Reverie Symposium

Friday, 27 April 2018

University of Aberdeen · The Sir Duncan Rice Library · 7th Floor · Meeting Room 1
(PDF with timetable, abstracts and bio notes)

As part of the Knowing From the Inside (KFI; link) research project this day-long symposium brought together a variety of disciplinary approaches (psychological, psychoanalytic, artistic, religious, anthropological) to study reverie as a phenomenon or state whereby strong concentration and focus appear to meet unself-conscious effortlessness and potential.

Psychoanalytical descriptions of reverie suggest the need for a degree of personal safety when surrendering to the vulnerability of ‘losing’ oneself in its states. Filmmaker Jean Rouch’s writing on ciné trance and Marion Milner’s on painting and drawing suggest reverie can be induced by absorption in a process, practice or material. While psychoanalytic definitions draw comparisons with daydreaming, they also appear to share some characteristics with ‘flow’ as identified in psychology, together with artists’ descriptions of ‘being in the zone’. Are these (and other variations such as meditation, mindfulness and so on) different states, different phases or instantiations of the same state, different analytical perspectives on different states, or some other possibility?

The symposium featured exploratory position papers in order to characterize reverie and associated variations to better understand how it is regarded in a variety of fields and situations, and whether it transcends disciplinary borders. We also provided room for discussion to address the settings and/or relations that promote reverie, and asked how it is studied as a phenomenon, how it is used as a method by researchers and interlocutors, and for what purposes.

10.30–10.50
Arrival / Refreshments

10.50–11.00
Welcome
Amanda Ravetz

11.00–12.00
Session 1 Psychoanalysis / Psychology
Eystein Våpenstad (20 min) ‘Send me the pillow—the one that you dream on’ (PDF transcript)
Paul Stenner (20 min) Reverie, flow and the idea of ‘liminal affective technologies’ (PDF transcript)
Discussion (20 min) (PDF transcript)

12.00–13.00
Lunch

13.00–14.00
Session 2 Neuroscience / Literature / Theology
Rachel Genn (20 min) Might regret be a roadblock to reverie? (PDF transcript)
Eleanor Peers (20 min) Through the looking glass: the politics of trance in north-east Siberia (PDF transcript)
Discussion (20 min) (PDF transcript)

14.00–14.15
Break

14.15–15.15
Session 3 Knowing From the Inside
Melina Bernardi (video presentation) Exploring reverie (Vimeo video)
Lesley Halliwell (10 min) At the coal face—a practitioner’s perspective (PDF transcript)
William Titley (10 min) Art as reverie for reverie (PDF transcript)
Paolo Maccagno (10 min) ‘Essi temevano la gioia eccessiva’: Reverie and the practice of the limit (PDF transcript)
Katie Sollohub (10 min) Reverie in my painting and teaching (PDF transcript)
Discussion (10 min)

15.15–15.30
Refreshments

15.30–16.30
Session 4 Art / Anthropology
Jenny Eden (20 min) On responding to a painting (PDF transcript)
Andrew Irving (video presentation) The limits of science (Vimeo video)
Discussion (20 min) (PDF transcript)

16.30–17.30
Plenary Discussion
Discussant: Tim Ingold (PDF transcript)

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