Accidents and Nostalgia: A Coda

Human Studies 25: 463–465, 2002. ACCIDENTS AND NOSTALGIA: A CODA © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Accidents and Nostalgia: A Coda RICHARD ZANER Ann Geddes Stahlman Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Center for Clinical and Research Ethics, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, TX 77058, USA

Now is clearly a time for memories. I’ve been associated with this wonderful Journal since its inception, thanks to George Psathas’ kindness in asking me to join his Editorial Board. Then, when he retired from full-time editorship several years ago, of all things Lenore Langsdorf took over – Lenore, whom I’ve also known for many years, who studied with me at both Texas and Stony Brook, and whose remarkable dissertation I directed. Then, to fuel further the furious rush of memories, I had decided last Spring, 2001, that it was time to leave Vanderbilt University – first by going on a sabbatical that began last July and will soon end, and, with its end, my own: I retire effective July 1, 2002. Memories pile on top of memories. . . . In the midst of all this change, at about the time that decision became clear to me, came Fran Waksler’s invitation to participate in the celebratory issue of Human Studies – a chore I both welcomed but at the time thought I had to decline, so discombobulated had my soul become as my wife and I tried to wind up more than twenty years at Vanderbilt and set up a new home close to Houston. Although I’ve done much leaving in my professional life, I must say that this time has been in many ways the most difficult. Beyond the usual unsettlements of any major move, it has been very hard to leave my two fine colleagues, Mark Bliton and Stuart Finder, and the program at Vanderbilt which, eventually together, we got going despite always bedevilling obstacles. But, the deed is done; dies are cast; there’s no turning back; and memories pile up. . . . And now, and here, I sit at a new desk in a new house and a new locale, not yet well-enough buried by old and true things to be quite at ease, trying my best to write about old, true, and endearing people, things, events. The new desk just doesn’t seem up to the task, nor is the new computer very cooperative – like the old one always seemed to be, practically writing on its own whatever needed writing and when I couldn’t get the contrary muses to help. All that by way of some sort of preface (I keep dear Kurt Wolff, whom George discovered to me, close to my soul when writing any more: so much do I have yet to learn from him), a pre-facing for what’s to come, and what’s to come here, and now, can only be woefully brief, terribly meager, when

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compared to what I (and, I firmly believe, the rest of the scholarly and research communities) owe to this Journal, to George, and to that incredible group he put together, and kept together, then and now. The thing that comes to mind first and most, pre-facing myself in that way, is how brilliantly the Journal has flourished. Few though my own contributions have been, it is nevertheless true that each time the Journal has been made available for my efforts, it has been quite significant for me, among the more important of what I’ve been trying to get said for so many years. The first, invited by George, “Is ‘ethicist’ anything to call a philosopher?” (7(1): 71– 90, 1984), was something of a manifesto for me, leading eventually to my first book-length study of clinical ethics.1 The latter, in fact, is little more than an unraveling of the too-tightly wound strings of ideas crimped together in the former – but even so, the Journal’s welcoming of the piece was a terrific encouragement for that book. Then there were two inordinately difficult yet profoundly rewarding book review-articles. The first was the first thing I published in the Journal, and it was one that took me three or four years to write, “The disciplining of reason’s cunning: Kurt Wolff’s Surrender and Catch,” (4(4): 365–389). I remain amazed, I must say it again, at George’s patience: to wait for the piece for so long, without dunning me even once. Which means Kurt’s uncommon patience, too, as he of course had to undergo a good deal of surrender before I was completely caught. Coming across Kurt’s work – his daring invention – has been at once joyful, painful, and deeply meaningful, like when I first came across Rilke’s poetry. The second review-article, also on Kurt’s incredible work, came only a couple of years ago. And, while this one took less time, I still found myself trying to learn how to read, think and write, nudged and cajoled by his remarkable presence in his writing: “Writing as transformation, review-article on Kurt H. Wolff, Transformation in the Writing: A Case of Surrender-and-Catch” (23(3): 333–338, July 2000). The Alfred Schutz Memorial Lecture I was invited to deliver on October 17, 1997, at the annual meeting of The Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences,2 in Lexington, KY, is just about to be published by the Journal: “Making music together while growing older: further reflections on intersubjectivity.” This time turned out to be one of the very few that I undertook to challenge Schutz’s ideas directly and it raised questions with which I still live and will, eventually, I hope, learn to address even more directly in writing. Finally, George once asked me to put together a Special Issue of the Journal, on a topic of my choosing. Although I continued not exactly to procrastinate, but at least to ponder and mull around, endlessly it must have seemed, George would not let me rest, reminding me from time to time, ever so gently, of the promise I made to do this issue. What came out, thanks in many

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ways to my colleagues at Vanderbilt, Bliton and Finder, is, I am firmly convinced, among the most significant of writings to date about genuinely clinical ethics: Richard M. Zaner (guest editor), “Performance, talk, reflection: what is going on in clinical ethics consultation” (22(1): January 1999).3 So, the Journal has held special personal significance for me, for many years. I have no doubts, to make things utterly clear, that it will continue to have serious influence on the shape of things still to come in the human sciences and philosophy. Hence, my celebratory note is also promissory, and one couched in deep personal gratitude. Notes 1. 2. 3.

Ethics and the Clinical Encounter. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1988). The Lecture series is co-sponsored by the Society, along with The American Philosophical Association and The Center for Advanced Studies in Phenomenology, Inc. I am grateful to the Journal’s publisher, D. Reidel, who apparently thought enough of the Issue to bring it out in a special hardback edition. This thematic issue is built around a case presentation by Mark, modified from one he had used in his dissertation some years before, and three fine discussions of that by Françoise Baylis, Tom Tomlinson, and Barry Hoffmaster. Mark and Stuart replied to these comments, and I wrote the Introduction and a lengthier Afterword (pp. 1–3, 99–116).

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