Bertinoro, August 28th - September 4th, 2005

"The Five Senses (not to Mention the Sixth)"

 

The sixth edition of the European School of Comparative Studies Synapsis was held at Bertinoro University Center from August 28th to September 4th, 2005. The organizing committee for 2005 was composed of Federico Bertoni, Roberto Bigazzi, Laura Caretti, Remo Ceserani, Orsetta Innocenti, Donata Meneghelli, Simona Micali, Pierluigi Pellini and Paolo Zanotti. The theme, which had been chosen by the scientific committee, was "The Five Senses (not to Mention the Sixth)".

According to all the participants (teachers, tutors, students), the results of this year's session were extremely positive, from the point of view of the cultural and formative activities as well as from the point of view of the interpersonal relations and friendships that were established among the participants, prompted by a warm and stimulating general atmosphere. We would like to stress that this particular atmosphere has become in the course of time a permanent feature of Synapsis, and it is probably one of the main and special ingredients of its success. Somehow, being a "Synapsian" (a label coined by a first-rate Synapsian: Djelal Kadir) has progressively become one of the essential aspects of the school. Once more, Synapsis has proved to be a chance of lively and highly rewarding cultural exchange, both in the morning lectures and in the discussions within the afternoon seminars, as well as in the free conversations engaged outside the 'official' activities. This year the general trend was confirmed by the extremely active participation to the post-lecture discussions by everybody, without any distinction between teachers and students - thanks also to the choice of English as a common language, which has definitively proved to be the right one. In this respect, the value of the enterprise is stressed also by the number of 'Synapsian friends', who participated in past years' sessions and felt the desire to visit us at least for part of the week, in order to be part of the ongoing cultural discussion.

The lectures in the general morning sessions were held by: Helena Buescu (Lisboa, in English); Antoine Compagnon (Sorbonne and Columbia, in French); Steven Connor (London, in English); Vittorio Gallese (Parma, in English); Clara Gallini (Roma - Sapienza, in Italian); Djelal Kadir (Penn State, in English); Karen Newman (Brown, in English); Gian Piero Piretto (Milano, in English); Christopher Prendergast (Cambridge, in English). The lectures focused on different aspects and perspectives of the theme and raised brilliant first-rate discussions, thus proving to be very stimulating and full of implications. We also had a morning session entirely devoted to the sixth sense (explored first from an anthropologic and then a neuro-cognitive perspective); following the synapsian tradition, we also had a lecture (held by Vittorio Gallese) which looked at the theme from a scientific perspective.

The afternoon seminars were led by: Roberto Bigazzi (Siena, in Italian); Maria DiBattista (Princeton, in English); José González García (Madrid, in Spanish); Patrizia Lombardo and Laurent Darbellay (Genève, in English); Alain Montandon (Clermont Ferrand, in French); John Neubauer (Amsterdam, in German); Sergio Zatti (Pisa, in Italian). For the first time we offered a seminar in Spanish (expanding the program from 6 to 7 seminars altogether): the initial perplexities due to possible linguistic problems were dispelled by the success of the seminar, which went far beyond our expectations. The group led by José González García immediately created an harmonious and friendly atmosphere, thanks to which the discussions were very animated and involved all students, including those whose competence in Spanish was not perfect. It was undoubtedly a successful experiment, which deserves to be carried on in the future.

The program also included, as had it happened last year, a round table of younger literary scholars, on Friday morning, with contributions by Pierpaolo Antonello (Cambridge); Fausto De Michele (Wien); Donata Meneghelli (Bologna); Florian Mussgnug (University College London); and it ended on Saturday night with a lecture on the cultural history of taste by Massimo Montanari (Bologna), followed by an excellent gastronomic fete sponsored by the Association "Colori della Romagna Toscana".

As usual, the tutors of the seminars (Giuliano Bacigalupo, Fernando Bayón, Francesco Ghelli, Giulio Iacoli, Marta Marchetti, Barry McCrea, Roberto Russi) have done an excellent job, first by helping the students to get ready for the seminars in the months preceding the school, then by supporting them during the group discussions and in preparing their individual projects and final presentations. An exceptional contribution, very efficient and passionate, to the general organization of the school was given by Orsetta Innocenti and Simona Micali, helped by Paolo Zanotti.

The theatrical evening, directed by Laura Caretti, met with the customary success: the theatrical performance is one of the most significant events of the week, and, more importantly, the preparatory workshop has become one of the main activities related to the theme. This year more than 20 students participated in the performance (as they had themselves requested in their application): this experience offered to the students involved both a chance for analysing texts and reflecting on the theme in a creative and personal way, and a chance for the audience of being confronted with the issues developed during the week from a different perspective and with a wider selection of (literary and musical) authors and works. Taking into account the didactical and cultural value of the enterprise, which so far has been carried on thanks to the personal commitment and enthusiasm by Laura Caretti and some volunteers among the students and the staff, we think that it is time for the theatre workshop to acquire a more stable and institutional role among the other Synapsian activities. One possible suggestion: as it happens with the afternoon seminars, the students who want to participate could be required to do some preliminary work before the beginning of the school, and the meetings of the theatre group should be assigned a fixed place within the daily schedule.

The adjustments introduced year after year in the calendar and the distribution of the activities of Synapsis have brought its mechanism to function in an almost perfect way. Within the general format, however , some aspects can still be improved, as suggested both by the opinions collected during the week, and by the answers given anonymously to a questionnaire that was distributed at the end of the week. In particular, the set-up of the Round Table, after the various experiments that we have tried in the past, can be further improved: this year it offered a supplement and an enlargement of the discussion that had taken place in the morning lectures and the seminars, through four short contributions of high quality: The problem was that the four had not been coordinated and the allotted time for a general discussion was too short. The Round Table should probably be a moment in which all the various elements discussed during the week are finally brought together and composed in a meaningful whole. Finally, the film screenings this year were not as carefully planned as they should have been, since we thought that having a seminar entirely on film would exempt us from organizing the collective evening screenings with introductions and post-film discussions - but the requests made by most of the participants have convinced us that this is an activity that cannot be overlooked. As to the concluding afternoon session, , with the presentations of the results of the seminar works, the formula that we have chosen seems to function in a satisfactory way: the seven reports written by the students and read by them in the general assembly were clear, concise and highly interesting - we should probably find a way of according them a larger visibility (by distributing them to all the participants or publishing them on the Synapsis website). By applying this format to the reports, we should also be able to go back to the 5 weekly meetings for each seminar - instead of the 4 we have had in the past two years - thus satisfying the general request of having more time for what is, after all, the most important among the school activities.

On the last day of the week Paolo Zanotti had also a chance for presenting the volume with the proceedings of Synapsis 2003 that he has edited (Contaminazioni, Florence: LeMonnier, 2005), In that occasion it was announced that the editor of the proceeding for the 2005 edition will be Francesco Ghelli. It was also confirmed that the theme of Synapsis 2006 will be: "Exiles"; and that of Synapsis 2007: "Scandal". The members of the staff and those of the scientific committee who were with us also discussed the future prospect of the School, and the pressing need to find institutional and stable sources of funding: as never before, the increasing shortage of public resources for cultural activities and the humanities are making the organization of the school more and more difficult, and if this trend will be confirmed, Synapsis won't be able to survive for many more years.