The Distinguished Speakers of the 2nd PHISO International Conference

PHISO is very honored to announce that the following prominent scholars are the confirmed speakers of the 2nd PHISO Conference on March 23-24, 2018, at the Ateneo de Davao University.

The PHISO Convention Keynote Speaker on Global International Relations is AMITAV ACHARYA, the Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C. He also holds the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance since 2011. He was previously Professor of International Relations at York University in Toronto and Professor of Global Governance at the University of Bristol in the UK. He has also taught at the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was a Fellow of the Asia Center, Harvard University, and Fellow of the Center for Business and Government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Professor Acharya was elected to the Christensen Fellowship at St Catherine’s College in Oxford in 2012 and held the Nelson Mandela Visiting Professorship in International Relations at Rhodes University, South Africa for 2012-13. He was elected to be the President of the International Studies Association (ISA), the most recognized and influential global network of international studies scholar worldwide, for 2014-15. Professor Acharya’s publications cover both academic and public affairs topics and number over 25 books and 200 journal and magazine articles. His books on world politics include: The End of American World Order, published by Polity in 2014 and Oxford India in 2015; Rethinking Power, Institutions and Ideas in World Politics, published by Routledge in 2013; and  Non-Western International Relations Theory, co-edited with Barry Buzan and published by Routledge in 2010. His main books on Southeast Asia include: The Making of Southeast Asia: International Relations of a Region, published by Cornell University Press and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, in 2012; The Quest for Identity: International Relations of Southeast Asia, published by Oxford University Press in 2000; and Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, originally published by Routledge in 2001 and whose 3rd edition came out in 2014.  His 2009 book, Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Cornell, 2009) was among five books selected by the Asia Society of New York for their “exceptional contributions to the understanding of contemporary Asia or US-Asia relations” for its Bernard Schwartz Book Award). His essays have been published in the world’s top academic and policy journals such as International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, World Politics, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Asian Studies. He is the co-chief editor of the Studies in Asian Security series for Stanford University Press, widely regarded as the best book series in the field of Asian security.

BAOGANG HE is Alfred Deakin Professor, Chair in International Relations, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts & Education, Deakin University. Graduated with PhD in Political Science from Australian National University in 1994, Professor He has become widely known for his work in Chinese democratization and politics, in particular the deliberative politics in China as well as in Asian politics covering Asian regionalism, Asian federalism and Asian multiculturalism. Professor He has published 6 single-authored books, 63 international refereed journal articles resulting in total Google citation count of 10,607  (as of 4^th July 2017) and Hirsch index of 30. His publications are found in top journals including British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Peace Research, Political Theory, and Perspectives on Politics. In addition, he published 3 books, 15 book chapters and 63 journal papers in Chinese. Professor He has also held several honorary appointments and research fellowships at renowned universities including Stanford University, University of Cambridge, Columbia University, Leiden and Sussex University.

ALAN CHONG is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He has published widely on the notion of soft power and the role of ideas in constructing the international relations of Singapore and Asia. His publications have appeared in The Pacific Review; International Relations of the Asia-Pacific; Asian Survey; East Asia: an International Quarterly; Politics, Religion and Ideology; the Review of International Studies; the Cambridge Review of International Affairs and Armed Forces and Society. He is also the author of Foreign Policy in Global Information Space: Actualizing Soft Power (Palgrave, 2007). He is currently working on several projects exploring the notion of ‘Asian international theory’. His interest in soft power has also led to inquiry into the sociological and philosophical foundations of international communication. In the latter area, he is currently working on a manuscript titled ‘The International Politics of Communication: Representing Community in a Globalizing World’. In tandem, he has pursued a fledgling interest in researching cyber security issues. He has frequently been interviewed in the Asian media and consulted in think-tank networks in the region.

KERSTIN STEINER is Associate Professor at the Law School, La Trobe University. Is also an Associate at the Asian Law Centre (ALC) and the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society (CILIS)  bot at the Law School, The University of Melbourne. Kerstin’s research interests include the study of Southeast Asian legal systems, touching on issues such as: comparative law methodology when undertaking Southeast Asian legal studies; notions of legal pluralism in particular in regards to the applicability of Islamic law in Southeast Asia; and implementation, adaptation and interpretation of international law in the Southeast Asian context. She presented her research extensively at a range of prestigious institutions including Oxford University, University of Melbourne, National University of Singapore, Social Science Research Centre (WZB) Berlin, University of Bielefeld, Goethe-University Frankfurt, the Australian Institute for International Affairs and Max Planck Institute (Halle). She also commented in the media on her area of expertise. Her noteworthy publications include a two volume series co-authored with Tim Lindsey on Islam, Law and Society in Southeast Asia (IB Tauris, 2012); ‘Comparative Law in Syariah Courts: A Case Study of Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei’ in Mads Adenas and Duncan Fairgrieve (eds) Comparative Law before the Courts (Oxford University Press,  2015); ‘Variations of ‘Unpacking’ a Global Norm in a Local Context: A Historical Overview of the Epistemic Communities that are Shaping Zakat Practice in Malaysia’ in John Gillespie and Pip Nicholson (eds), Law and Development and the Global Discourses of Legal Transfers (Cambridge University Press, 2012). You can view her research activities at her Researchgate webpage.

KELLY M. KADERA is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Iowa. She is the current editor of International Studies Review. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1995.  Her research uses dynamic models to understand international conflict processes.  She has published on topics such as war contagion, power relationships, global democratic peace, and democratic survival.  Her book, The Power-Conflict Story (University of Michigan Press, 2001), won the 2002 award for the Best Book in Conflict Processes from the American Political Science Association.

ROMMEL A. CURAMING is the programme leader of Historical and International Studies and coordinator of Southeast Asian Studies program at the University of Brunei Darussalam. He obtained his PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from Australian National University, MA in Southeast Asian Studies from National University of Singapore, and MA in Asian Studies from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. His research interests are politics of knowledge production, state-intellectual relations, and Filipino Malayness. He is an editorial board member of South East Asia: A Multidisciplinary Journal (UBD, Brunei Darussalam) and reviewed manuscripts for South East Asia Research (SOAS, U.K.), Journal of Social Transformation (Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines), Southeast Asian Studies/ Tonan Ajia Kenkyu (Kyoto University), Asian Journal of Social Science (Brill), Kasarinlan Philippine Journal of Third World Studies (University of the Philippines), and Sojourn: Southeast Asian Journal of Social Issues (ISEAS, Singapore).

TITUS C. CHEN is Associate Professor of Political Science and the Deputy Director of Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He earned his doctoral degree of Political Science from the University of California, Irvine, in 2008. His works have appeared in Asian Perspective, International Spectator, Journal of Contemporary China, Issues & Studies, Taiwanese Journal of Political Science (Chinese), and Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy (Chinese).

JONATHAN T. CHOW is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Macau, where he teaches in the Department of Government and Public Administration. His research focuses on Southeast Asian regional politics, “pariah states”, constructivist international relations theory, and the transnational politics of religion. At the University of Macau, he teaches courses on international security, American foreign policy, and regional politics in East Asia. His work has been published in Pacific Affairs, the Australian Journal of International Affairs, the Review of International Political Economy, and Asian Survey. Prior to joining the University of Macau, Dr. Chow taught international relations at Amherst College (Massachusetts, USA) as a Loewenstein Fellow and a Five College Fellow. He has also been Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Reed College (Oregon, USA). He has also served as a Research Fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies (Seoul, South Korea), a Visiting Fellow at the Ateneo Center for Asian Studies at Ateneo de Manila University (Manila, Philippines), and Project Director at the Berkeley APEC Study Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Chow holds dual B.A. degrees in Political Science (with highest honors) and Chinese from Williams College (Massachusetts, USA), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

LINDA QUAYLE is a lecturer in the School of Politics, History and International Relations at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. She has previously researched and/or taught in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Current and recent research topics include communication and education within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), migration in Southeast Asia, Indonesia’s regional and global role, interpretations of international relations in Indonesian popular culture, and the so-called ‘English School’ approach to international relations. Linda is the author of various journal articles on regional politics, as well as Southeast Asia and the English School of International Relations: A Region-Theory Dialogue, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013. Before joining academia, she spent many years as an editor with BBC Monitoring, a division of BBC World Service.

RIKARD JALKEBRO is Teaching Fellow at the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. He received his undergraduate degree in International Relations at the Peace and Development Research Institute of Gothenburg University in his native country Sweden and an Erasmus exchange at Dublin City University followed up with an MA in IR from Gothenburg University and an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University before conducting his doctoral studies at the University of St Andrews. He has been teaching at the School of IR since 2014. Rikard’s thesis focused on local conflicts and peace processes in the Philippines with particular reference to Mindanao and its problems with political dynasties manifested in family- and clan-based violence. He applied theoretical constructs used in the field of peace and conflict studies to understand better, and deal with, what is an under-examined conflict where much of the violence has been designated as terrorism. He receives regular invitations and to provide expert views in media outlets such as Al-Jazeera, Channel NewsAsia, SKY News, TRT World and tbs eFM Primetime.