IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy (ACERP) > ACERP2019 > Organising Committee

Organising Committee

The Organising Committee of The Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy (ACERP) is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Organising Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Advisory Board. The Organising Committee is responsible for nominating and vetting Keynote and Featured Speakers; developing the conference programme, including special workshops, panels, targeted sessions, and so forth; event outreach and promotion; recommending and attracting future Organising Committee members; working with IAFOR to select PhD students and early career academics for IAFOR-funded grants and scholarships; and overseeing the reviewing of abstracts submitted to the conference.

  • George D. Chryssides
    George D. Chryssides
    The University of Birmingham, UK
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Monty P. Satiadarma
    Monty P. Satiadarma
    Tarumanagara University, Indonesia
  • Frank S. Ravitch
    Frank S. Ravitch
    Michigan State University College of Law, USA
  • Dexter Da Silva
    Dexter Da Silva
    Keisen University, Japan
  • Brian Victoria
    Brian Victoria
    Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK

Previous Organising Committees

View details of organising committees at past ACERP conferences via the links below.

ACERP2018 ACERP2017 ACERP2016
ACERP2015 ACERP2014 ACERP2013
ACERP2012 ACERP2011
George D. Chryssides
The University of Birmingham, UK

Biography

Dr George D. Chryssides is Honorary Research Fellow in Contemporary Religion at the University of Birmingham, after being Head of Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, from 2001 to 2008. George Chryssides obtained a First Class Honours MA degree in philosophy at the University of Glasgow, and a First Class Honours Bachelor of Divinity in systematic theology. He subsequently undertook postgraduate research at the University of Oxford, obtaining his doctorate in 1974.

From the 1980, George Chryssides’ main interest has been new religious movements, on which he has authored numerous books and scholarly articles. Recent publications include Historical Dictionary of Jehovah’s Witnesses (2008), Heaven’s Gate: Postmodernity and Popular Culture in a Suicide Group (2011), Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2012), The Bloomsbury Companion to New Religious Movements (co-edited with Benjamin E. Zeller,2014), and Jehovah’s Witnesses: Continuity and Change (2015). He is a regular presenter at national and international conferences.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Presentation information will be added here shortly
Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

He is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade, a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance.

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

A black belt in judo, he is married with two children, and lives in Japan.

Monty P. Satiadarma
Tarumanagara University, Indonesia

Biography

Dr Satiadarma is a clinical psychologist who has been teaching psychology at Tarumanagara University since 1994. He was one of the founders of the Department of Psychology at Tarumanagara, as well as the Dean of Psychology, Vice Rector and Rector of the university. He graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Indonesia, art therapy from Emporia State, Kansas, family counselling from Notre Dame de Namur, California, and clinical hypnotherapy from Irvine, California. He has nationally published a number of books with a particular interest in educational psychology, and in music and art therapy – methods with which he treated survivors of the Indonesian tsunami on behalf of the International Red Cross and the United Nations. He is a board member and area chair of the International Council of Psychology, and a founder and board member of the Asian Psychology Association.

Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy

Previous Presentations

IAAB Presentation (2017) | Life Changes, Identity Loss and Psychological Problems
Spotlight Presentation (2016) | Fairness and Happiness
Spotlight Presentation (2015) | The Lucifer Effect in Indonesian Educational Settings
Featured Presentation (2014)
Featured Presentation (2013)
Featured Presentation (2012)
Frank S. Ravitch
Michigan State University College of Law, USA

Biography

Frank S. Ravitch is Professor of Law and Walter H. Stowers Chair in Law in Religion at the Michigan State University College of Law. He also directs the MSU College of Law, Kyoto Japan Program. He is the author of Freedom’s Edge: Religious Freedom, Sexual Freedom, and the Future of America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (Nominated for a Prose Award); Marketing Creation: The Law and Intelligent Design (Cambridge University Press 2012), Masters of Illusion: The Supreme Court and the Religion Clauses (NYU Press 2007); Law and Religion: Cases, Materials, and Readings (West 2004)(2nd Ed. 2008) (3rd Ed. 2015 with Larry Cata Backer), School Prayer and Discrimination: The Civil Rights of Religious Minorities and Dissenters (Northeastern University Press, 1999 & paperback edition 2001). He is co-author, with the late Boris Bittker and with Scott Idleman, of the first comprehensive treatise on Law and Religion in more than one hundred years, Religion and the State in American Law (Cambridge University Press 2015) (this project was supported by a generous grant from the Lilly Endowment). He is also co-author of, Employment Discrimination Law (Prentice Hall, 2005) (with Pamela Sumners and Janis McDonald).

Professor Ravitch's articles, which have appeared in a number of highly regarded journals, have primarily focused on law and religion in the US and Japan, but he has also written about civil rights law and disability discrimination. He has authored a number of amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court and has given numerous academic presentations nationally and internationally. In 2001, he was named a Fulbright scholar and served on the law faculty at Doshisha University (Japan). He has also made dozens of public presentations explaining the law before school groups, community groups, and service clubs and has served as an expert commentator for print and broadcast media.

Professor Ravitch’s current projects include a book on the Japanese Legal System (co-authored with Colin Jones), a chapter on law and religious tradition, and a project focusing on Law, Religion, and Authoritarianism. He speaks English and basic conversational Japanese and Hebrew.

Keynote Presentation (2019) | Presentation information will be added here shortly

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2018) | Law, Religion and Authoritarianism: From State Shinto to Religio-Trumpism
Featured Presentation (2017) | Freedom’s Edge: Balancing Religious Freedom and Equal Access to Facilities and Services for Transexuals
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Free Speech and Hate Speech – History, Story, Narrative
Dexter Da Silva
Keisen University, Japan

Biography

Dr Dexter Da Silva is currently Professor of Educational Psychology at Keisen University in Tokyo. He has taught EFL at junior high school, language schools, and universities in Sydney, Australia, and for more than two decades has been living, and teaching at the tertiary level, in Japan. Professor Da Silva was educated at the University of Sydney (BA, Dip. Ed., MA), and the University of Western Sydney (PhD). He has presented and co-presented at conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States, co-edited two books on Motivation in Foreign Language Learning, and written or co-written articles and book chapters on education-related topics, such as trust, student motivation, autonomy, and content-based language teaching. He is a past editor of On CUE Journal, past president of the Asian Psychological Association, regular reviewer for conferences, proceedings, journal articles and book chapters, and regularly co-chairs and participates in the Organising Committee of conferences on Motivation, Language Learning and Teaching, and Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences.

Featured Presentation (2018) | Psychological Literacy: The Most Important Literacy for the 21st Century

Previous Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Battles of Ideas: Identity and Alienation
Featured Presentation (2015)
Featured Presentation (2014)
Featured Presentation (2012)
Brian Victoria
Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, UK

Biography

Brian Victoria is a native of Omaha, Nebraska and a 1961 graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. He holds a MA in Buddhist Studies from Sōtō Zen sect-affiliated Komazawa University in Tokyo, and a PhD from the Department of Religious Studies at Temple University.

In addition to a second, enlarged edition of Zen At War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), Brian's major writings include Zen War Stories (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003); an autobiographical work in Japanese entitled Gaijin de ari, Zen bozu de ari (As a Foreigner, As a Zen Priest), published by San-ichi Shobo in 1971; Zen Master Dōgen, coauthored with Prof. Yokoi Yūhō of Aichi-gakuin University (Weatherhill, 1976); and a translation of The Zen Life by Sato Koji (Weatherhill, 1972). In addition, Brian has published numerous journal articles, focusing on the relationship of not only Buddhism but religion in general, to violence and warfare.

From 2005 to 2013 Brian was a Professor of Japanese Studies and director of the AEA “Japan and Its Buddhist Traditions Program” at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, OH, USA. From 2013-2015 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan where he is writing a book tentatively entitled: Zen Terror in 1930s Japan. Brian currently continues his research as a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, and is a fully ordained Buddhist priest in the Sōtō Zen sect.

Featured Presentation (2019) | Is Religious Tolerance Always Desirable: The Case of Shinto and Buddhism

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2018) | Shinto: Window on Universal Religion
Featured Presentation (2017) | Military Conscription, Slavery and the Modern State
Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Battles of Ideas: Identity and Alienation