16 – 17 OCTOBER
Presenters gathered for a welcome dinner on the terrace of the newly opened Stroud House. Friday morning and afternoon presenters, Institute fellows, and staff toured downtown Dallas by bus with Gail Thomas serving as guide. Highlights included: walking the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava, visiting the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, lunching at Neiman Marcus’s flagship store, and strolling the Nasher Sculpture Center.
Friday evening’s events consisted of opening remarks by Executive Director Dr. Larry Allums and Director of Publications and Founding Fellow Dr. Joanne Stroud, followed by a short film compiled by Margot McLean, which featured clips from a BBC series of interviews of James Hillman. After that, there was a panel moderated by Dr. Robert Sardello, which included distinguished guests Robert Leaver, Robert Romanyshyn, and Nor Hall.
18 OCTOBER
Saturday’s events kicked off with an overview of the day by Joanne Stroud and Larry Allums, before sessions organized by the four parts of Hillman’s City & Soul:
- Part I – Patient as Citizen
- Part II – Politics of Beauty
- Part III – Places of Practice
- Part IV – The Soul of the City in Distress
Session I: Patient as Citizen was moderated by Joanne Stroud, and included papers written by panelists Gustavo Beck (“Returning to the Soul’s ‘Body Politic’: Reflections towards Imaginal Democracy”), Randolph Severson (“The Dailiest Day: Civis Urbanus Sum”), and Mary Watkins (“Capitalism and the Commons”).
Session II: Politics of Beauty was moderated by Gail Thomas, and included Klaus Ottmann (“No Ethics without Aesthetics”), Sarah Jackson (“Beauty Walks a Razor’s Edge: How Ugliness Informs and Transforms Beauty”), Dennis Slattery (“Aesthetics of the City: Moments of Arrest”), and Matthew Green (“Teaching Poetic Awareness”).
In the afternoon, Session III: Places of Practice was moderated by Scott Churchill, and included Rodney Teague (“Going to Town, Being in Town, Leaving Town”), Cheryl Sanders-Sardello (“You Have the Right to Remain Silent”), and Gustavo Barcellos (“South and the Soul”).
Session IV: The Soul of the City in Distress was moderated by Larry Allums, with panelists Joanne Stroud (“Return of the Soul to the World”), Scott Becker (“The Minotaur and the Matrix: Technology and the Soulless City”), and Robert Sardello (“Between Greed and Grief: the Imaginal Space of the City”).
The conference concluded with a celebration reception for all involved.
Conversing with James Hillman: City & Soul
