In early Christmastide, since 2012, the Humanities, Medicine and Science Platform has organised Yuletide HUMS, a multidisciplinary symposium held at the Faculty of Arts Library. Speakers from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds were invited to give light-hearted presentations with a vaguely Yuletide theme but always with solid academic underpinning. Very often the presentations would be based on the research interests of the speakers themselves, invariably leading to spirited comment and discussion. The informality of the discussions easily led to a convivial event appropriately close to the University’s Christmas recess.
This year’s Yuletide HUMS fell casualty to the upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The HUMS Platform Board had several plans for an online substitute, however it was felt that this could fall flat and the previous aims of this Yuletide event would not be reached. As with most other features of our personal and academic lives, we look forward to a return to normality, even though it will be the much clichéd 'new normal'. Next Christmastide, we hope to be able to organise Yuletide HUMS 2021 in the festive manner that we were accustomed to over the past years.
Meanwhile, HUMS’ plans for next year include a Spring Symposium scheduled for 14 May 2021. The theme will be War of the Worlds and will, as is usual, be a cross-disciplinary event which on this occasion will discuss conflicts in both microcosmic and much larger systems. The aspiration of HUMS Board is to be able to schedule this event as a physical one. Hopefully then, our University will be able to talk about social distancing and the use of facemasks in the past tense. In the words of Søren Kierkegaard: Hope is a passion for the possible.
Joseph Cacciottolo
