ENGLISH SCHOLARS BEYOND BORDERS
a not-for-profit academic circle of international scholars
We are devastated to announce the sudden passing of our dear friend Chris Weagle. Chris was an award winning poet and edited out creative pages. He was also a close friend who was at the heart of what ESBB stood for. He died suddenly while travelling during the EID break in Cambodia.
Insomnia, day 12
by Chris Weagle
In the morning limbo is the suggestion of a storm,
Rice paper flutters in the draft, scratches
Against the wall like a dog wanting in.
Wind through the window screen
Rustles the newspaper on the floor.
Now is dawn but its hard color doesn’t come;
Instead the wind picks up the mustiness,
the stale room empties as the typhoon circles
And gray gets grayer, dawn grows dark and harsh
Is stalled as in an instant a fast rain breaks
The summer’s drought, and its wall of heat
Is gone in rain and thunder.
NEXT EVENT
Our next event will take place in Korea, 11-13 October, 2024 at Gwangju National University of Education. Mark you calendars.
Our short video is here
LAST EVENTS
Many thanks to the Christian University of Indonesia (UKI, (Universitas Kristen Indonesia) for creating such a wonderful atmosphere for our conference in Jakarta from 15-17 November, 2023. The conference book can be scanned below: 
Ton Duc Thang University (Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam – December 9-10, 2022. We would like to thank John Baker and his team for the truly exceptional effort of organisation. The hybrid format made this our biggest conference so far.
Many thanks to Dhofar University in Oman for hosting our first ONLINE conference (December 4-5, 2021).The program is attached here for your reference: ESBB-DU IC 2021 Conference Program. The links to the presentations are available here: ESBB-DUIC 2021 Links.The conference handbook is available here: ESBB-DUIC 2021 Conference Handbook-Final
Latest Journal Issues
The 8th Issue of English Scholarship Beyond Borders is now online at this link. In 2020, we inaugurated a creative page. In addition to our peer reviewed academic papers, we are continuing to add poetry and prose by members and other poets (also fully peer reviewed), with the addition this year of sound files, photos & graphics. The creative pages have developed as a regular feature of the journal onwards from Volume 7, Issue 2, 2021.
All our journal issues can be downloaded freely from this site. You are welcome to store them on other sites, providing the source is clearly acknowledged as ESBB. Copyright remains with the authors. ISSN: 2410-9096. Linking ISSN (ISSN-L): 2410-9096.
Previous Events
Our 2020 event was planned to take place at Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey (March 19-20, 2020). Unfortunately, it was cancelled due to the global pandemic. The programme will remain online here. Papers prepared for that conference may still be submitted as written papers to our journal.
We still have excellent memories of our 2019 visit to Kanya Maha Vidyalaya in Jalandhar. Thank you for the warm welcome we received at our 6th ANNUAL CONFERENCE in Punjab, India. A dynamic and forward looking women’s college with a rich cultural heritage, Kanya Maha Vidyalaya proved to be a perfect venue (check out the venue link here for more information). More information can be found on our conference page here.
ICES Programme Schedule Final (updated)
Our 5th annual conference (March, 2018) was held in Toyama, Japan. We thank Theron Muller and his team for the years of planning and the warm hospitality. A memorable venue and conference.
They came from far and wide… some of the participants in Toyama, 2018
Theron Muller explaining his poster in Toyama
ESBB is a strictly not-for-profit academic circle of international scholars. One of its core values is that no member may benefit financially in any way from ESBB events or activities. This website is financed only by small and voluntary personal contributions of its members. The site is deliberately kept as simple as possible and we do not seek any sponsorship or financial support of any kind for its maintenance. We believe in open access publishing and all publications in our journal on this site are freely downloadable and may be displayed on your own pages with a simple acknowledgement of the original source.
The academic aim of our organization and our conferences is to assemble scholars from across the globe to share ideas with scholars from very diverse backgrounds. While the broad background theme is always linked to English Scholarship Beyond Borders, this can be understood in the broadest possible sense as our intention is to embrace diversity in English education and research. ESBB provides guest speakers from a broad variety of locations and cultures and can also assist in consultancy work.
Many thanks to those who travel so far to join us. Sivakumar Sivasubramaniam, John Foncha and Jane-Francis Abongdia on campus in Toyama, 2018
Wen-Chi Vivian Wu and Joni Chao joined us from Taiwan
John Unger (sailor, poet, philosopher and academic) came from Georgia in the USA. (It was all about pointing!) See his publications on our site and on his own “transitional literacy” webpage https://transitional-literacy.org
Four ESBB members co-authored a book on a theme that typifies the intercultural ethos of ESBB. John Foncha, Sivakumar Sivasubramanian, John Adamson and Roger Nunn (with a foreword by Professor Ron Carter) Investigating the Role of Language in the Identity Construction of Scholars Coming to Terms with Inter-Cultural Communicative Competence. Cambridge Scholars (2016).
ESBB embraces non-blind peer review. We believe this process is no less rigorous, but more ethical than ‘blind’ anonymous review. Our experience so far indicates that ESBB participants tend to express their opinions directly without hiding behind anonymity. We publish at minimum an annual journal issue. All conference presenters are welcome to submit a paper, but must be prepared to fully engage in dialogic review of their own paper and participate in the review of one or two other papers. There is an initial screening prior to in-depth, non-blind dialogic review. This process takes time, and we currently commit to publishing one issue per year (We are not an appropriate venue if you are seeking a rapid publication).
There will be a presentation about this at each event and conference. Please contact rogercnunn@yahoo.co.uk for further information. We do not intend to exclude participants who have not attended our events. If you would like to submit a paper, possibly because you would like to experience our non-blind review approach or you feel we are an ideal venue for your (probably intercultural-themed) research, please contact us at the email above.
2018 Conference – Toyama, Japan, 23-25 March
Information about our 5th annual conference in Japan is still available at our conference link.
A special thank you to the exceptional team led by Theron Muller in Toyama. A friendly and unforgettable conference with a high quality of participation.
ESBB co-organizes an annual conference, with each event in a different international location. Offers beyond 2022 are under consideration with Vietnam (2022) as our next destination. Please do get in touch if you are interested in hosting a future event (rogercnunn@yahoo.co.uk).
The 4th annual conference was organized by Naeema Hann in Leeds, UK, in May, 2017. The 3rd ESBB international conference took place May 19-22, 2016. It was hosted by the Department of English Language, Providence University, in Taichung, Taiwan, jointly organized by Professor Wen-chi Vivian Wu of Providence University and Dr Gloria Shu Mei Chwo, Associate Professor at Hungkuang University in Taichung.
Publications
- All issues are available at the dedicated links at the top of this page. They may be freely distributed and added to your own webpages, assuming the ESBB volume and issue are clearly referenced. More information related to copyright, licensing, and publication ethics can be found here.