Meet our PrestigiousDriving Vision and Strategy for a Successful Conference
Our Inspirational Speakers
Keynote Speakers
Professor Paul Arthur
Chair in Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Arts and Humanities, Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Research Fellow, Edith Cowan University, Australia
Professor Paul Arthur was appointed to ECU as a Professorial Research Fellow in 2016. He holds a PhD in English, Communication, and Cultural Studies from the University of Western Australia. Professor Arthur speaks and publishes widely on major challenges and changes facing 21st-century society, from the global impacts of technology on culture and identity to migration and human rights. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he has over 100 publications including 13 books (authored and edited). His latest book is Open Scholarship in the Humanities (with Lydia Hearn, Bloomsbury open access, 2024, https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350232303).
In the past decade Professor Arthur has received over $5 million in Australian and international grants, individually and in collaboration. He has served on the executive boards and councils of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO); centerNet—the worldwide network of digital humanities research centres (Co-Chair, 2015–2019); the International Auto/Biography Association (IABA); the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (founding President 2011–2015, Vice-President 2018–2021); the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (founding board member 2010–2019); and the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (Nectar) Super Science initiative of the Australian Government (2012–2018).
Paul Arthur is known as a leading figure in the development of the field of digital humanities in Australia and internationally, and he was Australia’s first Professor in Digital Humanities (at Western Sydney University). He previously worked at the Australian National University in roles including as Deputy Director of the Centre for European Studies and Deputy Director of the National Centre of Biography. He oversaw the digital production of the largest collaborative project in the humanities and social sciences in Australia as Deputy General Editor of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Paul Arthur has held a number of prestigious visiting positions in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America, including as Visiting Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2016-17. He was Dr R. Marika Chair of Australian and Indigenous Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany, in 2013-14, and was selected for the inaugural Indian Government Global Initiative for Academic Network Program for Distinguished International Faculty in 2015. He is an Adjunct Professor of the School of Humanities and Creative Arts, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
Professor James Gardner
Chair of the Art and Design Department John Cabot University Rome, Italy
Curating Community: Translating Gallery Practice into Studio Pedagogy
Professor James Gardner, Chair of the Art and Design Department at John Cabot University, teaches Drawing and 3D Design courses. He has lectured and taught at many of the world’s most prestigious Art and Design colleges.
Professor Gardner established Frutta Gallery, a leading art gallery based in Rome, which has an international reputation for discovering and supporting emerging artists. The gallery represents a group of interdisciplinary artists, from various countries, who work across a variety of media such as painting, sculpture, and performance. He was named one of London’s Apollo magazine’s “40 under 40 in the Art World” and his exhibitions have been reviewed in some of the Art industry’s most important publications, including: Artforum, Frieze and Art Review. His gallery regularly presents at international art fairs such as Frieze London and Liste in Basel.
Prof. Haisang Javanalikhikara
Faculty of Fine and Applied Art Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Haisang Javanalikhikara (ให้แสง ชวนะลิขิกร) (b. 1987, Bangkok) lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand fielding in art and culture. She completed BA in Media Arts from Royal Holloway, University of London (2010) and received her MLitt in Modern and Contemporary Art focusing on curatorial practice from Christie’s Education, University of Glasgow (2011). After five years of art education in the UK, Haisang came back to Thailand and took a research task on abstract paintings for Assoc. Professor Kade Javanalikhikara. In 2012, she started working at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) as a coordinator for Art Networks Department, then became a project manager and an assistant curator for Exhibition Department while continuing her study in Doctor of Fine and Applied Art at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Haisang is currently a part-time and guest lecturer, giving various lectures involving modern to contemporary art history, aesthetics, and art, visual, cultural interpretation. Occasionally, she is posited as a freelance art and cultural worker.
Keynote speech title: More Than a Metaphor: Culture as Cornerstone in Wartime
Professor Rebecca Duclos
Faculty of Fine Arts
Concordia University,
Canada
Uliana Furiv
UAx Platform Manager
ELIA ,Ukraine
Uliana Furiv is the UAx Platform Manager at ELIA, where she leads a bold initiative supporting Ukrainian art schools and students through international collaboration in times of war. Originally from Ukraine, Uliana brings deep experience in higher education, crisis response, and global partnerships. She has worked with UNESCO and Utrecht University on projects related to educational resilience and internationalisation of higher education. She holds a master’s degree in research and Innovation in Higher Education from the University of Tampere, Finland. At ELIA, a global network of arts universities, she is shaping a community of solidarity and transformation for Ukrainian arts education amidst conflict.
Asst Prof. Ishita Tiwary
Research Chair at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema ,
Concordia University,
Canada
Asst Prof. Ishita Tiwary’s research interests include video cultures, media infrastructures, migration, contraband media practices, and media aesthetics. She has published essays in Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, JumpCut, Post Script: Essays in Film and Humanities, Culture Machine, MARG: Journal of Indian Art.
Her first book Video Culture in India: The Analog Era (Oxford University Press, 2024) narrates the history of video technology in India since its introduction in the 1980s, locating the moment within the country’s socio-political context. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of video technology in post-1980s India: one that speaks to its global history and context and fills the lacunae in the existing literature of the field. The monograph draws on diverse oral histories and forgotten archives to unravel the history of analog video in India.
She is currently working on streaming platforms and their impact on media industries in India. She is also directs the research lab Raah which aims to examine the intersection of migratory processes and media practices. Raah’s project is a community-driven model, which hopes to bring together scholars, activists and community partners in a single space, becoming the first institutional hub in Canada for the study of media and migration.
Workshop Speakers
Prof Logamurthie Athiemoolam
Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
Professor Logamurthie Athiemoolam is a faculty member at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, specializing in preparing pre-service teachers to teach English and focusing on education and language issues across the curriculum. His research areas include language teaching and learning, general education, drama- and theatre-in-education, and diversity pedagogy. He has presented over 40 papers, supervised numerous students, and published extensively in these fields. With over 20 years of collaboration with Carl von Ossietzky University in Germany, he has also worked with Moi University in Kenya on research supervision. His vision is to promote drama pedagogy as a means of fostering critical and creative thinking in teaching and learning.
Senior Prof. Neelakshi Premawardhena
Department of Modern Languages, Faculty of Humanities University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
Senior Professor Neelakshi Premawardhena is a renowned linguist and foreign language educator specializing in German studies, sociolinguistics, and computer-assisted language learning. Holding a Ph.D. from the University of Siegen, she has contributed extensively to contrastive linguistics, intercultural communication, and second-language acquisition. With numerous publications and international conference presentations, her research focuses on integrating technology and cultural aspects into language teaching, shaping modern educational practices.
Plenary Speakers
Prof. Dr. Banu Baybars Hawks
Kadir Has University, Turkey
Topic: "Dashboard to Discourse: Embedding AI-Powered Counterspeech in CMS-Driven Newsrooms in Polarised Media Environments"
Prof. Dr. Banu Baybars Hawks Banu Baybars is a professor of Communication at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her research interests include media studies, media law, the political economy of media, and terrorism. She has received his PhD at University of Tennnessee, Knoxville during the period of 2002. Currently she is working as Director in Kadir Has University. She has been organizing an international conference every year since 2010 titled The International Conference on Conflict, Terrorism and Society (ICCTS). The main aim of the conference is to bring together academics, researchers, experts and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines working on the subject. The conference is multidisciplinary with a specific focus on political, international and communication studies.
She has extensively worked on the topic of government censorship on the media in different countries and has many books and articles on that. Some of her recent publications appeared in Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea (SSCI) (2022) titled “Repressed media and illiberal politics in Turkey: the persistence of fear,” in International Relations Journal (SSCI) (2018) with a title “Framing the Russian Warplane Crisis: News Discourse in Turkey’s Polarized Media Environment,” and in the International Journal on Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics (2016), titled “(Mis)communication Across the Borders: Politics, media and public opinion in Turkey.” Her the most cited academic article globally is written with Dr. Murat Akser titled “Media and Democracy in Turkey: Toward a Model of Neo-Liberal Media Autocracy,” in the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (2012).
Panel Speakers
Kenneth Lee Tze Wui
Senior Lecturer & Head of Department, Department of Mass Communication, Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia
Kenneth Lee Tze Wui is an academic and researcher in communication studies, specialising in media, digital communication, identity construction, and nation-building. As a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Mass Communication at the Faculty of Creative Industries, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Malaysia, he is involved in teaching, research, and programme management.
His scholarly work examines media framing, political discourse, crisis response reporting, and misinformation and disinformation, particularly in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. In recent years, his research has expanded to the Malaysian Siamese minority, exploring its identity negotiation and representation within the nation-building framework.
Kenneth’s work has been published in journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters. As an active member of UTAR’s Tun Tan Cheng Lock Research Institute, he contributes to research on social issues and policy development, aiming to bridge academic inquiry with real-world impact.
Beyond research, he actively participates in academic conferences, symposiums, and workshops, engaging in discussions on media freedom, misinformation, political discourse, ethnic representation, and digital communication. His involvement includes keynote addresses, panel discussions, and interdisciplinary dialogues, reflecting his commitment to fostering meaningful conversations on media and societal change.
As an educator, he has taught courses on media, communication, culture, and society, equipping students with critical perspectives on media’s evolving role. He is also affiliated with Persatuan Aliran Kesedaran Negara (Aliran) and the Southeast Asian Media Studies Association (SEAMSA), maintaining strong connections with scholars and professionals in his field.
Prof. Dr. Sharifah Faizah Syed Mohammed
Dean of Research and Innovation ,College of Creative Arts, Universiti Teknologi MARA , Malaysia
Storyteller
Parul Soni
Professional Kathak dancer, India
Invited Speaker
Abeer Zeibak Haddad
Filmmaker (Director, Producer, and Actor)
Senior Lecturer at Beit Berl Academic College
"Silence to Freedom: Cinema as a Tool for Social Change"
Abeer Zeibak Haddad is a filmmaker, theater director, actress, and senior lecturer dedicated to social change and women’s rights. Her documentaries, Duma and Women of Freedom, tackle sexual abuse and honor killings in Arab and Palestinian society. These films have screened internationally, including in festivals, prisons, and universities, sparking critical dialogue.
Her debut film, Duma (2011), was the first to address sexual abuse in Arab society, winning Best Television and Video Production at Urban TV 2012. Women of Freedom (2016), which won five awards, exposes the realities of honor killings and the justice system’s failures, earning praise as a “visual masterpiece.”
In addition to filmmaking, Abeer has had a significant career in theater, producing and acting in award-winning plays such as Aunt Reem, Chocolate, and Sayed Ibrahim and Flowers of the Qur’an. She also played a notable role in 3000 Nights by Mai Masri.
Abeer has served as a judge in numerous film and theater competitions, including the One-Minute Film Competition on diversity and equality. In 2013, she was on the international jury of the Religion Today Film Festival in Italy.
Born in Nazareth and residing in Jaffa, Abeer holds an MA in Theatre Arts from Tel Aviv University and is a senior lecturer at Beit Berl College. She received the President’s Award for Integrating ICT in Teaching (2019).
Recently, she was honored with the Best Presentation Award at the 2024 Future of Women Conference in Bangkok. She is currently working on Memories from Jaffa, the first in a series of short documentaries on Palestinian women’s roles before 1948, preserving their contributions for future generations.
