ACAHS 2014 - The Asian Conference on the Arts, Humanities and Sustainability

Conflict from earliest times has been a characteristic of the human condition. The struggle between our individual selves and our social selves arises from what makes us unique on the one hand, being challenged by our being part of an interdependent structure of relationships on the other. The specific blend of experiences, abilities, attitudes, and aspirations, that helps to define us, can sit sometimes uncomfortably alongside our commitments to those closest to us, our communities and our cultures.
This can lead to conflict at different levels. Conflict within communities and societies is inevitable given that these groups are based on commonality of geography, values, attitudes, and beliefs that help to differentiate one from another. The dialectic engendered by diversity, however, although it may lead to conflict, can play an important role in the expansion of ideas in communities and societies. One major challenge of modern society is to harness the synergy that emerges from the interactive dialectic generated by these differences.
The Arts and Humanities have long recognized these differences and frictions when they try to explain conflict through the systematic exploration of ideas, words, and artistic expression. By proposing such a wide-ranging 2014 conference theme, the organizers hope to encourage exciting new avenues of research, inspire the creation of new explanatory concepts, and provide a context for academic and personal encounters. The resultant exchanges it is hoped will stimulate synergies that cross national, religious, cultural and disciplinary divides. This is central to the global vision of IAFOR.