Dear Colleagues,

On 12-14 March, the IPS Regional Meeting “Platon Aujourd’hui” was held in Paris, followed by the mid-term meeting of the Executive Committee. We thank the organizers of the Paris colloquium for their hospitality. The members of the Executive Committee discussed various issues concerning the IPS activities, above all the preparation for the IX Symposium Platonicum in Tokyo next year. This newsletter, sent both via e-mail and by surface mail, offers important information about the program and “call for papers” of the Tokyo Symposium, so please read it carefully. We hope to be able to host many participants in Tokyo to discuss the “Republic” together.

Tokyo Organizing Committee

The IPS Tokyo Office, c/o Noburu Notomi, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, 4-1-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, 223-8521, Japan
E-mail: notomi@z8.keio.jp
Fax: +81-(0)45-566-1102

1. Membership fees

The methods of paying the membership fees are indicated in Newsletter 1 (issued in December 2007, and posted on the IPS website), but there are some problems in payment. Members of the US. and some other countries may find it most convenient to purchase “International Postal Money Order” at the post office and to send it to the IPS Tokyo office (please write on it the address of the IPS office). Or one can transfer the money to one of the two bank accounts of the IPS Tokyo (Sumitomo Mitsui Bank or Japan Post Bank: details are indicated in Newsletter 1), but since the SM Bank charges 2,500 Japanese Yen (25 USD or 19 euro) per transmission, members are requested to add this extra to the membership fees.
The IPS plans to open a new bank account in Italy, to collect the membership fees from the members of Europe. Please contact Mauro Tulli (Pisa at: m.tulli@flcl.unipi.it) for the details (IBAN, account number), which are to be shown on the IPS website. Latin American members can send a Western Union Money Order to María Isabel Santa Cruz (Buenos Aires at: maritasantacruz@aol.com, maritasantacruz@gmail.com). Members can also give the membership fees directly to one of the Executive Committee members (representative of your region); the Tokyo Organizing Committee (TOC) issues the receipt for it later. We hope this will lessen the cost and trouble of sending the membership fees. Please remember that only the paid-up members can send the abstracts to be considered for presentation at the 2010 Symposium Platonicum (see below).
We are sorry to repeat that we cannot accept any cheques/checks or credit cards for membership fees, while we shall try to make it possible to pay the registration fees for the Tokyo Symposium by credit card.

2. Internet

Now Michigan State University kindly hosts the IPS website:
http://www.platosociety.org/
The up-to-date information about conferences and various activities should be sent to the editor, Debra Nails (at nails@msu.edu). The series of “Local Reports” has started, with the one on “Italy” (in English/Italian) by Mauro Tulli and Mario Regali.

The Internet Journal is taken care of by the editor Dimitri El Murr, in collaboration with Olivier Renaut, who took over the Review Editorship from Gretchen Reydams-Schils. We thank Gretchen for her wonderful work over the last few years. The next issue “Plato 9” is expected to come out in mid June 2009.
New contributions are warmly encouraged, and should be sent to the editor (at Dimitri.EL.MURR@ens.fr).

3. International Plato Series

The new members of the Editorial Board (active since late 2007) gave the assessment of papers for the Dublin Proceedings, according to which John Dillon and Luc Brisson are editing the volume. We hope the Proceedings will be published in 2009 from Academia Verlag, and sent to the participants in the Dublin Symposium in due course.
In the Editorial Board, Michael Erler became the chief editor; Mauro Tulli and Christopher Rowe, who had been continuing to work with the new members, are now retired. We appreciate their hard work over several years.
The series “International Plato Studies”, published under the auspices of the Society, continues to come out. The IPS members are encouraged to propose monographs on Plato or the Platonic Tradition for the series. Please contact Michael Erler (at michael.erler@mail.uni-wuerzburg.de).

4. Regional Activities

We are happy to report that five “IPS Regional Meetings” were successfully held in the last year:
i) “World Congress of Philosophy” in Seoul, in August 2008, organized by Shinro Kato and Noburu Notomi. We appreciate the generous support of the Korean Philosophical Association.
ii) “Scientific Meeting of the Mediterranean Area of the IPS”, in Barcelona, in November 2008, organized by Francisco Lisi and Josep Monserrat Molas: the participants decided to continue to organize regional meetings in the Mediterranean area.
iii) “III Caracas meeting of Greek Philosophy”, in Venezuela, in November 2008, organized by Francisco Bravo; the report was given and posted on the Website.
iv) “Socratica 2008”, in Napoli, in December 2008, organized by Livio Rossetti and Alessandro Stavru: the report was given and posted on the Webiste.
v) “Platon Aujourd’hui”, in Paris, in March 2009, organized by Luc Brisson and Arnaud Macé.

We would like to announce that the IPS endorses the following conferences.

The “endorsement” is a more general category of support, while “regional meetings” are basically those organized by the Executive Committee:
vi) “International Spring Seminar on Plato’s Sophist”, in Benasque, Spain, on 26-31 May, organized by Thomas Robinson and Beatriz Bossi:
http://sophia.ecm.ub.es/2009plato/
vii) “Presocratics and Plato Conference in Honor of Professor Charles Kahn”, in Delphi, Greece, on 3-7 June, organized by Hyele Institute for Compartative Studies:
http://www.hyele.com/pages/conferences.090603.html
viii) “X Simpósio Internacional da Sociedade Brasileira de Platonistas (SBP) / VI Seminário Internacional ARCHAI: A “República” de Platão”, at Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brasil, on 25-28 August, organized by Gabriele Cornelli and Dennys Xavier:
http://www.platosociety.org/pdf/090825%20Brazil.pdf
The IPS would be pleased to consider possibilities of “endorsement” of various kinds of meetings of Platonic studies.

5. IX Symposium Platonicum in Tokyo in 2010

(1) General information
The IX Symposium Platonicum will be held at the Mita Campus of Keio University (2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo). Please note that the IPS Tokyo office is located at another campus, i.e. Notomi’s Office in Hiyoshi Campus, while the Mita Campus is in central Tokyo. The dates are 2-7 August, 2010. The registration and hotel booking will start in mid January 2010, about which the information will be circulated late this year.
The topic of the Symposium is the “Republic”, and the program will follow the custom of the past symposia; the sessions are held from the afternoon of Monday to the morning of Saturday, with one afternoon for excursion (a Tokyo City Trip). The General Assembly will be held on one late afternoon (probably Thursday). The TOC is inviting, as guest speakers, Mario Vegetti (Pavia), Gerald Boter (Amsterdam), and Myles Burnyeat (Cambridge).

(2) Call for papers
The deadlines and other conditions for the submission of abstracts of proposed papers were fixed at the mid-term meeting of the Executive Committee.
Submissions are received between 14 September, Monday, and 16 October, Friday. Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words in length (including bibliography, if any); applicants should indicate preference between the “shorter” paper (presentation of 20 minutes) for the “Parallel” session and the “longer” paper (of 40 minutes) for the “Plenary/Panel” sessions. The Executive Committee will establish two Panels on the general topics of the “Republic”, for which three papers for each (total six) are selected out of the “longer papers”.
Judging from the previous symposia, a larger number of papers may be submitted than we can accommodate. In that case, the evaluation by the Executive Committee will become crucial, so we advise all applicants to write abstracts clearly and carefully.

The privilege of submitting papers is confined to paid-up members of the Society: each member can submit one abstract, written in any of the five official languages. The author’s information (contact address, e-mail address, fax, and affiliation) should be attached to the abstract (not included in the word limit).
The abstract can be submitted through the “IPS 2010” conference website (to start in summer; it will be indicated on the site how to submit the file), or sent to the following e-mail address / fax / postal address of the IPS Tokyo Office at Keio.
Website: http://phil.flet.keio.ac.jp/ips2010/
E-mail: ips2010@phil.flet.keio.ac.jp
Fax: +81-(0)45-566-1102 (addressed to Notomi at Keio University)
Postal Address: IPS Tokyo Organizing Committee,c/o Noburu Notomi, Faculty of Letters, Keio University, 4-1-1, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, 223-8521, Japan

We will acknowledge the receipt by e-mail or surface mail (the latter only for those who do not use e-mail), so if you do not receive any response over a week, please contact the TOC (ips2010@phil.flet.keio.ac.jp / notomi@z8.keio.jp).
All papers will be evaluated by the Executive Committee in the last two months of 2009, and notifications will be sent out early in January 2010. Those whose abstracts are accepted for presentation are next requested to submit enlarged abstracts in two languages (e.g. German & English, Italian & French) by mid April. Full papers should be sent to the TOC by June 2010, to be posted on the website in the “pdf” file for “download”.

(3) Election of new Regional Representatives, and choice of venue for the 2016 Symposium
Two members of the committee, François Renaud (representing North America) and Álvaro Vallejo Campos (one of the two members representing Europe) are due to retire in 2010, and must be replaced. The other regional representatives will be re-elected automatically unless other candidates are nominated. The election will be held at the General Assembly in the Tokyo Symposium, and nominations, signed by at least two members in good standing, may be sent to the TOC by the end of June 2010.
Proposals are also invited for a venue for the meeting of 2016, after the X Symposium Platonicum in Pisa in 2013. Statements of willingness to host such a meeting should be submitted to the TOC with the details of the venue proposed and the expected degree of support, by the end of March 2010. The proposal(s) will be circulated well in advance, and the venue will be decided, in accordance with the Statutes, by a vote of the members present at the General Assembly.

6. Report from Dublin

Finally, here is the report on the VIII Symposium Platonicum, by the former President, John Dillon.

The VIII Symposium Platonicum, on the topic of Plato’s Philebus, was held in Dublin from July 23-28, 2007, under the auspices of the Dublin Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition, based in Trinity College, Dublin, but participated in also by colleagues from the Departments of Philosophy and Classics of University College Dublin, the National University of Ireland - Maynooth, and All Hallows College, Dublin. We are most grateful for the input of colleagues from all of these institutions, as well as for institutional support from the first two, specifically from the Trinity Association and Trust, the Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies Programme, and Department of Philosophy in TCD, and the Office of the Dean of Research and the Department of Philosophy in UCD.
The Organising Committee comprised: John Cleary (NUI-M); John Dillon (TCD); Brendan O’Byrne (TCD); Patrick Quinn (All Hallows); Fran O’Rourke (UCD); Vasilis Politis (TCD). We are also most grateful to graduate students Barry Dixon, Eleni Kaklamanou, and Carl O’Brien for providing much essential help both before and during the conference.
The conference was attended by approximately 180 people, including 152 full participants, graduate students (particularly from Italy), and some part-time attenders. The opening C.J. de Vogel lecture, held in the impressive surroundings of the Great Hall of Dublin Castle (made available by kind permission of the Taoiseach [Prime Minister], Bertie Ahern), on the evening of July 23, was delivered by Professor Dorothea Frede of the University of Hamburg, on the topic ‘Life and its Limitations: the conception of happiness in the Philebus’, and was followed by a reception. Subsequent sessions were all held in the Arts Building of Trinity College Dublin, except for those of the morning of Thursday, July 26, which were held in the fine surroundings of Newman House, a conference centre belonging to University College Dublin.
Excursions took place on the Wednesday afternoon (July 25) to the prehistoric site of Newgrange in the Boyne Valley, and to the monastic site of Glendalough in Co. Wicklow. The Banquet was held on Thurasday evening, in the Dining Hall of Trinity College, accompanied by traditional music from the distinguished piper Kevin Rowsome.
The conference expenses were broadly within budget, and a modest surplus was passed on the new organising committee in Tokyo.