THE SYMPOSIUM OF DREAMS [ Updated ]

Participating in a symposium or various kinds of public roundtable discussions rank lower on the academic scale than publishing books or monographs. Perhaps even lower than getting a good quote in the New York Times. This is understandable. In my view, most of these events are less than dynamic with a lot of faux-casual, self-deprecating remarks and longwinded, meandering, insufficiently moderated, serial monologues by inadequately prepared speakers.

On the other hand, the problem is not really the format but the participants themselves. Having mean expertise in a niche subfield is no guarantee of eloquence. Or brilliance. Perhaps universities and various policy associations would be better off having fewer symposiums except when they can assure themselves of participants who crackle with intellectual force and are willing to get outside their comfort zones in front of an audience. The actual value of a symposium for the participants is the generation of new concepts and perspectives via horizontal thinking and inter/intradisciplinary engagement; the value for the audience comes from the model of cognition being presented.

Here are some hypothetical examples of " Dream Symposiums" that range from the merely unlikely to the impossible (i.e. the ppl are dead) that would, nevertheless, rock.

AMERICAN STRATEGY

John Keegan, Henry Kissinger, Thomas P.M. Barnett, William Lind, Robert Kaplan, John Mearsheimer, Richard Perle, Bill Clinton,Donald Kagan, Zbigniew Brzezinski

ISLAMISM AND TERRORISM

Juan Cole, Martin Kramer, Oliver Roy, Bernard Lewis, Steve Emerson, Michael Scheuer, Gilles Kepel, Steve Coll, Jessica Stern, Paul Wolfowitz

FUTURISM AND SOCIETY

Alvin Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Herman Kahn, Isaac Asimov, Mortimer Adler, Freeman Dyson, Carl Sagan, Ayn Rand, Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Feynmann, Neal Stephenson*, Ray Kurzweil **, Thornton May and Richard Thieme ***

FIRST PRINCIPLES IN SCIENCE by Dr. Von

* Jacob H.
** Matt McIntosh
*** Stuart Berman

Many thanks to everyone for the additional suggestions. You gentlemen cued me to some people I need to know more about.  ¶ 9:09 AM