Earlier this month (May 4-5, 2018), members of the Association for Adorno Studies gathered at the American University in Cairo for our 7th annual meeting. As summer was taking a early start in Egypt – with temperatures surging to 40°C/104°F! – the meeting was held in the sumptuous (and cool) Oriental Hall of the Tahrir Square Campus.

Surti Singh (our host), Robert Switzer (Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences at AUC) and Pierre-François Noppen (our outgoing President) opened the meeting with remarks. (Our outgoing Vice-President, Roger Foster, couldn’t attend the meeting this year.) Speakers from Canada, the US, Norway, France, Brasil and Egypt were invited to present their latest work on Adorno. The sharp, insightful and thought-provoking papers fueled open and very stimulating discussions throughout the meeting.

All were convened to our business meeting on May 4 at lunch time. Several points were discussed this year. Here is an overview: First, William Ross (Université de Montréal) volunteered to set up a Facebook page for the Association. News concerning the development of this page will be posted on this blog. Second, Martin Shuster and Kathy Kiloh, the editors of Adorno Studies, our journal, are preparing a thematic issue in addition to the second issue, which will appear shortly. Stay tuned! Third, thanks to the commitment of our members, we were able to discuss various possibilities and avenues for the coming meetings of the Association. It looks promising! Vancouver, Paris, various places in the UK, as well as several other locations were discussed for future meetings (2021-). In the meantime, it seems that the AAS will travel to South America next year (2019) before returning to North America in 2020. We will confirm our plans for the 2019 meeting this summer. Fourth, as our executive is elected for three years, it was time this year for a renewal. We were all very pleased that Surti Singh accepted the nomination for the position of President. Pierre-François Noppen has accepted to stay on the executive as Vice-President. Please welcome our new executive!

On behalf of all the members of the Association, we would like to extend a huge thanks to Surti Singh and her team (Mae Saafan, Reham Mohammed El Morally and others) for all the energy they invested in the organization of this productive, successful and quite simply brilliant event! And thank you for making our stay in Cairo so comfortable and enjoyable!

Here are some pictures of the event and of the sights.