The CRIC Annual Conference took place from the 19th to the 21st of September 2022 at Harris Manchester College in Oxford and in hybrid format.
The 2021 CRIC Conference looked beyond COVID and enquired whether it would result in a new solidarity or in fragmentation. The 24th February 2022 saw a dramatic shift in geo-politics with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Almost over-night the world changed. The post-war rules-based international order was thrown into disarray as two of the United Nations Security Council P5 showed total disregard for the rule of law and for human rights. Are we swinging back to a deeply divided world or are we spinning into a third global conflict with all the chaos that portends?
The motif for this year’s CRIC Annual Conference features Apollo and Dionysus – Apollo representing harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, and Dionysus representing disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy, and the unity that obscures individuality. Our colleagues have done much in recent years to show how these two ways of thinking both have their place in mental functioning. An underlying question for us at this time is whether there must be a struggle between rationality and passion until one wins out, or whether a fusion of these elements can lead us to finding a new paradigm for global relations.
As the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney said in ‘The Cure at Troy’, reflecting on the work of the Greek dramatist, Sophocles:
“So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a farther shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells……once in a lifetime that justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.”
Programme
Recordings of presentations can be viewed on the CRIC YouTube Channel.