The Southeast Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities (SEACAH2026)
February 05-09, 2026 | Singapore EXPO, Singapore & Online
Welcome to The Southeast Asian Conference on Arts and Humanities!
Held in partnership with the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, Japan and our global partners, the inaugural Southeast Asian Conference on Arts and Humanities (SEACAH2026) conference will be held alongside The Southeast Asian Conference on Education (SEACE2026), now in its sixth year.
This year, IAFOR returns to Singapore, situated centrally in the Southeast Asian region, which also comprises Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Brunei, Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Malaysia. Southeast Asia is a vibrant, thriving, and developing area, and boasts a great diversity of peoples, cultures, and ethnicities. As a recognised regional hub, Singapore is a great location to help further the IAFOR mission of encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating intercultural awareness, and promoting international exchange.
As an organisation that engages across all sectors of society, and with multiple stakeholders to engage in some of the biggest challenges and issues the world faces from an interdisciplinary perspective, we have aligned our research initiatives and conferences with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as outlined in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and around IAFOR’s four key themes:
- Technology and Artificial Intelligence
- Humanity and Human Intelligence
- Global Citizenship and Education for Peace
- Leadership
This event will encourage academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in a forum stimulating respectful dialogue, and like our long-running events elsewhere in the world, will afford an exceptional opportunity for renewing old acquaintances, making new contacts, networking, and facilitating partnerships across national, cultural, and disciplinary borders. IAFOR was made possible, and is a response to, the forces of globalisation, and the understanding that many of the most pressing challenges, whether felt or experienced locally, would require global cooperation and action to address.
Registration for either SEACAH2026 or SEACE2026 will allow delegates to attend the joint plenary sessions, and in keeping with our interdisciplinary mission, any parallel sessions in either conference, as desired.
I look forward to seeing you in Singapore!
For and on behalf of the IAFOR International Academic Board and the Conference Programme Committees,
Dr Joseph Haldane, Osaka University, Japan & University College London, United Kingdom
Chairman and CEO, IAFOR
Professor Jun Arima, University of Tokyo, Japan
President, IAFOR
Professor Anne Boddington, Middlesex University, United Kingdom
Executive Vice-President and Provost, IAFOR
- Location & Venue: Singapore EXPO, Singapore & Online
- Dates: Thursday, February 05, 2026 to Monday, February 09, 2026
- Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: August 29, 2025*
- Final Abstract Submission Deadline: October 31, 2025
- Registration Deadline for Presenters: December 05, 2025
*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.
Call for Papers
The SEACAH2026 Conference Programme Committee welcomes papers from a wide variety of interdisciplinary and theoretical perspectives, and submissions are organised into the following streams:
Arts
- Teaching and Learning the Arts
- Arts Policy, Management and Advocacy
- Arts Theory and Criticism
- Social, Political and Community Agendas in the Arts
- Visual Arts Practices
- Performing Arts Practices: Theater, Dance, Music
- Literary Arts Practices
- Media Arts Practices: Television, Multimedia, Digital, Online and Other New Media
- Other Arts
Humanities
- Media, Film Studies, Theatre, Communication
- Aesthetics, Design
- Language, Linguistics
- Knowledge
- Philosophy, Ethics, Consciousness
- History, Historiography
- Literature/Literary Studies*
- Political Science, Politics
- Teaching and Learning
- Globalisation
- Ethnicity, Difference, Identity
- Immigration, Refugees, Race, Nation
- First Nations and Indigenous Peoples
- Sexuality, Gender, Families
- Religion, Spirituality
- Cyberspace, Technology
- Science, Environment and the Humanities
- Other Humanities
IAFOR's Conference Themes for 2025-2029
Our four themes can be seen as standalone themes, but they are also very much in conversation with each other. Themes may be seen as corollaries, complementary, or in opposition/juxtaposition with each other. The themes can be considered as widely as possible and are designed, in keeping with our mission, to encourage ideas across the disciplines.
Conference News
IAFOR Grant and Scholarship Recipients: The 5th Southeast Asian Conference on Education (SEACE2025)
About IAFOR’s Conferences on Arts & Humanities
IAFOR’s arts and humanities programme is rich and diverse, with interdisciplinary conferences which engage with a broad range of research fields and seek to be venues for both academic and cultural exchange.
The academic programme for these conferences is developed by leading scholars in various fields to ensure both timeliness and academic rigour, and our events are held in partnership with some of the world’s leading institutions, including Sussex University (UK), Birkbeck, University of London (UK), Lehigh University (USA), University of Indonesia (Indonesia), Virginia Tech (USA) and Waseda University (Japan). As well as working with top universities, we also encourage and nurture intercultural and interdisciplinary research groups such as the DAMIN project, which brought together historians, geographers and economists to look at the development of commerce along the Silk Road.
Literature has always been given a high profile in our programme, and as well as welcoming presentations by prominent authors and poets, IAFOR also runs the prestigious IAFOR Vladimir Devidé Haiku Award, which is supported by the Haiku International Association (HIA), the Haiku UNESCO Promotion Council and The Haiku Foundation.
IAFOR actively supports culture and the arts, namely by running internationally recognised awards for both documentary photography and photojournalism (IAFOR Documentary Photography Award) and documentary filmmaking (IAFOR Documentary Film Award), which are supported by leading institutions and organisations, including World Press Photo, Metro Imaging, MediaStorm, Think Tank Photo, University of the Arts London, RMIT and Medill School of Journalism.
Our arts conferences also showcase local talent during featured performances by musicians, dancers and artists. The events offer the opportunity for delegates to not only exchange the latest in research ideas, but also the chance to see performances, and take part in workshops and demonstrations.
About IAFOR
Founded in 2009, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) is a mission-driven politically independent non-partisan and non-profit organisation dedicated to encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating intercultural awareness and promoting international exchange, principally through educational interaction and academic research. Based in Japan, its main administrative office is in Nagoya, and its research centre is in the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), a graduate school of Osaka University.