Pontignano, 1-8 settembre 2002

"Encounters"

A Balance


The third edition of Synapsis, the European School of Comparative Studies which is organised on a yearly basis by the Universities of Bologna and Siena (in collaboration with the Universities of Aarhus, Copenhagen, Limoges, Lisboa, Paris X, Provence and Tübingen, the Italian Association for the Study of Comparative Theory and History of Literature and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici directed by Umberto Eco), has taken place from September 1 to September 8 2002 in the Certosa of Pontignano near Siena.
The subject chosen this year was "Encounters/Rencontres/Incontri". 61 students and young researchers were admitted to the school after a screening and selection of the applications received (more than one hundred). All of the applicants were specialists in comparative literature or related fields. They came from numerous Italian, European and also Extra-European Universities (the United States and Japan). For the most part they were graduate students in their Universities, but there were also a number of post-graduate fellows.
Three grants were awarded (one offered by the Italian Association of Comparative Theory and History of Literature and two offered by the Sienese "Azienda per il Diritto allo Studio", reserved for students from the University of Siena) to those, among the participants, who had not received any financial aid from their home Universities for attending Synapsis.
The general structure of the school largely stuck to the formula that had been applied in the preceding years and had encountered the approval and satisfaction of teachers and students alike: general lectures in the morning and diversified seminars in the afternoon.
The morning lectures were given by scholars and professors from various Italian and foreign Universities: Gillian Beer (Cambridge), Roberto Bigazzi (Siena), Riccardo Bruscagli (Florence), William Dodd (Siena), Svend Erik Larsen (Aarhus), Mario Lavagetto (Bologna), Christopher Prendergast (Cambridge), Elisabeth Rallo (Aix-en-Provence), Jean Starobinski (Geneva), Giorgio Tinazzi (Padoa), Michael Wood (Princeton). Antonio Tabucchi, who was detained in Portugal, sent a written text to be read. On Friday morning Remo Ceserani (Bologna), Mario Domenichelli (Florence), Peter Madsen (Copenhagen), and Alain Montandon (Clermont-Ferrand) took part in a round table, trying to summarise the results of the discussions of the preceding days.
The languages used during the lectures and discussion were: English, French, and Italian.
To the five afternoon seminars of the preceding year (two in English, one in French, one in Italian, and one in German), a new one was added (in Italian), with the intention of offering a larger variety of choices. The participants, divided in smaller groups, took part in seminars that were true workshops, based on the reading and interpreting of texts and the confrontation of aims and methods of research. They worked under the guidance of a co-ordinator - Gillian Beer (Cambridge), Helena Buescu (Lisboa), Massimo Fusillo (L'Aquila), Patrizia Lombardo (Geneva), Romano Luperini (Siena), John Neubauer (Amsterdam) - and the help of a tutor or a couple of tutors - respectively, Orsetta Innocenti (Rome) e Florian Mussgnug (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore), Sergia Adamo (Trieste), Clotilde Bertoni (Palermo), Paolo Zanotti (Bologna), Simona Micali (Bologna), Stephan Besser (Berlin). They presented and discussed their research projects in a plenary session on Saturday. A selection of the papers derived from these projects will be included in the third volume of the Synapsis proceedings, together with the texts of the general lectures, following the model of the first volume, the one collecting the proceedings of the first edition of Synapsis, which has just been published by Le Monnier in Florence and was exhibited at Pontignano during the week. The volume, edited by Marina Polacco under the title I vecchi e i giovani, contains essays by Umberto Eco, Antonio Tabucchi, Gillian Beer, Marco Bellocchio, Maurizio Bettini, Remo Ceserani, Jürgen Wertheimer, Peter Madsen and others. The prestigious journal of Comparative Literature "Arcadia" (Berlin) has declared its interest in publishing in the future some of the works produced by Synapsis in their original language.
The program was enriched by evening showing of films related to the theme of "Encounters", by an afternoon trip to visit the winery of Dievole offered by the University of Siena, and the production of a show on Friday night, with scenes from Euripides, Shakespeare, Flaubert, Hoffmanstahl, Pirandello (all connected with the theme of "Encounters"), staged under the direction of Laura Caretti and enacted by some of the participants to the school. The show was received by the public with warmth and sympathy. The concluding night of the week was celebrated with a joyful party.
In the last day of the week a survey was distributed among the students, asking for an objective and anonymous evaluation of the school and its cultural and intellectual attainments. The result of the survey is very encouraging: all the judgements are positive and in many cases enthusiastic. All the participants value the school as "useful for their professional training", give a positive or extremely positive evaluation of its cultural contents, and promise to carry on the research project started in the afternoon workshop. Also the lecturers and teachers who took part in this year's Synapsis have expressed their satisfaction. They also promised to advertise Synapsis in their home Universities, and to solicit the official acknowledgement of the credits gained by the students, the official establishment of exchange programs, and of travel and sojourn grants.
Every year the organising committee tries to improve the structure and operational effectiveness of the school, following the suggestions of teachers and students that have taken part in it. This year instead of a single language officially used for the general lectures and discussions (English) we have introduced two other languages (French and Italian). It is our intention to add soon another language largely used in the world: Spanish. (German is in use, traditionally, in one of the afternoon seminars). The multilingual solution, supported by a large use of abstracts, hand outs, and complete translation of some of the lectures given in English or other languages has reduced almost to nothing the linguistic discomfort of some of the participants. Many of the students in the survey found that the linguistic Babel of the debates was stimulating for them and the number of those declaring that the linguistic problem made them too passive has diminished from 17 last year to 5 this year. This good result was probably due to the increasingly important role of the tutors assigned to each seminar: they get in touch with the students before the actual opening of the school, they follow them in their preparation and during the seminars, they keep in touch after the closing of the school, when the students start writing their papers, thus creating a very important cultural and human relationship. The role of the tutors was greatly appreciated by the students: all of them, without exception, have expressed in the survey their gratitude, and even affection (in some cases enthusiasm), for their tutors.
It is the intention of the organising committee, following the suggestions of many of the teachers and students who were at Pontignano, to modify the structure of the final round table and of the session dedicated to the presentation of their researches by the students.
We want to thank all the colleagues and the participants to this year's Synapsis for their advice and suggestions and strongly hope that our collaboration will grow and increase in the future.