Conference Report: A Thought-Provoking Symposium Amongst the Last of the Daffodils

by David Jewson

Alone Together

International Pandisciplinary Symposium on Solitude in Community

We must communicate with one another;

we must, it would seem, be alone together.

John Macmurray

York St John has a beautiful campus with a particularly attractive quad, part of the original teacher training college. With its ethos of curiosity, generosity and intellectual rigour, where people are put first, it is perhaps is the perfect place to contemplate solitude. This excellent symposium took place from the 10^th to the 12^th April as a joint venture arranged by Prof. Julian Stern of York St John University and Dr Malgorzata Walejko of the University of Szczecin in Poland with far-ranging contributions from Poland, Romania, USA, Canada, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, and of course the UK.

   Julian Stern has a longstanding interest in the study of solitude, sparked in part by a discussion with schoolchildren, one of whom said he felt most connected with his fellow students when he was alone.

Lasting for one evening and two days, the symposium started with some Canadian research on how children and adolescents acquire the skill of working out what others must be thinking, perhaps the most important social skill. Interestingly the most skilled were also the most solitary. Next was the philosophy of the uncommunicable, of things that we can experience in solitude but can never be fully conveyed to others:

From pure sensation to the intuition of beauty, from pleasure and pain to love and the mystical ecstasy and death – all the things that are fundamental, all the things that, to the human spirit, are most profoundly significant, can only be experienced, not expressed (Aldous Huxley in 1950).

This progressed to a discussion of the uncommunicable in education. There are uncommunicable things inside a child which, if left unfettered by conformity, can lead to great creativity and originality. The session overflowed with ideas with one powerful educational idea that I particularly remember being to create silent spaces when teaching, giving pupils the chance to consider things in solitude.

For most of the symposium there were sessions running in parallel, with about thirty sessions in all to choose from. There was a huge variety, with some of the more unusual that I attended including: how texture could be used as a metaphor for Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy on things that exist beyond what is said; how solitude as part of mindfulness can further the wellbeing of individuals and communities; how Brexit is an example of the need of a nation for solitude; how storytelling creates listeners all aware of each others presence but wandering separately; the solitude of Ovid; the vicious cycle of loneliness in dementia aggravating the disease which then increases the loneliness; and the solitude of artists painting rather beautiful shop signs in Africa. There were also a number of talks on loneliness, isolation and rejection, all far too much to discuss here.

One of my favourite quotes from the symposium was this:

in D.D. Rosca (1895-1980), another Romanian Philosopher, the spirit and the nature, the good and the evil, repel each other eternally, catching man in between, showered by uncertainty, solitude, mystery, metaphysical disquietude, which man has the chance, ability, and, we may say, privilege to transform into creativity and creations, rejecting resignation.

Our Polish visitors were an absolute pleasure to hear, they were also most generous, providing snacks and wine before the symposium dinner (which, unfortunately, I was unable to attend) as well as other gifts including a fine book about the architecture of the beautiful University of Szczecin with a copy available for anyone who wanted it.

As ever, it was also good to meet old friends and have the chance to make some interesting new ones, while not forgetting friends who would very much have liked to come but were unable to make it.

Some of the papers at the symposium are planned to be published in the open access journal Paedagogia Christiana in 2020: http://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/PCh/index

A Polish journal, it is available on the internet with an option on the home page to choose English. Bloomsbury is also interested in publishing a handbook of solitude, silence and loneliness which may have contributions based on ideas presented at the symposium.

The daffodils were out around the medieval walls of York and there was a rather pleasing exhibition of Turner and Ruskin at the art gallery to make a good trip even more unforgettable, and as memories of an excellent symposium fade there is the promise of a second event in Szczecin in Poland between the 16^th and 18^th April 2020 – a date for your diaries!