I’ve just got back from the Annual Congress of CESH, held this year in Florence, outstanding for its Renaissance, art, architecture, sculpture and university studies. There were delegates from right across Europe, north Africa, USA and Japan. I’m always impressed by the way mainland European academics seem to have so many languages at their fingertips. I chaired presentations that were in Spanish, Italian, English and French, for example. Questions came in a variety of languages, including English, but the speakers were often well able to understand and respond. It seems a great shame that by and large British academics don’t attend, though this year northwest scholars from Manchester Metropolitan University came out to Florence, as did Wray Vamplew from Edinburgh. Given that the reputation of British scholars is quite high in Europe, and their work is widely read there, the reasons for our very limited attendance are less than clear.
Is it that European scholarship and academic mores are rather different? Is it a question of cost? Our perhaps more limited language skills? Or is the same suspicion of Europe that is expressed in much of the British press?
