A Post- SPEP Reflection
Hi Jamie -
I must confess I am a bit surprised that no one else has written. I think SPEP was an unqualified success.
I was not in on the organization/administration side of things, but I think that Walter and the core of graduate students made sure that everything ran professionally and smoothly. The facilities were for the most part adequate for the task (I attended a few sessions at which it was possible to hear talking/laughing/cheering next door - I imagine this is just a reality of conferences at hotels though).
At the last minute I was given the opportunity to moderate a session, but in doing so I missed Farhang's panel. The feedback I received on Farhang's session and the other sessions with VU folks -- and there were quite a few -- was positive. Hopefully you will hear from, for instance, Farhang, Joe, Ammon, and Ted about their session.
There was an author's session on Caputo. His new "The Weakness of God" is out. He received more praise than criticism. One of the commentators - whose name I cannot now recall - at one point in the session revealled his t-shirt which carried a picture of Nietzsche and the inscription "What would Nietzsche do?" There was also an author's session on Walter Brogan's "Heidegger and Aristotle: THe Twofoldness of Being." I was not able to attend, but I believe that so many people showed up that it was moved to a larger room. (I may be confusing the attendance at his author's session with the audience for his lecture on Agamben and the state of exception. In any case, Walter drew large crowds.). I did not attend Badiou's talk, or Wendy Brown's.
The highlight of the event for me was the opportunity to see so many friends. Our graduate community is now spread out all over the place, yet we are a pretty tight bunch. I love it. Some people had good news to share (and I will let him/them share it). Some people brought along their good news, so to speak: we met Mike and Shannon's daughter and saw again Ammon and Heather's daughter. There were 20+ of us out for dinner Friday night; kids at one end, the married, the newly engaged, and the bachelors spread out from there. We are a growing community, literally and figuratively.
*On a wholly different matter: because I mentioned to a few of you that I would try it again . . . last sunday I did indeed run the NYC marathon for the second time, and I actually did meet my goal: I beat my previous time by 10 minutes and 6 seconds. Lance Armstrong beat my time by almost 2 hours . . . but at least I came in ahead of the guy in the rhinoceros costume!
I must confess I am a bit surprised that no one else has written. I think SPEP was an unqualified success.
I was not in on the organization/administration side of things, but I think that Walter and the core of graduate students made sure that everything ran professionally and smoothly. The facilities were for the most part adequate for the task (I attended a few sessions at which it was possible to hear talking/laughing/cheering next door - I imagine this is just a reality of conferences at hotels though).
At the last minute I was given the opportunity to moderate a session, but in doing so I missed Farhang's panel. The feedback I received on Farhang's session and the other sessions with VU folks -- and there were quite a few -- was positive. Hopefully you will hear from, for instance, Farhang, Joe, Ammon, and Ted about their session.
There was an author's session on Caputo. His new "The Weakness of God" is out. He received more praise than criticism. One of the commentators - whose name I cannot now recall - at one point in the session revealled his t-shirt which carried a picture of Nietzsche and the inscription "What would Nietzsche do?" There was also an author's session on Walter Brogan's "Heidegger and Aristotle: THe Twofoldness of Being." I was not able to attend, but I believe that so many people showed up that it was moved to a larger room. (I may be confusing the attendance at his author's session with the audience for his lecture on Agamben and the state of exception. In any case, Walter drew large crowds.). I did not attend Badiou's talk, or Wendy Brown's.
The highlight of the event for me was the opportunity to see so many friends. Our graduate community is now spread out all over the place, yet we are a pretty tight bunch. I love it. Some people had good news to share (and I will let him/them share it). Some people brought along their good news, so to speak: we met Mike and Shannon's daughter and saw again Ammon and Heather's daughter. There were 20+ of us out for dinner Friday night; kids at one end, the married, the newly engaged, and the bachelors spread out from there. We are a growing community, literally and figuratively.
*On a wholly different matter: because I mentioned to a few of you that I would try it again . . . last sunday I did indeed run the NYC marathon for the second time, and I actually did meet my goal: I beat my previous time by 10 minutes and 6 seconds. Lance Armstrong beat my time by almost 2 hours . . . but at least I came in ahead of the guy in the rhinoceros costume!
Posted by Gregory Hoskins on
Saturday November 11, 2006 at 9:50am
In any event, I thought that the panel Ammon, Ted, and I had on Hegel's Aesthetics went really well. There were fairly vigorous question and answer periods for each paper, and I think we all handled things well.
I also did not go to either of the plenary sessions, so it would be interesting to hear comments on them (especially Badiou)...
The main reason I didn't go to those lectures (or much of the rest of the conference, to be honest) was that I was showing my new fiancee (Tracy) around Philly. I assume that Greg is obliquely referring to my engagement news in his post. In any event, Tracy had a great time and very much enjoyed meeting all of my Nova friends; this is of course consonant with the (correct) things Greg says about it being a fun, close-knit bunch.
i went to jack's talk on marion, which was intereting, as well. westphal offered a critique, and several heavy hitters (kearney, wyschogrod) were also there and participated in the discussion afterwards.
and, as greg mentions, it was fantastic to see all the VU folks again-- the community we've got is really great.
I apologize as well for forgetting to mention that Jamie Findling and his wife and child were also part of the group on Friday night. (I should point out though that I have not yet met either of them.)
I would agree that SPEP seemed to go quite well. It was indeed Walter's book session that had to be moved to the ballroom, as there were, I would guess, well over 100 people who showed up. I didn't see his plenary session on Agamben, but he effectively gave two plenaries during the conference, besides his hosting duties. I have to think he's glad to have all that behind him.
Our young hermeneutics society, NASPH, had an affiliated society session on Thursday morning, which was generally successful. John Sallis gave a well-attended talk on Heidegger/Gadamer on art, which I thought was great, and then we tried a new wrinkle--an hour-long text discussion, with brief introductions by two commentators. The aim was to foster a more "hermeneutical" (i.e., conversational) engagement with one another. However, it was only moderately effective, as many people left after Sallis's talk, and it was hard to generate a dynamic conversation in such a limited time. But a learning experience nonetheless.
Ted, Joe, and Ammon acquitted themselves well, but I didn't see much else. Badiou was standing-room only, and after a long day I didn't feel up to standing for that long.