Report of the 2011 SACP Conference

I am happy to report that the 2011 SACP Conference, co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department of the University of Hawaii, was successfully held, from May 25-28, at the beautiful campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, right after the 10th East-West Philosophers’ Conference (EWPC).

The theme of the conference, “Sustainability and Interdependence,” came directly from our last year’s conference and connected nicely with the EWPC. While the EWPC conference theme “Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence” focused on economical interdependence, the SACP conference theme allowed the participants to continue the conversation in a way that dived deeper into Asian philosophical contexts and broadened the scope of discussion into many other forms of interdependences: The interdependence of our ecological environments, of different roles or relationships, of theory and practice, of Asian and Western traditions, of human and the non-human, self and other, ….

Our keynote speaker for the conference was Trustees Distinguished Professor of the University of Connecticut, Joel Kupperman. His address was titled “Values and Social Contracts.” The speech marked the culmination of the celebration of Professor Kupperman’s 50 years teaching at UConn. The celebration began with a small conference on “Character: East and West” at Storrs, CT, and followed immediately after with a mini conference in honor of Joel Kupperman at the EWPC, prior to the SACP meeting.

Our conference this year was well attended! We had 69 individual presentations, grouped in 26 sessions, four of which were plenary sessions. The participants represented a wide range of geographic regions, including Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Mainland China, and of course, USA. Many Univ. of Hawaii faculty members and students came to the meeting, and some participants of the EWPC stayed for the SACP meeting as well.

In attempt to maximize cross-culture comparison and dialogue, the program committee again, whenever possible, organized the panels around topics rather than according to philosophical traditions. We tried this way last year and it worked well. This year I think it was again successful.

At the conference, three awards were conferred to the winners of our student essay contest this year. They are Jake Davis from City University of New York, Laura Guerrero from the University of New Mexico, and Ryan Melvin from Birmingham-Southern College. The awards winners presented their papers in a special plenary session at the conference. They were all very well-received, and I must add that all three presenters handled questions from the audience extremely well!

While we were delighted that more and more young scholars are joining us for the cause, we also took the opportunity to mourn three of our predecessors who passed away recently: Former SACP President Kenneth Inada, and long time SACP members Warren Lew and Ramundo Panikhar. Following the commemoration remarks made by Professor Eliot Deustch, Judy Saltsman, and Joseph Prabhu to each of the three honorees, participants of the conference observed a moment of silence.

The success of the conference owes much to the collective effort of all the participants. Special thanks should be given to our program committee members Michael Barnhart, Doug Berger, Mary Bockover, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, and Karsten Struhl for their tireless work in reading all the submissions and in organizing the conference program (among them Douglas Berger, as the Secretary of the society, did most of the coordination work and made many other arrangements for the meeting), to our host and incoming president Roger Ames for his enormous help behind the scene in getting us the meeting facilities and working with many different offices at UH, to Curtis Rigsby for serving as the housing director, to Joseph Prabhu for printing the conference program, and last but not least, to Al Albergate, who not only did an excellent job as the Secretary/Treasurer for the society in the past, but also generously offered great help this time!

SACP Businesses

At the conference we held a general members’ business meeting. Here are the main items announced or discussed in the meeting, recorded by Douglas Berger:

• Peimin Ni announces that he and Michiko Yusa have initiated the compilation of a database on the founding members of the Society. It is noted that Elliot Deutsch kept substantive records of the history of the Society from its founding in 1967 until 1985. Peimin requests that current members of the Society offer Michiko and himself information they may have on the Society since then for contribution to the database.
• Doug Berger offers a brief financial report which includes some hard numbers and what were at the time estimates regarding conference expenses paid and dues collected, and forecasts that we should have a healthy account balance after the conference.
• Peimin Ni calls for the nomination of candidates for Vice President of the Society, since his own term as President is coming to a close by the end of the year, and Roger Ames will assume that office. Two names are put forward as nominees, Doug Berger and Andre van der Braak. The entire membership of the Society will be asked to vote on these nominees via internet ballot sometime in late August of this year. Votes will be received and counted by Marthe Chandler and Jake Davis.
• It is noted that, if Berger wins the VP vote, since he is serving as the Society's Secretary now, the Society will need to vote on a new Secretary to replace him. (Outside of the general meeting, two potential names for this office were mentioned should the need arise, those of James Behuniak and Matt McKenzie.) Details about the process for this election will be arranged if needed after the VP vote.
• A discussion ensues about the times and places at which we will hold the next two annual Society conferences in 2012 and 2013. Dealing with 2013 first, though Asilomar, North Florida and Amsterdam are briefly discussed as candidates, a consensus is reached that we intend to hold our 2013 conference in Singapore. Prospective dates for this conference span June 7th-14th. A longer discussion is devoted to the 2012 conference. Two alternatives are suggested for next year's meeting, SIU in Carbondale, IL and Asilomar. Should we hold the conference at the later venue, mid-June dates are once again preferred. If we hold the conference in Carbondale, two alternative dates, May 24-26 and Oct. 5-7, are suggested (these largely in order to ensure SIUC graduate student assistance in organizing and running the event). It is decided that these alternatives for the 2012 conference will be put to the whole Society membership for a vote via email.
• A discussion is engaged about the theme for the 2012 conference, and consensus is reached on "Ethical Practice in Comparative Perspectives."
• Henry Rosemont makes a motion to the members that $800 in Society funds be reserved to pay a graduate student who will help organize the historical papers of the Society for the database mentioned above. This motion passes.