is there a picture in this conference?

Is There a Picture in This Conference?Author(s): Sandra KensenSource: Administrative Theory & Praxis, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 144-146Published by: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25611415 .

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144 Administrative Theory & Praxis Vol. 22, No. 1

The growth of the network is also encouraging. If I heard the numbers

correctly, this year we had 171 advance registrations and 161 in

attendance?despite the ice and snow storm challenges in the eastern U.S. I remain nostalgic about the small conferences when we could all meet in the same room for two days (e.g., Chicago 1992). At those conferences we could

get to know each other better and were able to more thoroughly explore the

arguments presented. But this conference replaced that intimacy with an

exciting diversity of voices. There were a few regular attendees that were

missing in action this year (including Bayard Catron, April Hejka Ekins, Budd

Kass, Chuck Fox, Nancy Murray, Barry Hammond, and Alex Kouzmin), but I sensed a solidification and enhancement of our international ties. The continued participation of contingents from Australia and the Netherlands

supported that feeling, but the most obvious sign of this evolution of the network was the decision to hold our only 2001 conference at Leiden

University. The contributions of doctoral students from Florida Atlantic

University, Cleveland State University and Virginia Tech added to the sense of

expansion both in numbers and in variety of perspectives. Papers first presented and issues discussed at the PAT-Net conference will,

of course, appear in this publication. They will also appear in other major public administration journals because we address important topics in a professional manner. And that is why I have to be there.

REFERENCES

Adams, G., & Balfour, D. (1998). Unmasking administrative evil. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage Publications.

Dubnick, M. (1999; September). Demons, spirits, and elephants: Reflections on the fail

ure of public administration theory. Prepared for delivery at the 1999 Annual Meet

ing of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta.

Is There a Picture in This Conference?1

Sandra Kensen

Tilburg University, the Netherlands

Rethinking about the 2000 PAT-Net Theory conference a day after my return home, I went over what I considered to be the highlights of the conference. Among these highlights was Orion White's presentation of the

McSwite paper "Narrative in Literature, Film, Video and Painting". I very much appreciated his presentation and that of his co-panelists too. I also had a



Dialogue 145

good feeling about my own panel which addressed the human side of public administrative practices and from which interesting differences between

Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States came forward. In this respect, I also regarded it as a special moment to introduce my relatively new Dutch

colleagues (who participated in the conference for the first time) to some of my American collaborators and to my former Danish colleagues from Roskilde

University. I wish to express my special thanks to Peter Bogason who, a few months beforehand, made it possible to formalize our international cooperation by a three-year network grant from the Danish government.

I had already anticipated that the conversation around the text "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange", played by Camilla Stivers, Cynthia McSwain, Cheryl King and Lisa Zanetti, would be among the highlights of the conference. How could it not be a highlight? Four charming women, enacting a

completely different form of presentation and discussion, who choose a feminist theory as their subject, which is daring in the context of public administration (at least in the Netherlands it is) but also highly relevant and

significant. But perhaps, I thought afterwards, it could have been approached a little differently, no doubt. So to get some idea of what the other participants thought of the conversation, I started asking around at the conference the same

evening. One person helped me articulating why I was anxious to understand my

slight concern. He told me: "This is an example of a good idea that has not yet found an optimal way to be performed". Since I know how Cam, Cheryl, Lisa and Cynthia appreciate dialogue as a source of inspiration, here are some of the views I picked up on their performance which may encourage the four of them to enact the conversation in other scholarly communities as well.

Could it have been the chairs? They created an atmosphere something like that found in an exclusive "intellectual salon". Maybe they also reminded one of those in 'clubs for men only'. In this light, someone else told me that what was missing were the cigars. I believe this exclusive atmosphere was also due to the impossible task of trying to summarize the respective chapters in less than 15 minutes. That did not leave much time for a discussion with the audience.

The chairs may also have restricted the four 'actresses' when they acted out the characters they played; the armchair with raised sides may have even withheld the actresses from having a conversation among themselves. It now seemed as

though they drifted off into monologues. Perhaps, if they had had the possibility to rehearse a true dialogue, the 'lines' would have also been more provocative, contained more new and previously unheard elements. The monologues presented no way of escaping from the book (which had already been released in 1995).

The four scholars' performance made clear, once again, how difficult it is to

play with form, to make it work, to do it differently and in such a way that the



146 Administrative Theory & Praxis Vol. 22, No. 1

message of the medium itself, lends the contents a special quality. And playing with form, or at least paying special attention to the form of language, turned out to be a special theme of the conference, at least as far as the papers were concerned. For instance, there was a panel called public administration and the fine arts, there was a panel on the value of literature for public administration

(characters from novels and folk tales who may have a counterpart in public administration), and on the same topic Susan Haack delivered her keynote address. Also, numerous participants who delivered a paper talked about

stories, narratives, and discourse. This caught my attention: they were talking about form, far more than enacting it. The academic way of presenting papers by reading them aloud or focussing only on the theoretical side of the paper was, to my mind, dominant (and which caused my mind to wander off across

the Atlantic Ocean at times). This was unfortunate. Again, perhaps form comes

into play here. How about the form of the conference itself? How could the form of the conference allow, even stimulate participants to prepare a

presentation that is more effective? I believe it is worth considering this

question and I will not shy away from dealing with it if the organizing committee for the next PAT-Net conference wishes to elaborate on it.

A question I can answer here and now is the question in the title: Is there a

picture in this conference? Yes, it is the one of four courageous women in a

sketch with armchairs which were too big, who were among the ones who tried to put into practice what they preach. As a matter of fact, as an amateur

photographer who wishes to explore the use of photos as research products, as

inspiration for research, as a venue for teaching and studying public administration (see http://www.pat-net.org/pages/papers/mcswite.html p.7, also for the use of other media, such as painting and video), I did take photos of

the four women while they were enacting their sketch. Photos which I will

cherish, because they will help remind me to continue to try to play with form.

As encouragement, I sent the photos to Cheryl, Cam, Lisa and Cynthia. I hope

they will enjoy the story these photos tell as much as the socially constructed

picture that was drawn in the above narrative text with the help of a

considerable number of conference participants, for which my thanks.

^his title paraphrases Stanley Fish's book from 1980 "Is There a Text in This Class?"

(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press). According to Fish (1980), texts and the meanings read into them, are a product of interpretative communities.



is there a picture in this conference?

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