4th International Collaborative and Dialogical Symposium
HORIZONS 2018
(Dis)Connecting Tensions
May 3–5, 2018
Ostrava, Důl Hlubina
The challenge is to embrace the tension produced when one holds one’s own position while simultaneously remaining curious about the position(s) of the other(s)
What may be seen as barriers to dialogue such as tension, non-clarity, ambiguity, incoherency, uncertainty and misunderstanding are necessary for dialogue to be creative and productive.
About Symposium
We live in a divided, ambiguous world. We try to figure out who are “we”, who are “they” and we are looking for what separates us, how different and better we are. We build our own community, yet at the same
time that’s what sets us apart from others. A dialog outside of our social bubble often creates tension, which could be unpleasant or unbearable, so we rather stay “with ours”.
Tension is necessary though to reach understanding in a dialog. To create something new it’s necessary to discuss something strange, unknown and sometimes contrary to our position. The same tension that divides us can connect us then.
Horizons 2018 will look for connections in what’s disconnected, for what’s common in differences, for what holds together in a conflict. We will emphasize on subjects of mental health, racism/xenophobia, partners-family relationships and education. The symposium is for people interested in the aforementioned subjects, professionals or general public, specifically for facilitators, mediators, therapists, social workers, community workers, educators, activists and others.
More about the format and the name of the symposiumWhy symposium? Why Horizons?
We decided to title the format a symposium because we consider this word to correspond better than others to dialogical, horizontal and interactive mode of encountering. Since we don’t want to speak empty words we pay attention to the encounter’s character in advance. Considering the individual parts we are planning formats and adapting spaces in cooperation with our guests. We are drawing on experience from foreign conferences, workshops and summer-schools. All members of Narativ team are going to facilitate our joint two days in order to let us feel well, learn a lot and express ourselves. Dialogue is necessary if we want to enrich one another.
Etymology of both words “dialogue” and “symposium” leads us to the classical Greece. There were two meanings of “symposium” for ancient society. Most widely known meaning is connected to verbatim translation “to drink together” and refers to celebrations, banquets and rituals where people used to sit in circle while, often immoderately, enjoying all ancient pleasures. However we relate primarily to the second meaning which refers to the part of symposiums dedicated not only to banquet but firstly to the discussion on certain topic. Such discussion was often regulated by a moderator taking care about a possibility to speak for anyone so that the debate was enriching for everyone.
Why “Horizons” then? We are wondering what is possible to see from the current standpoint and what we are going to meet at the horizons. We also want to meet “horizontally” so to speakin order to give a chance to listen and speak to both skilled professionals as well as beginners across generations and professions. Last but not least do you know “merging horizons”? It is a poetic expression by H. G. Gadamer whose hermeneutic thinking had influenced many of our teachers. By this expression he grasped a moment of mutual understanding that we may experience in dialogue while exposing our own experiences, prejudices and other preconceptions. This way we are offering our horizons to one another so that they happen to merge. Our own horizon is expanding without superseding or being superseded by any other.
We would like to invite you to such merging of horizons.
The firs version of the symposium program will be published on Mar 3, 2018.
Organizers
The symposium is organized by Narativ Association in collaboration with:
- Taos Institute
- International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogic Practices
- Platform for social housing
- Ostrava university
- PDCS, Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia
Main guests (speakers)
Sheila McNamee
University of New Hampshire, USA
Loek Schoenmakers
The Netherlands
Ottar Ness
Buskerud university, Norsko
Price
Full price
3200 CZK
Fees payed by Dec 31, 2017
2400 CZK
Fees payed by Mar 15, 2018
2800 CZK
Price for actively involved participants
Registration fee for individual workshop presenters
1500 CZK
Registration fee for other participants actively involved in the symposium
based on individual agreement
Cancellation of registration
We will not return registration fees for cancellations after Apr 30, 2018.
Registration
Get Involved!
Active involvement
We offer the possibility of active involvement in the symposium, either in the form of logistical help or in the form of group facilitation.
Registration of the individual presentation
We also accept short presentation or workshops proposals that could offer examples of conflict resolution and reconciliation of the opposites in a variety of contexts.
Those who are interested in being actively involved or presentations proposals please e-mail us at info@narativ.cz.
We will inform you about which presentations proposals we chose for the symposium by Feb 28, 2018.
Contact
info@narativ.cz
Pavel Nepustil
(urgent requests)