Co-Organizers: Universiti Sains Malaysia and Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University)
Sponsors: MEXT Research Program “Promoting the Study of Sustainable Humanosphere in Southeast Asia” and JSPS Asian Core Program “Constructing a Southeast Asian Model for Co-existence of Multiple Civilizations in the Global Era”

We are accepting applications for the seminar below. Deadline is 6 September 2013

About the Seminar

The Southeast Asia seminar has been held annually by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University since 1976. Aiming to deepen the understandings on Southeast Asia from various aspects, the seminar offers three days of intensive lectures by experts on Southeast Asia and group discussion and presentations by the participants. This year, the seminar will be held in Penang, Malaysia, co-organized by Universiti Sains Malaysia. We really welcome your application.

The Aims and Contents

Advances in human knowledge are taking place alongside the rapid transformation of the ecosystem in which humans co-exist with nature. Can we survive and cope with the on-going reformulation of the relationship between humans and nature and its impact on the geosphere, biosphere, and our society? Are we truly equipped with a comprehensive range of insights and know how from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences to provide solutions to the fast-paced environmental and social changes that are reshaping our everyday lives and the environment itself? This year’s Southeast Asia Seminar addresses the issue of how we can promote sustainable human-nature relations. In order to examine the ways in which the geosphere, biosphere, and human communities interact with each other and their implications for the survival of the human and natural world and for balanced growth and development of Southeast Asia more generally, we need to develop a new concept that can capture the complex dynamism of human-nature interactions in across-disciplinary or trans-disciplinary way.
The term “humanosphere” treats the natural and social environments as parts of a complex, dynamic whole. Humanosphere includes not only the land surface on which people cultivate and produce, but all other factors—cultural, social, political, and economic–that affect livelihood and environmental sustainability. In abstract terms, the humanosphere can be understood in terms of material and energy flows and conversions between the biosphere, geosphere, and human society. In practice, such factors as water flows, biological activities in the seas, lands, and forests, and rainfalls and temperatures are among the main concerns of the people living in local societies. For example, to the extent that the climate is affected by the changes in the atmosphere and oceanic currents, mapping these changes through equatorial atmospheric radars and satellites can provide vital information to deepen our understanding of the humanosphere at local, regional, and global levels. The movements of water and air, but also people, goods, and even ideas also influence the life cycles and spread of organisms, including pathogenic ones. The interscalar interactions of these phenomena make up the substance of our concept of humanosphere.

Seminars

Session I: Insects, a two-edged sword: Integrated pest management for sustainable humanosphere.

Session II: How do human activities affect the environment in Southeast Asia?: Lessons from case studies.

Session III: Transmission diseases and the borderless Asian society

For questions and inquiries concerning applications please contact associate professor Okamoto Masaaki

okamoto[at]cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp

About CSEAS

The Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) at Kyoto University has a long tradition of promoting area studies with a strong interdisciplinary orientation. With a long history of working in the field of applied science, CSEAS bridges the divide between frontier science and innovation technology, on the one hand, and established disciplines of ecology, politics and economics, sociology and anthropology, history, and the medical sciences, on the other hand. This seminar aims to bring together a new generation of area studies specialists and scientists who are able to cross the disciplinary boundaries that separate the humanities and social science from the natural sciences for three days of intensive discussion.

Program 2013（PDF）:Download
Application 2013 （PDF）:Download
SEA Seminar application form 2013(Word): Download
Southeast Asian Seminar 2013 Poster（PDF） : Download

For information on past seminars click here