What is the status of the personal story or narrative within the larger frame of events? This conference addresses issues of writing history from literary and other discursive perspectives. That is to say: novels, plays, poems, autobiography, memoir, diary, travel log, and a variety of styles of essay. One thinks of Shakespeare's history plays, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Shi Nai'an's The Water Margin, Balzac's La Comédie Humaine. It also addresses oral history, the spoken account or witness, Hiroshima survivor to modern Syrian migrant Which also connects to the nexus of media and history. The great "historical" films continue to hold us, be it Eisenstein's October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1925) or Gone with the Wind (1940). We live in an age of documentaries, whether film or TV. There is a view that we also inhabit "instant" history, the download to laptop, the app, the all-purpose mobile. How has this technology changed our perception, our lived experience, of history? What is the role of commemoration, parade, holiday, festival, or statuary, in the writing of history? The different modes by which we see and understand history, flow and counter-flow, nevertheless come back to certain basics. One asks whether we deceive ourselves in always asking for some grand narrative. Can there only be one narrator or is history of necessity a colloquium, contested ground? Is national history a myth? And history-writing itself: is it actually a form of fiction, an artifice which flatters to deceive? What, exactly, is a historical fact? ***Conference Organizing Committee Dr A. Robert Lee, Nihon University, Japan (retd.) Professor Myles Chilton, Nihon University, Japan Dr Richard Donovan, Kansai University, Japan Dr Joseph Haldane, President & CEO, IAFOR ------------- ***About IAFOR IAFOR welcomes academics from all over the world to our interdisciplinary conferences held in Japan, UK, Spain, USA and the UAE. Our events provide a unique international, intercultural and interdisciplinary environment in which to hear about the latest world-class research and network with leading academics, professionals and practitioners. By facilitating dialogue between the world's academics and thought leaders, IAFOR has become a pioneer in providing the research avenues and visionary development solutions that are necessary in our rapidly emerging globalised world. We welcome you to engage in this expanding global academic community of individuals and network of institutions, and look forward to seeing you at one of our future events. To learn more about IAFOR, please visit our website at www.iafor.org. For enquiries please contact librasia@iafor.org.