The sea is a barrier that separates people, while also connecting them as a path that enables them to come and go freely. When we focus on the sea called "the Indian Ocean" and consider how the people living around it have imagined it and what it has brought to them, the inherent ambiguity of the sea also comes to the fore. Specifically, while the Indian Ocean has emerged as a barrier, it has also continued to play a rich role as a mediator.
The Indian Ocean World, stretching from Southeast Asia to India and Africa, is a place of exchange among different cultures and peoples, where ideas and philosophies influence each other, and many religions coexist. While previous studies have focused on individual countries and events in relation to adjacent regions, positioning the Indian Ocean World as a single cultural zone and viewing micro-phenomena from a macro-perspective will provide a new horizon of research.
In this symposium, we set up four sessions to consider the question of how literature, culture, thought, and language in Southeast Asia, India, and Africa are continuous or disconnected on the stage of the sea, which has the dual nature of barrier and mediator.
Just as organisms in the sea are dispersed by ocean currents and transformed into new forms when they arrive at new destinations, we would like to depict the various metamorphoses of literature, culture, thought, and language in the Indian Ocean World.

Date
December 9th (Sat) & December 10th (Sun), 2023

Venue
Room 405, Research and Education Hub (4th floor), Minoh Campus, Osaka University, Japan + Online via Zoom

Language
English

Registration
Deadline: December 1st, 2023
Register here: https://forms.gle/1GjYmMxh94LhcC4H6

*Zoom URL will be sent before December 8th, 2023, to all who registered.
*On site attendance is limited up to the first 60 registrants.
Organized by
NIHU Indian Ocean World Studies Project
*Our project's website will be available in November.

Contact
Center for Indian Ocean World Studies, Osaka University (HINDOWS)
hindowsconference[at]gmail.com
Program
12/9 Symposium Day 1

10:00-10:10 Opening remarks

10:10-12:00 Session 1: The Metamorphosis Stage: The Sea
Takashi Miyamoto (Osaka University)
Henri Chambert-Loir (Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient)
Clarissa Vierke (University of Bayreuth)

13:00-14:50 Session 2: Metamorphosis of Literature
Thibaut d'Hubert (The University of Chicago)
Musa Ibrahim (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology)
Toru Aoyama (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

15:10-17:00 Session 3: Metamorphosis of Cultures and Thoughts
Andrew J. Eisenberg (New York University Abu Dhabi)
Yumi Sugahara (Osaka University)
Ravikant (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies)

12/10 Symposium Day 2

10:00-12:20 Session 4: Metamorphosis of Languages
Hassan Rezai Baghbidi (Osaka University)
Liaquat Ali (University of Balochistan Quetta）
Nobuko Yoneda (Osaka University)
Naonori Nagaya (The University of Tokyo)

12:20-12:50 Roundup discussion

12:50-13:00 Closing remarks