A Reformation celebration in Hong Kong?

Beautiful Amsterdam! The center of Lutheranism in the Netherlands.

The International Reformed Theological Institute (IRTI) which is based in the Netherlands is calling for papers for their biennial international conference of 2017. Next year, Protestants all over the world will be celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation that was started by Martin Luther in 1517. It seems as if we will be spoiled for choice with conferences celebrating this event all over the world and throughout the year. The IRTI conference will be held at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong (yes, this is correct – not in the Netherlands where the Lutheran church is very small).  

The due date for abstracts is 1 February and the conference will be held from 15 to 18 June 2017.  The theme of the conference is "Public Theology in plural contexts" and it focuses on "how to deal constructively with religious, economic, social, cultural and ethnic plurality in different contexts from the perspective of the Reformed tradition as a source of public theology".  Keynote speakers are from Indonesia, South Africa, the USA, China and Hong Kong.

PHD students will pay 135 Euro and other members need to pay 235 Euro for registration, but this fee includes meals, local transport in Hong Kong, as well as a two year membership fee and subscription to the journal. The website also have different options and fees for accommodation available for both PHD students and other delegates.

As I said earlier, there will be conferences celebrating the Reformation all over the world in 2017. South Africa will also offer a number of seminars and conferences, mainly in conjunction with the Theology Departments and Faculties of the major universities and Reformed Churches. So please make a note on your calendar for 2017 to keep the 31^st of October 2017 open to attend one or more of these events.  I will keep posting more information on these events in the coming weeks and months. 

Finally, a Humanities conference in Israel

The bread and the fish

In the early 1990s I was the leader of a small group of Christians who went on a 21-day tour to Egypt, Israel and Turkey and ever since I wanted to go back to Israel, but unfortunately there are not many conferences in Humanities or Theology held in this beautiful country to pick from. Therefore, the 28^th International Academic Conference that will be held in Tel Aviv, 7-11 March 2017 is worth mentioning. This is only the first of five such conferences planned for the first half of 2017 by the International institute of Social and Economic Sciences (IISES). Following the Tel Aviv conference will be Rome, Venice, London and Geneva.

The conference will be multi-disciplinary and includes tracks on Business and Economics, Qualitative methods, Social Sciences and Humanities, Teaching and Education, Health and Welfare, Environment and Sustainable development, Law in society, Energy resources and Policy and Technology and Science.

It will be held at the College of Law and Business in Tel Aviv and the early bird registration fee for non-members is 400 Euro (350 for members). The call for abstracts is open and feedback turnaround is very quick, within one week. This short response time and the fact that the early bird registration will be open until 7 February 2017 provides an opportunity for those who needs to wait for the start of the 2017 academic year before applying for funds or leave.  

The conference ends with a complementary day tour to the Dead Sea (40 Euro for partners). If you consider going to this conference, please do consider to stay on to explore this extraordinary country. Due to the size of Israel, 5-7 days are sufficient to explore and discover the country and the people but I am convinced that it would require a much longer stay to explore in depth the real wealth and beauty of the Holy Land, outside of the well-known tourist routes and attractions. ​

Why is travel planning important?

On our way back from New Zealand we knew we would suffer from jet-lag so we decided to have a short stopover in Dubai to rest and visit the Dubai mall. This lovely shop is close to the entrance next to the Dubai fountain - nice place to wait for the next water display.

Proper planning does not only saves you money and ensures that you do not miss out on terrific travel experiences, it most definitely adds value to the total travel experience. Most of the finer points about travelling we tend to learn the hard way (like making sure that the dates on the visa are indeed corresponding with the dates you stated in the application form – I still get nightmares about this one), but there are also things that we could benefit from by incorporating research results into our travel itineraries. Become your own travel agent and do some research during the planning phase of your trip. I know that this can sound like a waste of time because the travel office or travel agents can do this, but believe me, you will not only learn new skills and competencies and gather knowledge, you will also safe money and ensure that the whole trip is more enjoyable because you can adjust times, stopovers, air tickets, hotels, costs and much more to fit in with your personal preferences.

With the help of the Internet no one needs to be helpless when it comes to planning and booking air tickets, transfers, accommodation or activities (and if you really do not have the time to do this yourself, ask your travel partner or children or grandchildren to do it for you – you will be surprised at what they can come up with). Search the web pages of your favourite/preferred airline(s) and hotel groups. The hotel groups normally guarantee that they will provide the best and cheapest offers or will match other sites’ offers. I usually test this by first looking at sites such as Booking.com and Hotels.com and Tripadvisor to find their rates and then compare it with the hotel sites. Once or twice I did get a lower price on booking.com (as I already had several bookings with them and qualified for better deals), but after I signed up to the loyalty programmes of two hotel groups, their web sites always wins. This is also the case with air tickets. I usually start my investigation with sites that provide choice and flexibility such as Travelstart and then go to the individual airline web pages to see the price and itinerary differences and stopover or transit options. Again, being a member of one or two airline’s loyalty programmes is paying off and I tend to book directly on the airline page more often as the money I am saving this way is significant (and I like the benefits like the option to board first).

A last word: before you sign up for a loyalty programme with an airline or hotel, ensure that you are comfortable with their style, pricing and coverage. Although you normally do not have to pay to become a member, you could be inconvenienced when your preferred airline does not fly (directly) to the destinations your frequently visit or the hotel group does not have hotels in the cities or regions you are travelling to.  Make research part of travel planning and enjoy much more on each trip.

Driven by Hope: Economics and Theology in dialogue

I  have never been to Leuven, but oh! the glory of  the Belgium Grand Prix is next to none and this photo taken by my son Niel (2010) is simply brilliant with the car in focus and the motion visible in the surroundings.

I immediately opened the e mail with this topic on hope in the subject line because I could not wait to see the ‘what’ and ‘where’ of this conference. The Institute of Leadership and Social Issues (ILSE) and the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organisation (EHERO) are the organizers of this conference that will take place in Leuven (Belgium), 24-25 February 2017. The conference venue is the Leuven Center of Christian Studies which forms part of the ‘Evangelische Theologische Faculteit’. As can be expected with this topic, abstracts are expected from various disciplines, including Theology, Ethics, Psychology & Methodology, and Economics. Abstracts can focus either on the interplay between hope and/with these disciplines or on the significance of hope in general. Abstracts cannot exceed 500 words and must be submitted before 15 December to be double blind peer reviewed before the end of December.

‘Hope always triumphs over experience’, said Robert Fulghum the famous Texan theologian/author. Hope is also the driving force behind positive change, transformation, innovation and development. Hope helps us to cope and to persevere, and it is also a virtue that is needed in the academic world and especially amongst scholars who are not theologians. Maybe the greatest need for hope is in the economic sector and that is exactly why this will be such an important event. The keynote speakers are Prof. Luigino Bruni, Prof. Patrick Nullens and Dr. Martijn Burger; people who are inspirational and motivating.

Despite suffering severely during both World Wars, Leuven is a beautiful city with several magnificent old buildings that survived the wars (symbols of hope) and which could soon become UNESCO World Heritage Sites along with the two existing sites (the Groot Begijnhof and the Belfry on St Peter's Church) which are definitely worth a visit. The largest and oldest Catholic university is also in Leuven.

Hawaii in July, anyone?

The opening ceremony of The Learner conference in 2011. 

Why not? I think Hawaii would be a perfect place for an academic conference but the one that is held there regularly is in January and that is a difficult time for Academics from South Africa to attend due to the fact that the funding would be allocated from the previous years’  budget on the one hand and there is also the air traffic issues at that time of year – too close to the holiday season which means the tickets are expensive and hard to get what you want and also the possibility of snow and delays at major airports. So why not go in July if the opportunity presents itself?

In 2017, the 24^th International Conference of Learning will be held in Hawaii form 19 to 21 July. This is one of the Common Ground conferences which I personally can recommend. I attended two Learner conferences and they were excellently planned and well attended. The 2011 Learner conference in Mauritius was simply one of my favourites (because we managed to also make a lovely vacation of the time spend on the beautiful west coast of this island – just to make sure we could take awesome photos of the sunset over the sea). 

One aspect of these conferences I like very much is the variety of tracks that are presented. Next year, there will once again be 10 tracks under the special focus theme of ‘New media for new learning’. The learner conference is only one of about 24 research networks linked to Common Ground, and additional to the conferences, there are also a n impressive list of international journals and books which provide publishing opportunities.

The call for papers as well as registration is already open with good early payment discounts available. Conference registration costs USD550 and there is also discounted hotel accommodation available at Waikiki beach. The conference venue is the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. The conference organizers are also arranging a selection of optional activities and tours to ensure that delegates do not only have to focus on academic work while on this lovely and interesting island.  ​