IAFOR > The Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE) > BCE2024 Overview

BCE2024 Overview

Join us in Barcelona for BCE2024!

13-16 November, 2024 | Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)

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Welcome to The 4th Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE2024), held in partnership with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, Japan.

For those of you who were fortunate enough to attend an IAFOR conference before COVID appeared from over the horizon, you will remember the calibre of research presented, the thrill of listening to engaging keynotes, discussions with respected plenary speakers, and socialising with like-minded scholars from across the globe. The opportunity to not only meet with old friends from previous IAFOR conferences, but also to introduce new minds into your intellectual network.

So what about conferences under the “new normal” COVID restrictions in effect across the world? IAFOR saw very quickly that the online and hybrid conferences were the only way to keep the heart of the academic community beating, and adapted their activities to suit this rare situation with finesse. Of course, nothing can substitute the dynamism of in-person conferences, but the IAFOR online experience not only maintains the superb quality one expects of an IAFOR conference, it surpasses, by taking advantage of innovative and exciting and new formats that could only have been envisioned in the wake of a global crisis. How about a face-to-face conversation between two experts, writers, filmmakers, from countries thousands of miles apart? Experts who otherwise would have been unable to meet due to geographical or political adversities– a magnificent opportunity indeed.

There are more reasons than ever before to join BCE and BAMC in Barcelona. The era of the online and hybrid conference is strange and unfamiliar, but also revolutionary and liberating, opening doors and allowing its speakers’ words to be heard across the world.

The Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE2024) will be held alongside The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (BAMC2024), and many of the sessions will concentrate on areas at the intersection of education and the arts and humanities. In keeping with IAFOR’s commitment to interdisciplinary study, delegates at either conference are encouraged to attend sessions in other disciplines. Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other. We expect the resultant professional and personal collaborations to endure for many years, and we look forward to seeing you in Barcelona and online!

– The BCE2024 Conference Committee

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: Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)
  • Dates: Tuesday, November 12, 2024 ​to Saturday, November 16, 2024
  • Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: June 14, 2024*
  • Final Abstract Submission Deadline: August 16, 2024
  • Registration Deadline for Presenters: September 20, 2024

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

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Plenary Speakers

  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    Binghamton University, United States

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Programme

  • The Work of the University in Perilous Times
    The Work of the University in Perilous Times
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

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Conference Committees

International Advisory Board

Dr Joseph Haldane, Chairman and CEO, IAFOR
His Excellency Professor Toshiya Hoshino, Osaka University, Japan
Professor Barbara Lockee, Virginia Tech., United States
Professor Donald E. Hall, Binghamton University, United States
Dr James W. McNally, University of Michigan, United States & NACDA Program on Aging
Professor Haruko Satoh, Osaka University, Japan
Dr Grant Black, Chuo University, Japan
Professor Dexter Da Silva, Keisen University, Japan
Professor Gary Swanson, University of Northern Colorado, United States
Professor Baden Offord, Curtin University, Australia
Professor Frank Ravitch, Michigan State University, United States
Professor William Baber, Kyoto University, Japan

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Conference Programme Committee

Conference Co-Chairs

Dr Joseph Haldane, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Professor Sue Ballyn, University of Barcelona, Spain

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Review Committee

The BCE2024 Review Committee is now accepting submissions.

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 BCE2023 Review Committee, please visit our application page.

Apply to Join the Review Committee

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Donald E. Hall
Binghamton University, United States

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Provost 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.

Keynote Presentation (2024): The Work of the University in Perilous Times
Keynote Presentation (2023): There Is No New Normal
The Work of the University in Perilous Times
Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

AsAs wars rage across the globe and as narcissistic politicians stoke mistrust in institutions—fanning the flames of racism and anti-intellectualism—the university campus has become a battleground over questions of social justice and fact-based understandings of history and the roots of inequality. Japanese, American, and European institutions have certainly seen past instances of such violent clashes over the very purpose of higher education, but today we find political interest groups using both mass and social media to incite conflict in new and shocking ways. We who work at universities are on the front lines—whether as students, professors, staff members, or administrators. We must be prepared to act bravely, but also tactically, as guardians of historical truth, as defenders of science, and as advocates for the needs of those groups and individuals easily scapegoated.

This is not a call to martyrdom. However, if we are not clever and subversive, we will lose the very positionality that enables our work and effectiveness.

In this address which will reference (among others) works by Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault, both of whom were embroiled in the radical politics that shook late 1960s French higher education, I will argue for the use of multivalent tactics that are radical in intent but also self-protective in nature.

In drawing on examples from an international array of academic institutions, as well as works of fiction, film, and theory, I will ask conference members to take the work of IAFOR—its advocacy for international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary understanding—back to their home campuses. Indeed, the empathy, self-awareness, and commitment to understanding that we learn to exercise at IAFOR conferences represent critical skill sets that we must draw on as we wrestle with and respond to the growing volatility of our academic lives.

Read presenter's biography