Event: Grasping Kairos Research Workshop – 14 & 15 June, Amsterdam 2018

This workshop brought together several members of our network for two days of Kairos focused discussion and conviviality. Kristine Johanson (network director) organised the event and did a wonderful job of hosting us all at the University of Amsterdam (excellent food and plenty of borrel included – thanks Kristine!). Over two days, we shared papers, took part in roundtable discussions, and workshopped plans for grant applications to support future collaborations through the network. The work shared ranged across periods (classical, early modern, twentieth century) and disciplines (art history, political history, literary studies, classical studies and philosophy), and as you can imagine, offered us all the opportunity for rich and exciting discussion.

On day one, Carol Atack (University of Oxford) got things off to an incredibly informative start with her paper on the rhetorical and philosophical contexts for the development of kairos in classical Athenian political thought. Carol guided us through the language of kairos (see her generously shared handout here), considering the history of the concept by examining Plato’s description of moments of military intervention, before moving on to explore its use in relation to leadership, political and legal oratory, and rhetoric. Joanne Paul (University of Sussex) explored the ‘problem of counsel’ in the early tudor period: the risk of harm / ridicule and of ineffectuality which was faced by statesmen deciding whether or not to offer advice. Her paper explored the ways in which three statesmen (Thomases More, Starkey and Elyot), were aware of and engaged with the concept of kairos as an antidote to these anxieties. Barbara Baert (University of Leuven) took us to Renaissance Italy through her consideration of Mantegna’s image of Kairos, Prudence and a youth (see image on the left). Through a revaluation work on this image by Aby Warburg, she described its eschatological nature. The picture, in its grey-scale, presents an optical in between world, and operates in the expectant mode: the viewer anticipates a sudden and kairotic burst into colour at any moment. We ended the day with a roundtable discussion, chaired by Sarah Lewis, which developed some of the connections and conversations that had begun to open up between us. From morality to anachronism, from beauty to performance, from power to emotion, from individual to collective identity; our discussion was broad ranging and productive.

Day two began with a workshop focused on the possibility of applying to the COST grant scheme. We discussed the potential benefits of this kind of funding, which would enable us to broaden our network across Europe, across disciplines, and also across contemporary culture through public engagement events. We then heard a wonderful paper from Tina Skouen (University of Oslo), which examined kairos in the context of religious conversion as it is narrated through the devotional literature of sixteenth century. Tina considered the ‘kairic awareness of living on the edge of time’ that is central to the apostatic experience as it is described in the Jesuit Robert Person’s conversion manual. Russell Re Manning (Bath Spa University) ended the day with a paper which focused on the theologian Paul Tillich’s use of kairos in his works, considering kairos in its biblical contexts as operating in three ways: to describe Christ’s coming; to describe the turning point in history in which the moment is transformed into the eternal; and to describe Tillich’s concept of a new theonomy in the present moment.

If you would like to find out more about any of the papers from the conference, please do get in touch.

Thanks to Kristine for hosting this wonderful event!