Conference: Humanism and Resilience
Our 2012 General Assembly and conference were held in Utrecht, Netherlands, on 25-27 May.
Details of the General Assembly and Open Meeting on Friday 25 May are here.
In parallel with these there was a programme for European Humanist Professionals, details of which are here.
Below are details of the conference on Humanism and Resilience, which ran from the evening of Friday May 25 to lunchtime on Sunday May 27.
Details are also available on the conference website.
HUMANISM AND RESILIENCE
Today we are all exposed to media hype, political populism and a great variety of other such pervasive influences. Not only that, but economic instability is creating a general sense of insecurity in Europe. The result is widespread disenchantment with politics.
All this poses a serious threat to to vital human values, such as freedom, responsibility, solidarity, and even human dignity. To avoid being swept away by such trends people need resilience.
Why resilience? The Dutch founding father of contemporary humanism, Jaap van Praag, had a vision of a humanism that could deliver the building blocks for a resilient lifestance. He saw it as his mission to shape humanism so that it could empower people and make them resilient against unthinking conformity and against nihilism.
To be resilient means to be able to think for yourself and to resist peer pressure.
The Dutch founding father of contemporary humanism, Jaap van Praag, had a vision of a humanism that could deliver the building blocks for a resilient lifestance. He saw it as his mission to shape humanism so that it could empower people and make them resilient against unthinking conformity and against nihilism.
Resilience comes not from cutting yourself off from such influences but from having the capacity and the freedom to respond to them – while recognizing that in fact you are always influenced by others and the culture you live in.
Starting with a keynote speech on Friday evening, 25 May and ending at lunchtime on Sunday 27 May we will explore how humanism can help us in our everyday lives as citizens.
During the conference, helped by a series of expert speakers, we will explore the importance of resilience from different angles in interactive sessions. You will interact, participate and be inspired.
PROGRAMME
Friday 25 May
9 am – 5 pm General Assembly and Open Meeting OR alternative programme for Humanist Professionals
CONFERENCE: HUMANISM AND RESILIENCE
Friday 25 May
8 – 8.20 pm Official opening of the conference
Ineke de Vries, president of the Dutch Humanist Association
8.20 – 9 pm Keynote speech by Pascal Bruckner
9 – 9.30 Questions from the audience
Saturday 26 May
9.30 am Welcome and practical information
9.45 am Intermezzo: Waking up your body and mind
10.00 am Campaigning with David Pollock
On humanism, secularism and Europe
10.30 am Intermezzo: Succumbing to peer pressure with your neighbour
10.40 am Becoming Resilient with Joachim Duyndam
On resilience, humanism and Europe
11.10 am Coffee with everybody
11.30 am Intermezzo: finding your way
11.45 am Questions for Joachim Duyndam and David Pollock
12.30 pm Having lunch with fellow humanists
2 pm Parallel sessions, round I: choose any one of the following:
A Walk with Wiel Veugelers
A session on education
Watching telly with Marc Josten
A session on medialogic by Marc Josten
Getting empowered with (CAL)
A session on emancipation
Getting involved with Hans van Ewijk
A session on civil participation
Saving the world with Caroline Suransky
A session international humanism
3 pm Tea with your new friends
3.30 pm Parallel sessions round II: choose another from the same list of sessions as in round I
4.30 Free time
7 – 10 pm Dining with our friends
Conference dinner at ‘De beleving’ restaurant
Sunday 27 May
10 am Breakfast with Sophie in ‘t Veld MEP
10.45 am Juice with someone you don’t know . . . yet
11.15 am Getting creative with Andrew Copson
12 pm Saying goodbye with Ineke de Vries
SPEAKERS
Pascal Bruckner (France)
Pascal Bruckner is a French writer and is part of the Cercle de l’Oratoire think tank. After studies at the university Paris I and Paris VII, and then at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, he became maître de conférences at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, and collaborator at the Nouvel Observateur.
A prolific writer, Pascal Bruckner began writing in the vein of the so-called ‘nouveaux philosophes’ and counts among their best known French proponents. He published ‘Parias, ou la tentation de l’Inde’ (‘Parias, or the temptation of India’), ‘Lunes de Fiel’ (adapted to film by Roman Polanski) and ‘Les voleurs de beauté’ (The beauty stealers) (Prix Renaudot in 1997). Among essays, ‘La tentation de l’innocence’ (Temptation of innocence) (Prix Médicis in 1995) and, famously, ‘Le Sanglot de l’Homme blanc’ (‘The Cry of the White Man’), an attack against narcissistic and destructive policies in the interest for the Third World, and more recently ‘La tyrannie de la pénitence’ (2006), an essay on the West’s endless self-criticism.
Joachim Duyndam (Netherlands)
Joachim Duyndam is Socrates Professor of Philosophy at the University of Humanistics in the Netherlands. He chairs the interdisciplinary research project ‘Resilience and Humanism’ and he co-chairs the interdisciplinary research project ‘Current Fascinations of Sacrifice’.
His publications debate the legacies of, among others, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger and René Girard, discussing such themes as mimesis, empathy, generosity, forgiveness, humiliation, and uniqueness. He is editor-in-chief of The Levinas Online Bibliography. He is member of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion since 2007. His keynote speech at COV&R 2007 is published in Contagion. Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 15/16 (2009). A list of publications is available here.
David Pollock (United Kingdom)
Elected EHF president in 2006 and ending his term of office with this General Assembly, David Pollock has been actively involved in the humanist movement since 1961. He is a member of the board of the British Humanist Association (1965-75 and 1997 to date; chair: 1970-72) and of the board of the Rationalist Association (1979 to date; chair: 1989-91). He takes a special interest in policy and campaigning on the place of religion and belief in society and on other questions of public policy. He took a degree in classics at Oxford, had a 25-year career in the coal industry, was then successively Director of Action on Smoking and Health and of the Continence Foundation, and retired in February 2001.
Hans van Ewijk (Netherlands)
From 2002, Hans van Ewijk was professor of Social Policy and Social Work at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences / Hogeschool Utrecht and also chair of the Research Centre for Social Innovation. From 2011 he left those positions. In 2009 he was appointed as endowed professor of Social Work Theory at the University for Humanistics in Utrecht. Moreover he is a visiting professor at Tartu University, Estonia.
Previously, Hans van Ewijk was executive director of the Netherlands Institute for Care and Welfare (1991-2004). He was also president of ICSW Europe and the first chair of ENSACT, a network of European social work departments, professional associations and institutions. He started his career as a teacher and youth worker and was later editor-in-chief of the journal Jeugd en samenleving (Youth and society). Find out more here.
Caroline Suransky (Netherlands)
Dr. Caroline Suransky is director of the UvH Kosmopolis Institute and co-chair of the International Pluralism Knowledge Program with the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (Hivos). Within the program, her responsibilities include academic exchanges between international partner organizations, the Pluralism PhD program and the annual Kosmopolis Summer School on Pluralism, Human Development and Human Rights.
In addition, she co-chairs the UvH research program on Citizenship in Intercultural Societies. Suransky studied Education and Philosophy at the University of Utrecht, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA and the University of Durban-Westville (currently UKZN) in South Africa.
Her own current research focuses on identity politics and higher education. Currently she is working on ‘Racism and transformation in Higher Education in South Africa’ as Research Fellow of the Institute of Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice at the University of the Free State in South Africa. Caroline Suransky is Chief Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Studies.
Marc Josten (Netherlands)
Marc Josten is editor-in-chief and vice-director at HUMAN, the Humanist broadcasting organisation. He is a cross-media journalist, and makes documentaries and philosophical programmes. He also works for other public broadcasting services. Marc Josten studied law and public administration and wrote for various Dutch news magazines, including ‘Vrij Nederland’. His work as a journalist was influential.
He is also a guest lecturer on the MA course on Research and Editing at the University of Amsterdam and publishes regularly on journalism-related topics in newspapers and blogs such as de Nieuwe Reporter and Villamedia. Find out more here.
Wiel Veugelers (Netherlands)
Wiel Veugelers is an endowed professor of Education at the University for Humanistics in Utrecht. He also teaches at the Institute for Teacher Training at the University of Amsterdam. His researches education from a humanist perspective and has done much research on the topic of education, the role of teachers in this and the relationship between education and life stance.
He writes on youth cultures, children’s experiences in education, cooperative networks between schools, and the relationship between school and environment. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Leadership in Education and coordinator of the International Network for Democratic Education. Find out more here.
Sophie in ‘t Veld (Netherlands)
Sophie in ´t Veld is in her second term as a member of the European Parliament for the Dutch social-liberal party D66 and president of the European Parliament Platform for Secularism in Politics. Born in Vollenhove in the Netherlands, she spent three years of her early childhood in Surinam but has since lived in the Dutch cities of the Hague and Delft. After studying medieval history at university, Sophie worked as a freelance in private companies and public institutions. From 1993 she worked as assistant to former MEP Johanna Boogerd. In ´t Veld is concerned about the growth of Euro-scepticism and believes in a Europe that is based on the values of the Age of Enlightenment. In the summer of 2011 Sophie in ‘t Veld received the International Humanist Award at the IHEU conference in Oslo. Publications by Sophie, in English, are listed here.
Andrew Copson (United Kingdom)
Andrew Copson became Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association (BHA) in January 2010 after five years coordinating the BHA’s education and public affairs work. His writing on humanist and secularist issues has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Times and New Statesman as well as in various journals and he has represented the BHA and Humanism extensively on television and radio.
He is a former chair of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association and is currently a trustee of the South Place Ethical Society at Conway Hall (he chairs their Education and Arts Advisory Group and the James Hemming and Blackham Fellowships committees and serves on the advisory group for the Humanist Reference Library).
He is a former director of the European Humanist Federation and is currently a Vice President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), where he leads on Communications. He has previously served as an IHEU delegate to the Council of Europe and has represented humanist organizations to the United Nations (UN) and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He has advised on Humanism for the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families, the BBC, and the Office of National Statistics among others.
He is a member of the Advisory Group for the Humanist Library at London’s Conway Hall and, in a previous post in the office of Lord Macdonald of Tradeston in the House of Lords, he provided the secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. Find out more here.
REGISTRATION
Registration is now open: go to the dedicated conference website, where you can pay the relevant fees and find links to recommended hotels.
The attendance fee for the conference is €95. This includes the keynote speech on Friday and the lectures and sessions on Saturday and Sunday. It also includes the conference dinner and lunch on Saturday.
It is also possible to attend only the Keynote speech for a fee of €12.50.
There is no fee for attending the General Assembly and Open Meeting.
The programme for European Humanist Professionals costs €3.50.
We strongly advise you to register, book your hotel and travel as soon as possible.
This content last updated 6 February 2013 @ 12:48 pm