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“Life Writing and Asia-Pacific Cultures”: IABA Asia-Pacific International Conference 2019 Held at SJTU

2019-10-28


Commissioned by the Asia-Pacific advisory board of International Auto/Biography Association (IABA), SJTU Center for Life Writing held “Life Writing and Asia-Pacific Cultures”: IABA Asia-Pacific International Conference 2019 from 25 to 27 October 2019 on Minhang Campus, SJTU. The conference has attracted over 100 experts from over 50 well-known universities at home and abroad, including Peking University, Nanjing University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, University of Hawaii, Harvard-Yenching Library, University of Queensland, Flinders University, Wilfrid Laurier University, Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Vienna, Korea University, Showa Women’s University, as well as many magazines and publishing houses.


At the conference

 

Keynote speech at the conference

 


At the conference

 

At the Roundtable 

 

The conference consisted of eight keynote speeches, a roundtable and seventeen  group discussions. The roundtable “Life Writing: Journals and Publications” was the great highlight of this conference, where delegates had a heated discussion over such issues as the aim and direction of publication, the features of the column, contribution, editing, and publications.


At the Group Discussion

 

At the Group Discussion

 


At the Group Discussion 


In the context of an increasingly diversified and integrated world, over 100 experts were invited to this conference to examine various issues in the development of life writing. Their creative and cutting-edge viewpoints were both diversified and inclusive, which would advance the frontier of life writing and take people’s understanding of the very essence of life writing to a new level, that is, the exploration of human nature, the concern for human existence, and the expectation of their future development. 

This conference was held with the support of the Division for Development of Liberal Arts and the School of Humanities at SJTU. Through this conference, SJTU Center for Life Writing has strengthened its leading position in domestic field of life writing, as well as deepened its connection with scholars in this field at home and abroad, greatly increasing its international influence.  


 


Written by SJTU Center for Life Writing
Photo by Gong Chanting and Jin Ye
Translated by Yan Jingjing
Edited by Jenny Cheng and Zhang Yihan