From: Elena Antonacopoulou [mailto:
eantonacopoulou@man.mbs.ac.uk]
EUROPEAN GROUP FOR ORGANISATIONAL STUDIES (EGOS)
17th Colloquium
The Odyssey of Organizing
July 5-7 2001
Lyon, France
Sub-theme: KNOWING AS DESIRE
http://www.em-lyon.com/egos/sub_themes/sub-theme27.asp
Homer's Odyssey reflects one of the earliest forms of knowledge sharing
through myth, and narrative. Over time it stands as a timeless piece
reflecting humanity's voyage into the unknown. In the Divine Comedy Ulysses
symbolizes humanity's desire for knowledge. The desire to know is what makes
humanity human. The thirst for knowing is what attracts humanity to the
unknown, to discovery, to exploration, and to creativity. Obscurity and
mystery draw knowledge into realization. The thirst for knowing was the
force behind all the vicissitudes of Ulysses and his crew.
When Ulysses was passing by the Sirens he asked to be fastened to the mast
and to have wax placed in the ears of his mates. At the same time, when he
wanted to exhort them to leave Circe and all the pleasures of a hedonistic
life, he addressed them with the following words:
'Brothers, who through a hundred thousand
perils have made your way to reach the West,
during this so brief vigils of our senses
that is still reserved for us, do not deny
yourself experience of what there is beyond,
behind the sun, in the world they call unpeopled.
Consider what you came from: you are Greeks!
You were not born to live like mindless brutes
but to follow paths of excellence and knowledge.'
(Dante, Inferno, canto XXVI, 118-120)
Ulysses' desire for knowing challenged the Gods and the limits of the world,
symbolized by the pillar of Hercules. Humanity was forbidden to go beyond
the pillars of Hercules, because behind them was the end of the (known)
world. The desire to know is the desire to transgress boundaries. It is the
hope and the belief in the 'other'.
Inspired by the prospect of organization studies being our own Odyssey and
the pursuit for knowing capturing the Ulysses in the organizations that we
study a number of issues emerge such as:
* Where has the desire to know taken organization studies?
* How did it happen that in organization studies, knowledge became a
commodity?
* Why is it that the desire to know has come to be 'managed' in contemporary
organizations?
* Why do people within organizations choose to place "wax in the ears" when
they don't want to know?
* What is it that people in organizations don't want everyone to know and
how is knowledge selected in organizations?
* How do the choices that the 'leaders' make may deny others the opportunity
of knowing. How is the desire to know controlled and channeled? By whom and
for whom?
* How does 'Ulysses' emerge in organizations and which is his/her Ithaca?
* Where is Ithaca in organization studies?
The theme of the Colloquium is an invitation to take up Ulysses' exhortation
as the symbol of a processual understanding of knowledge and explore it both
in our practice in pursuing studies of organizations, as well as within
organizational contexts in relation to topics such as:
* The way knowledge travels.
* The obstacles to knowing and the strategies adopted for overcoming them.
* The psychodynamic nature of knowing and learning.
* The voyage of knowing in time and space.
We welcome high-quality theoretical and empirically based papers to address
some of the above issues and questions.
Let yourself be drawn by the symbol. Abandon yourself to the unknown. We
will wait for you in our little, temporary Ithaca.
Abstracts of 800 words should be sent to the three conveners preferably by
e-mail. The deadline for submission of abstracts is December 21st 2000.
Elena Antonacopoulou
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
Booth Street West
Manchester M15 6PB, UNITED KINGDOM
Tel. 44 161 275 6365, Fax. 44 161 275 6598
e.antonacopoulou@man.mbs.ac.uk
Silvia Gherardi
Universit� degli Studi di Trento
Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale
Via Verdi 26
38100 Trento, ITALY
Tel. 39 461 881 311, Fax. 39 461 881 348
silvia.gherardi@soc.unitn.it
Herv� Laroche
Groupe ESCP-EAP
79 avenue de la R�publique
75543 Paris Cedex 11, FRANCE
Tel. 33 1 49 23 22 11, Fax. 33 1 49 23 21 03
laroche@escp-eap.net
For more information on the EGOS Colloquium please see the website:
http://www.em-lyon.com/egos