Dear society members,

We are delighted to start working towards our next Symposium in Paris 2019, keeping the momentum of our first Symposium in the Southern hemisphere. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Gabriele Cornelli for his unfailing commitment to the Society during his presidency, especially for the promotion of new talent in Platonic studies. We thank him and his whole team for a Symposium which brought new colours to Plato. We also want to have a thought for Francisco Bravo, whose health did not allow him to serve as co-president to the degree he would have, despite his longstanding dedication to Plato in South America.

You will find the minutes of the General Assembly held in Brasilia published on the website. Let us gather here for you the main news.

XI Symposium Platonicum Selected Papers

The Editorial Committee has now received the submission of more than 70 papers of the XI Symposium held in Brasilia. The results of the selection for the proceedings are expected by July 2017.

Officers

It is a pleasure to greet Barbara Sattler and Debra Nails, elected by the Assembly, respectively as European and North-American representative, in replacement of Mary Margaret McCabe and Verity Harte, whom we would like to thank for their time at the service of our society. Mauro Tulli deserves a special salute as he moves from the excom to the very honourable advisory board gathering all our ex-presidents. Last but not least, we welcome Verity Harte: it was our first decision as new presidents of the IPS to nominate her as the first woman vice-president of the IPS, with a special mission to develop the equal opportunities policy of our Society and help us enhance compliance therewith.

The next Symposia

Congratulations to Edward Halper and Richard Parry who will finally bring Plato home to Athens in 2022, in Georgia, for the first Symposium Platonicum in the United States. The Assembly decided that we would do the Parmenides in Paris and the Sophist in Athens. We are eager to enjoy these two promising festivals of dialectic.

Regional meetings

You will find new guidelines, voted for by the Assembly in Brasilia, to submit proposals for regional meetings for endorsement and funding by the IPS. Two main changes: a scientific proposal is now explicitly requested, pointing out the originality and pertinence of the planned meeting; it is expected that all regional meetings that seek endorsement and funding from the IPS make explicit efforts towards ensuring gender and other diversity of programmed speakers, including ensuring equitable representation of men and women amongst invited speakers.

Cross cultural programme

As announced in Brasilia we would also very much like our presidency to improve the way Platonists of all linguistic and cultural traditions come to better know each other’s traditions. For instance, it would a great delight if, in Paris 2019, scholars from different backgrounds are better able to follow papers in a language different from their own and know more of the scholarship on the Parmenides in other languages and traditions than their own. We will especially welcome projects working in this direction. If you have plans and ideas please make them known to Barbara Sattler, who will follow up on these issues.

Midterm meeting

The next midterm meeting will be held in the autumn of 2018 in St Petersburg, a proposal made by Roman Svetlov to organize the first IPS meeting in Russia. We are very happy with this proposal, and are looking forward for this event.

Website and renewal of membership

We have recently improved the website, reinstating the option to use Paypal for payment of the membership fees, for the current triennial period 2016-2019. Previous members should simply connect to https://platosociety.org, and can choose to renew their membership on their profile page (Membership / My profile). The payment modes available are Paypal (recommended) and bank transfer option, as indicated below.

As we said in Brasilia, we think of France and Paris as only a little part of a larger francophone academic world, spreading from Ottawa to Dakar. We would like our inner diversity to be our best guide in the years to come, to deepen each and everyone’s ability to nourish a richer scientific debate.

Let’s get to work

 

Yours sincerely

 

Luc Brisson, Olivier Renaut and Arnaud Macé

 

Guidelines to renew your membership

You can renew your membership fees online for the next triennial period 2016-2019.

Please follow these steps:

 

  1. Go to https://platosociety.org
  2. Click on the menu Membership, then select “Login”. You will be asked to login with your email address (used in our database) or username if you remember it, and your password. If you don’t remember your password, don’t hesitate to use the option “Forgot your password?” option on the same page.
  3. Once logged in, go to your profile page (click on the menu Membership / My Profile).
  4. Don’t hesitate to fill in your profile credentials on this page (address, country, webpage link).
  5. On the bottom of the page, you will find a section “Renew your membership”. Please click on the required membership status you want to renew. Then add your membership to your “cart”, and proceed to “checkout” either with Paypal (recommended) or Bank transfer. Fill in the “Billing information” in order to have a proper proof of payment.
  6. Your payment will be acknowledged automatically, and you can always find the history of your purchase at the bottom of your Profile Page.
  • Please, feel free to contact Olivier Renaut  for any issues or questions regarding your membership status and payment.