IAFOR > MediAsia > Speakers

Speakers

Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

  • William Lindesay OBE
    William Lindesay OBE
    Founder, International Friends of the Great Wall
  • Dr Yutaka Mino
    Dr Yutaka Mino
    Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan
  • Professor Gary E. Swanson
    Professor Gary E. Swanson
    University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)
  • Professor Richard Roth
    Professor Richard Roth
    Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, USA
  • Professor Yoneo Ota
    Professor Yoneo Ota
    Osaka University of Arts & The Toy Film Museum, Japan
  • Dr Virgil Hawkins
    Dr Virgil Hawkins
    Osaka University, Japan
  • Dr Gary McLeod
    Dr Gary McLeod
    Hosei University, Japan & Falmouth University, UK
William Lindesay OBE
Founder, International Friends of the Great Wall

Biography

William Lindesay OBE is an honorary senior research fellow at University of Liverpool, where he studied geography and geology in the 1970s. Recently he received the Royal Society for Asian Affairs’ Special Award 2016. He first went to China to recce the Great Wall in 1986, making the first documented traverse of the ruins on foot the following year, in 1987, in which he covered 2,470 km.

Since 1990 he has resided permanently in China, spending more than 2,700 days on its Great Walls. He has written five books on the subject, published by Harvard University Press and Penguin among others, and fronted documentaries that have been screened on National Geographic Channel, Channel 4, Discovery Channel and the Smithsonian Channel.

William Lindesay is credited with arousing China’s national consciousness to protect the Great Wall and its environment, and he has created/curated two national exhibitions in Beijing, at the Capital Museum and the Imperial Academy, and seven provincial exhibitions. For his work presenting and preserving the Great Wall and assuming the role of its international ambassador he was granted permanent residency in China. He lives with his wife and two sons in Beijing, in a village below the Great Wall in the city’s northern suburbs.

Keynote Presentation | The Great Wall Story – The Way I Have Discovered It
Dr Yutaka Mino
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan

Biography

Yutaka Mino was born in Kanazawa, Japan, in 1941, and has received his PhD in Art History at Harvard University in 1977. He was appointed as the associate curator in charge of Asiatic Department at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1976, the curator of the Oriental Art Department at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1977, and the curator of the Asian Department at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1985. After Returning to Japan, he was appointed as the director of Osaka Municipal Museum of Art in 1996, and as the founding director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2004. In 2007, he assumed the Vice Chairman, Sotheby’s North America, the Chief Executive Director, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and the Honorary Director, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art. In April 2010, he was appointed as the director of Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, in 2012, the director of Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art, in 2013, the Honorary Director, Abeno Harukas Museum of Art. Yutaka Mino has organized many exhibitions, and also published individual books and catalogs such as Freedom of Clay and Brush Through Seven Centuries in Northern China: Tz’u-chou Type Wares, 960-1600 A.D. in 1980 and Hakuji (White Ware), vol.5 in the Chugoku Togi (Chinese Ceramics) series in 1998.

Presentation | Featured Welcome Address
Professor Gary E. Swanson
University of Northern Colorado, USA (fmr.)

Biography

Gary E. Swanson is the former Mildred S. Hansen Endowed Chair and Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence at the University of Northern Colorado, USA. From 2005-2007 Professor Swanson was a Fulbright scholar to China and lectured at Tsinghua University and the Communication University of China. In summer 2008 he was Commentator for China Central Television International (CCTV-9) and their live coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games. Swanson repeated his assignment covering the London Olympics for CCTV-4 in the summer of 2012. Previously, he was professor and director of television for nine years at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he taught mostly graduate broadcast students. He has been an educator for 26 years; 20 years spent teaching at the university level. Swanson is an internationally recognized and highly acclaimed documentary producer, director, editor, photojournalist, consultant and educator. He has given keynote speeches, presented workshopsretd and lectured at embassies, conferences, festivals, and universities throughout China, South Africa, India, Papua New Guinea, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Greece, Germany, Jordan, Spain, Portugal, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Swanson has compiled a distinguished professional broadcast career spanning 13 years: From 1978 to 1991, Swanson worked for the National Broadcasting Company where he was honored with national EMMYs for producing and editing: The Silent Shame, a prime-time investigative documentary; Military Medicine, a two-part investigative series on NBC News; and Hotel Crime, an investigative news magazine piece. Swanson was an editor for "breaking news and features" for NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, the Today Show, Sunrise, Sunday Today, NBC Overnight, A Closer Look, Monitor, and other prime time news magazines. Swanson covered "breaking news" in 26 states and Canada for the network including trips and campaigns of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. Swanson was the Fulbright distinguished lecturer and consultant in television news to the government of Portugal in 1989. In 1992, he covered the XXV Olympics in Barcelona, Spain for NBC News as field producer and cameraman. Swanson has earned more than 75 awards for broadcast excellence and photojournalism including three national EMMYs, the duPont Columbia Award, two CINE 'Golden Eagles,' 16 TELLYs, the Monte Carlo International Award, the Hamburg International Media Festival's Globe Award, the Videographer Award, The Communicator Award, the Ohio State Award, the CINDY Award, the 2011 Communitas Outstanding Professor and Educator award, the 2013 Professor of the Year award, and many others. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana with a Bachelor's degree in Education in 1974, and a Master's degree in Journalism in 1993.

Professor Gary E. Swanson is a member of IAFOR’s Academic Governing Board. He is Chair of the Media & Film section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation | Fake News and the Attack on America’s Freedom of the Press
Professor Richard Roth
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, USA

Biography

Professor Richard Roth has been at Northwestern University in Qatar from its beginning in 2008. Before that, he was Associate Dean, then Senior Associate Dean, of the Medill School of Journalism on the Northwestern campus in Evanston, Illinois for 10 years. Roth has been an educator since 1990, except for a brief stint as a guest editor at The Wall Street Journal in New York at the time that publication launched its online edition, then called wsjie.com, now wsj.com. Before going to The Journal, Roth was tenured on the English faculty at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., where he also served as the adviser to the student newspaper, The DePauw. Before academe, Roth was a newspaperman, having been Editor-in-Chief of the Tribune-Star in Terre Haute, Ind., and a reporter at the late and lamented Buffalo (N.Y.) Courier-Express. He has won dozens of awards for his reporting and writing. Roth has served on the national board of directors of the Society of Professional Journalists, was an international vice president of The Newspaper Guild, president of the Indiana Associated Press Managing Editors association, and academic adviser to the US Project for Excellence in Journalism. He currently serves on the Dean’s Council for the College of Graduate and Professional Studies at Indiana State University, is a member of the National Security Journalism Initiative advisory board at the Medill School of Journalism and is a member of the Advisory Board for the Mass Communication Program at Qatar University.

Keynote Presentation (2017) | History, Story, Narrative
Professor Yoneo Ota
Osaka University of Arts & The Toy Film Museum, Japan

Biography

Professor Yoneo Ota was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1949. While enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Kyoto City University of Arts he initiated and taught a film (image) seminar. Professor Ota studied under screenwriter Yoshikata Yoda, and when Yoda became head of the newly formed Visual Concept Planning Department at the Osaka University of Arts, Professor Ota followed him and joined his team. Professor Ota gained film location experience as a camera assistant at the Daiei Kyoto Studio under the tutelage of cinematographers Kazuo Miyagawa and Fujio Morita. In 1997, he participated in the restoration of Nani ga Kanojo o Sōsaseta ka (“What Made Her Do It?”) (Shigeyoshi Suzuki, 1930) and became the project committee member in charge of the film restoration department of the Kyoto Film Festival, which started that same year. In 2003, he was appointed to be the director of the Toy Film Project. This project is dedicated to the restoration, preservation, investigation and research of toy films and is conducted in conjunction with the Art Research Laboratory of the Osaka University of Arts. In 2005, he became a professor at the Osaka University of Arts (where he continues to lecture). Since 2006 he has been a supervisor for workshops related to film restoration and preservation. Since 2014 he has been the director of the silent film department of the Kyoto Film Festival. In 2015, Professor Ota founded the Kyoto Institute of Film Art and Culture Research (The Toy Film Museum). The museum has discovered, digitally restored and screened Tomiyasu Ikeda's 1926 film Chushingura (“The Loyal 47 Ronin”), as well as Yasujirō Ozu's 1929 film Tokkan Kozo (“A Straightforward Boy”). His work continues.

プロフィール

1949年、京都生まれ。
京都市立芸術大学美術学部在籍中に、「映画(映像）ゼミ」を提案し開講。
シナリオライターの依田義賢に師事。
依田が大阪芸術大学映像学科の学科長になった関係で、
同学科創設時のスタッフとして参加。
カメラマン宮川一夫、森田富士郎の指導で、
撮影助手として大映京都スタジオで、撮影現場を経験。
1997年に「何が彼女をそうさせたか」(1930年、鈴木重吉）の復元に携わり、
同年に京都映画祭がスタートしたことで企画委員となり、映画復元部門を担当。
2003年、大阪芸術大学藝術研究所の共同研究で
「玩具映画および映画復元・調査・研究プロジェクト
(玩具映画プロジェクト）」のディレクター。
2005年に大阪芸術大学教授（現在に至る）。
2006年より「映画の復元と保存に関するワークショップ」を主宰。
2014年より「京都国際映画祭」サイレント映画部門を担当。
2015年、一般社団法人・京都映画芸術文化研究所(おもちゃ映画ミュージア）を創設。
「忠臣蔵」(1926年、池田富保）、「突貫小僧」(1926年、小津安二郎）を発掘上映。
現在に至る。

Featured Presentation | The Disappearance of Silent Film and the Toy Movie Project
Dr Virgil Hawkins
Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Dr Virgil Hawkins holds a PhD in International Public Policy from the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University, where he currently serves as associate professor. He is also a research associate with the University of the Free State, South Africa.

Before joining OSIPP, Virgil Hawkins was an assistant professor at the Global Collaboration Center, Osaka University (2007-2010), and has also served with the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia (AMDA) in Cambodia (technical advisor, 2002-2004), and in Zambia (country director, 2004-2007).

Virgil Hawkins is also a co-founder of the Southern African Centre for Collaboration on Peace and Security (SACCPS). His prime research interest is in the media coverage of conflict (and the lack thereof), most notably in Africa. His most recent book is Communication and Peace: Mapping an Emerging Field, edited with Julia Hoffmann (Routledge, 2015).

Featured Presentation (2017) | Introduction of Osaka University’s Global News View Database
Dr Gary McLeod
Hosei University, Japan & Falmouth University, UK

Biography

Dr Gary McLeod is a Tokyo-based British photographer with a PhD from London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Building on a collective inquiry into photographs from the Challenger expedition (1872–1876), his research explores the convergence of rephotography and participatory/collaborative photographic practices. He is Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Hosei University in Tokyo where he teaches courses in photography and visual communication. Additionally he is a lecturer and module leader for the online MA Photography program offered by Falmouth University. Having lived and taught visual communication design in Turkey and India, and having facilitated numerous rephotography and 'post-photography' workshops around Asia, he continues to look at the world 'with' others as opposed to 'for' them.

Post Conference Featured Workshop (2017) | Then with Now: A Rephotography Workshop at Nunobiki Waterfall, Kobe