OBSERVATION
Spanish Scholars and London Therapists
T
wo
CONFERENCES
a month apart, requiring two transatlantic
trips. Both meetings challenged taken-for-granted assumptions;
at both the participants came from a variety of disciplines; and
at both the contributions transcended their purported aims. The Span–
ish Association of American Studies, consisting mostly of American and
Spanish academics, met in stupendous Salamanca. At the medieval uni–
versity of this ancient town, they addressed the ins and outs of "Power
and Culture: Forms of Interaction and Renewal." The Multilingual Psy–
chotherapy Center's conference on "Lost Childhood and the Language
of Exile," located in London's Hampstead, attracted participants from
Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Israel, France,
and Londoners from Angola, South Africa, Serbia, Germany, Italy, and
elsewhere. As expected, in Spain the preponderance of scholars inter–
ested in the United States lured an audience of academics in the human–
ities, literature, and departments of English, whereas in London most of
the listeners consisted of therapists of all denominations, whose native
languages were not English.
The organizers, Antonio Celada and Felix Martin Guiterrez in Spain,
and Judit Szekacs in London, achieved their aims. The former antici–
pated updates on what goes on in the United States, the latter wanted to
avoid the customary squabbles among psychoanalysts and psycholo–
gists, and to recreate the emotional closeness experienced in successful
therapeutic one-on-one relationships among the one hundred and eighty
people in the auditorium.
Ultimately, both conferences brought together individuals from a
variety of cultures, and succeeded in achieving the frank, multicultural
discussions they aimed for-not in the frequently cliched manner, but by
expanding the participants' consciousness, and in the process creating a
community of friends. In Spain, this happened primarily on sightseeing
walks and over meals, even though some participants allowed profes–
sional caution to override their impulses. In other words, some Ameri–
can scholars were careful of what not to divulge because, I assume, they
feared what they said might get back to their own university, or might
keep them from obtaining future invitations to international meetings.
