Jubilee Centre for Character and Values hosts Pioneering Interdisciplinary Seminar on Gratitude
23rd November 2013
Events
In relation to its own ongoing research and development work
on the topic the Jubilee Centre for Character and Values hosted a major
international seminar under the title of 'Gratitude in Public Life' which ran
from Friday 22nd to Saturday 23rd of November. The pioneering aim of the
seminar was to stimulate well overdue interface and dialogue between
contemporary philosophical, social scientific (psychological), theological and
other work in this important field. To this end, the seminar featured
presentations by Giacomo Bono (US), Claudia Card (US), Nacy Fagley (US),
Nathaniel Lambert (US), Terrance McConnell (US), Saul Smilansky (Israel),
Philip Watkins (US) and Alex Wood (UK), as well as the Centre’s own Liz
Gulliford and Blaire Morgan. Non-presenting participants included Sean McAleer
(US), Kristján Kristjánsson, Kenneth Wilson, James Arthur, David Carr and
Tom Harrison. Tom also chaired a session of shorter presentations on more practical
Centre research and development work in community and schools by Jenny Higgins,
Al Barrett and Lee Rogerson, and by Kenneth Wilson on his theological
investigations with different faith communities. Apart from the event being a
noteworthy social success, in which all participants seem to have got along
famously (as one may see from all the smiling faces in the photograph), the
general consensus seems to have been that the cross-disciplinary conversation
generated by the seminar was both timely and important for the common cause of
coherent and effective practical promotion of gratitude in public life. At all
events, it was clear that philosophers learned much from psychologists, and
vice versa, and all seemed to agree on the urgent need for the conversations generated
in the course of the seminar to be taken much further. As a next step in this
direction, Prof. David Carr is to explore the possibility of publishing an
edited interdisciplinary collection of essays on gratitude drawn from
conference papers and other sources.
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