From July 15 to July 20, 2013, the International Plato Society celebrates its X Symposium supported by the University of Pisa and the Department of Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica. Established in 1989, it comprises more than 500 members, promotes a chain of exchanges and local meetings, and has a series of 32 high level volumes, a journal, and a detailed bibliography which can be viewed on the website. Its complex structure consistes of an Executive Committee and an Editorial Board with representatives from the five continents, which has made it possible to organise each Symposium in many countries: Mexico City, Perugia, Bristol, Granada, Toronto, Jerusalem, Würzburg, Dublin, Tokyo. The fertile involvement of widely recognised scholars such as Conrado Eggers Lan, Livio Rossetti, Christopher Rowe, Tomás Calvo, Thomas Robinson, Samuel Scolnicov, Michael Erler, John Dillon, Shinro Kato and Noburu Notomi, has always favoured a sequence of papers wich in turn has raised issues and aspects of Phaedrus, Politicus, Timaeus and Critias, Euthyphron, Charmides, Lysis, Laws, Gorgias and Meno, Philebus, Republic. The International Plato Society gives a clear and energetic voice to the research on literature and philosophy of the ancient world between the poetic and the paideutic sensitivity, as well as between the systematic and analytical interpretation.
The theme of the conference is the Symposium, which is probably the most profound and fascinating dialogue in the corpus, the most enigmatic and sublime Plato ever wrote, inspired by a Muse able to create a strong connection of literature and philosophy in a fine play between expressive codes for a clear heading towards the ideal dimension. The conference programme is dense: 13 plenary papers, 96 short papers, 8 PhD papers, a great sequence, from which it is not difficult to expect a detailed reflection on each page, that is, the speeches of Phaedrus, of Pausanias, of Erhyximachus, the myth of Aristophanes on the spherical man, the notorious praise of Agathon, the story of Socrates on Diotima with the climax of Eros, the stage entry of the drunk Alcibiades. A gathering of about 200 scholars takes place on Monday and Saturday at the Palazzo dei Congressi, on Tuesday and Friday at the Polo Carmignani, whereas on Wednesday at the Scuola Sant'Anna and on Thursday at the Scuola Normale, and in the Certosa of Calci for the General Assembly, which will be followed by baroque concert in the church. The Department of Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica is honoured to extend the invitation to attend the conference in the most engaging way, for a week which confirms the ancient prestige of the University of Pisa.