Abstract
Since 1993 we meet each year at the Villa Lanna in Prague. But what is this meeting? Is it a conference – a colloquium – a symposium? All three names seem appropriate. The first highlights its bringing together in one space diverse perspectives on critical theory; the second, our talking together; the third, our drinking and eating together. When I first became part of the Philosophy and the Social Sciences meeting, however, it was a ‘course’ held over two weeks at the Interuniversity Institute in Dubrovnik. This was in 1989. My contact was Albrecht Wellmer, my Doktorvater at the University of Konstanz. He was one of the outgoing directors, about to hand over to Jean Cohen, Axel Honneth and Ivan Vejvoda. Transfers of power and responsibility meant little to me at the time. I was excited by the meeting qua colloquium: by the lively and intense discussions. These were not confined to the formal sessions, taking place also on multiple walks around the city and during extended lunches and dinners; increasingly, therefore, I came to appreciate the meeting qua symposium: the conviviality of its intellectual exchanges.
I have participated each year except one since 1989: 3 years in Dubrovnik, 1 year on Ischia, 23 years in Prague. My most vivid memories of the early years relate to travelling. In I989 I drove with my husband Martin in a borrowed car with dubious brakes from Konstanz to Dubrovnik. Too poor to afford even the youth hostel in Trieste, we slept the first night in the car in a field on the Slovenian border, ears open for patrolling Yugoslavian guards. The following day we drove for 12 hours on treacherous roads with hairpin bends, reaching the gates of the walled city of Dubrovnik at 6.30 p.m. Exhausted and ill-tempered, we walked through the gates to encounter a happy throng of people sauntering the streets in the evening sunshine: no cars, no chain-stores, no advertising, no signs of poverty. It was paradise. We found an idyllic camp-site on the shore some distance away, from which, following an early morning swim, I could walk to the sessions each day.
Subsequently, an appointment to a position in University College Dublin enabled me to swap the camp-site for the Imperial Hotel. But the travails of travel persisted. Most dramatically in 1991 when, homeward bound, a few of us were trapped in Dubrovnik for several days, due to bombing of the main Yugoslavian airports and equally unsafe roads.
In 1992 the meeting moved to the island of Ischia near Naples. This time, not bombs but a Mediterranean sandstorm held us captive. For two days Martin and I waited on uncomfortable plastic seats at the ferry terminal, since no one seemed able to say when the hovercraft service to the island would resume. When it did, eventually, the vessel’s inability to hover over the waves, as opposed to crash into them, made the crossing challenging. Nonetheless, I remember the Ischia meeting fondly. Our group was small, we conducted our – lively and intense – discussions in a beautiful but icy-cold building, which sharpened minds and encouraged brevity. This made for an excellent colloquium; the delicious food and abundant wine turned it into a true symposium.
With the move to Prague the adventures of travelling were replaced by the excitement of discovering a new city. The – at the time, still – relaxed schedule allowed me to spend hours exploring Prague on foot, at a time when the city was virtually car-free. Noticeably absent too were other signs of consumerism: supermarkets and customer-friendly restaurants. The carnivorous among us fared best, dining on vast plates of pork washed down by copious amounts of beer; vegetarians, like me, survived on fried cheese, accompanied if we were lucky by cucumber or grated cabbage. All this has changed utterly.
My family life is inextricably bound to these meetings. Not only has Martin been part of them from the beginning; I first intuited the unexpected presence of our daughter, Niamh, in Prague in 1995. She joined us in 1996 as an infant in a basket. My memory of that year is of arriving late due to a missed flight to be greeted by a request to fill a vacant plenary slot. I had composed my paper entirely in my head, hastily transcribing it between feeding the baby. I delivered the plenary without having had a chance to look at what I had written. My talk met with the usual friendly but energetic criticism. The discussion was curtailed by Martin appearing at the door of the room holding up for my attention our baby daughter, who was making the unmistakable noises of a hungry infant. Niamh came with us each year until she was 4, returning with enthusiasm in 2013 to become a regular participant.
For several years the numbers attending the meeting ebbed and flowed. In recent times they merely swell, to the point where they threaten to burst the capacity of the Villa Lanna to accommodate us. This is a problem, but also immensely encouraging. I welcome above all a new diversity in approaches to critical theory, mainly due to participation by younger scholars from all over the globe. Currently, therefore, its conference character seems especially important. It increases the plurality of voices in our colloquium, adding richness and complexity to this exceptionally convivial symposium.