13th Biennial Symposium on Literatures and Cultures of the Asia Pacific Region (20-23 Nov 2009)

The 13th Biennial Symposium on Literatures and Cultures of the Asia Pacific Region (click HERE for the website link) is being held 20 to 23 November 2009 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, organized by the English Language and Literature Department, International Islamic University Malaysia.

The symposium is 26 years old and alternate Asian cities host it. 

This academic forum aims to bring together scholars from around the world to speak on contemporary issues of identity, nationalism and globalisation in the national and indigenous literatures of the Asia-Pacific region.

The keynote speaker is Benedict Anderson, Professor Emeritus  of International Studies, Department of Government & Asian Studies at Cornell University, United States. Guggenheim Fellow and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,  Anderson was born in Kunming, China.  

Among the terrific line up of speakers listed on the program are:  

Edwin Thumboo , an award-winning Singaporean poet and academic who is regarded as one of the pioneers of English Literature in Singapore.

Bruce Bennett, Chair of English at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, has held visiting appointments at universities in Asia, Europe and North America and advised universities and schools on curriculum development in the Arts and Humanities.

Dennis Haskell, recently appointed as Chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, an  Professor of English, Communications & Cultural Studies at University of Western Australia.

Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo is author and editor of more than 20 books of fiction, including two novels, creative nonfiction, and literary criticism. Her stories and essays have been included in anthologies and journals in the Philippines and abroad, and she has been invited to lecture in universities internationally and locally. 

 Sudesh Mishra was born in Suva and educated in Fiji and Australia.  He has taught at various universities in Australia, Fiji and Britain.  Earlier this year he was writer-in-residence at the Pacific Writing Forum in Suva while on study leave from Deakin University where he is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative and Communication Studies. 

 Ibrahim Mohamed Zein is Professor and Dean of the Islamic International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), IIUM. Educated in Sudan and United States, he has published many articles and books both in Arabic and English.

Adeline Koh is a postdoctoral fellow with the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. She is currently working on projects involving colonial literature, modernism, and the intersections of African and Asian literatures.

David Farrah received his Ph.D. from Ohio University (Athens) and is Professor of English at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies in Japan.  His poems and essays have appeared in various journals, including Denver Quarterly, Kyoto Journal, The Ohio Review, and Poetry Ireland Review.  His books, Small Sounds in the Brush (poetry and short tales), The Poems of Nunobiki Falls (translations), and Parity’s Ground (poetry), have all been published by Shinbisha of Tokyo.

Bernard Wilson is Associate Professor in English in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. His research and teaching interests are in postcolonial theory and literature, Orientalism, travel writing, film and animation, Modernism, Postmodernism, and children’s literature. He is widely published in postcolonial literature and theory, particularly in Southeast Asian Anglophile literature and in East-West interpretations in literature and film. An Australian, Bernard has previously held lectureships in English at the Flinders University of South Australia; the Center for American Education, Singapore; and the Department of Comparative Culture, Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University, Japan. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the English Department of the University of Hong Kong in 2005, where he is now an honorary professor, and was a Cohen-Porter Visiting Lecturer at the University of Tel Aviv in 2006.

 Isabela Mooney is Associate Professor of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines. Her areas of interest are poetry (writing) and Philippine literature. Under the name Isabela Banzon, Lola Coqueta, a book of poems, was published by the University of the Philippines Press recently (2009). She is currently co-working on an anthology of Southeast Asian literature in English and on a critical anthology of Philippine Literature in English as part of Edwin Thumboo’s project on Writing Asia: The Literature in Englishes.

 Lily Rose Tope is Professor of Asian/ Southeast Asian Literature in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines.  A PhD holder from the National University of Singapore, she has authored  a number of works including  a chapter, “Writing Asia: The Literatures in Englishes”, in  From The Inside: Asia and Pacific Literatures in Englishes  (2007). She is also currently the editor for The Asian Scholarship Foundation E-Journal, and, was associate editor for Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature in 2005.

Carlotta Lady Ixumi Abrams, Ph.D., holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi in Asian American literature. She has written more than 22 publications including articles, fiction, poetry, and non -fiction. They are primarily in the area of Asian and Asian American literature. Carlotta teaches English, writing, and anthropology at Estrella College in Arizona.