Summer school: Max in Copenhagen, Denmark
This summer, I attended the Summer School in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind organised by the Centre for Subjectivity Research at Copenhagen University. In what follows, I will briefly describe the overall structure of the program as well as my personal experience, the city, and offer a loose collection of general thoughts and impressions that this week left on me.
As me and the two Dutch students with whom I attended the summer school expected beforehand, the program was rather intense. Every day started with a keynote lecture of about 75 minutes given by a distinguished scholar, followed by a Q&A with the audience. After a short break, the day continued with two shorter presentations, usually given by advanced MA students or PhD-candidates, which were also accompanied by Q&A-sessions. These three lectures served as the central source material for small discussion groups into which all students were randomly assigned. The goal of these groups was to reflect on the material and collectively formulate (critical) questions for the three speakers during the final Q&A. After this Q&A, two nights contained an organized activity (common dinner, boat trip through the city), whereas the other three nights were open for participants to do whatever they wanted.
I noticed rather quickly that the presentations were often quite technical and focussed on a specific problem within a specialized field of inquiry (e.g. whether Heidegger’s theory of perception fits within a representationalist paradigm or whether a Husserlian account of experience can explain hallucinations). This caused the presentations to be very well-researched and thoroughly thought through (as opposed to student presentations, which tend to be less technical and more imaginative), but it also made it difficult for me to understand everything that the speakers were attempting to convey. Some topics were relevant to my own interests (e.g. the role of embodiment in mental disorders or Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ in contemporary research paradigms of embodied cognition) and captivated me greatly, whereas others (e.g. Dan Zahavi’s lecture on ‘dyads’ and ‘tryads’) were more elusive and difficult to grasp. However, I was very pleased to be surrounded by engaged, talented and kind participants who helped me to get a better understanding of the issues at stake and their philosophical relevancy. Not only did I discuss these ideas with the two Dutch students who I knew before going to Copenhagen, I also spoke to a lot of other researchers and thinkers from all over the world. It was through these conversations, which occurred during the day at the university as well as in the evenings during social gatherings, that I felt my philosophical skills were challenged, sharpened and expanded the most.
The fellow participants of the school were therefore pretty influential on my overall experience. Not only did we discuss philosophical issues, we also talked about our countries, plans, hobbies, passions and other things. It was great to see how philosophy can bring people together. Moreover, this week served as a reminder of the vastness of philosophy: everywhere in the world, people are fascinated by the same ideas, thinkers and problems. This also led me to become hopeful of a future within academia, in which I would love to explore other countries and cultures while doing research.
The city itself truly surprised me. Even though a quick Google-search reveals that Copenhagen is home to only roughly 650.000 people, it has all the characteristics of a metropole. The city is vibrant and full of life, filled with people who want to create, innovate, change and inspire. From gastronomy to art, culture and architecture, the city is really the beating heart of the country in many ways. The boat trip through the harbour really highlighted this for me; rarely have I seen that many impressive and beautiful buildings in such a short period of time. The opera house and national library stand out the most, not only because of their size, but also because of their beauty. This trip was also a lot of fun because of the entertaining guide that provided us with background information concerning the various buildings we saw.
To conclude, my experience of the summer school was intense, but also rewarding. I learned a lot, in a philosophical as well as a non-philosophical way. It is difficult to say whether my research will be directly influenced by everything I learned, but I am sure that it will have its impact on me somehow, if only because of the memories I made along the way. The summer school also made me reflect on life in academia a lot more, and has further strengthened my ambition to go into teaching and writing after I have finished my Research Master’s degree. I also had the good fortune to go through all these experiences in a beautiful city, surrounded by unique, kind people. I would therefore recommend anybody interested in doing a summer school to attend the one in Copenhagen, for it is truly a fun, interesting, inspiring experience.