Updates

Dear Members of the Seminar!

Always hoping that my writing finds you well, safe and enjoying the work being done, I want to thank all the participants for yet another successful Session today. Hereby you find the corresponding Report and I kindly ask that you take time to revise it.

Of particular importance for this coming Monday are pp. 12–14 of the Report hereby attached. Please, attend to them and make sure to take time to get ready for the discussion. The intention is to dedicate Week 3 of our Proceedings to a close reading of Jürgen Habermas.

As promised, here you can find reading materials provided or related to Members of the Seminar. All are invited to share texts, should you wish to do so. For now, special thanks to Mohan for sharing some of the products of his intense participation in the Public Sphere of India. I am including valuable articles by Prof. Scholz related to the theme of the Seminar and the work we have done during the past two weeks.

With kind regards and best wishes as always, I remain

Yours Sincerely,
JVC

Dear Members of the Seminar!

Hoping that everything is going well and you are enjoying Life and the Work, I hereby proceed to do the following:

This Wednesday, we read and debate chapters 7 and 8 of Davetian, Benet. Civility: A Cultural History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

This coming Friday we shall read as a group the following work: Bellah, Robert N., ed. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. 1st Perennial Library ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.

The work is now divided as follows:

Participant	Pages to Present	Pages to Discuss
Frank Maduabuchi Dukor	3–26	275–296
Lidia Godek-Ostrouch	27–54	250–274
Franklin Ibáñez	55–84	219–249
Oleksandr Kulyk	85–112	196–218
Isaac Zachariah Mutelo	113–141	167–195
Sivakaran Navaratnam	142–166	142–166
Nubong Henri Ndifor	167–195	113–141
Indukuri John Mohan Razu	196–218	85–112
N. Ravi Vincent	219–249	55–84
Xin Zhao	250–274	27–54
Adrienne Black	275–296	3–26
Wang En	Comment from the Chinese perspective
Michal Reka	Comment from a Central European (Polish) perspective

The Presentations shall (must!) have no more than 7 minutes each and, therefore, must in all cases pay very close attention to what in the text is of fundamental importance for our collective Project.

Finally, I also want to remind that in case of a justified absence, a note MUST be sent to either me or Dr. Hu.

Looking ahead to our meeting this Wednesday, I remain

Yours Sincerely,
JVC

Dear Members of the Seminar!

THANK YOU again for your responsive and seriously engaged participation in today's Session. Most importantly, thank you for making this first week of the Seminar a successful one. Now is time to continue to grow!

As mentioned before, this coming Monday, we shall have three presentations (Oleksandr, Michal, Adrienne) of the article you all have by Calhoun. I also would like to ask that everyone reads pp. 3–83 of the book hereby attached.

Kindly find hereby attached also the Report of today's Session (for you to read and criticize/approve). Many thanks!

Wishing you all a very joyous and productive weekend, I remain

Yours Sincerely,
JVC

Here below the division of work for next Friday regarding the formal Presentations (5–7 minutes each) of the second portion of Norbert Elias, The History of Manners. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Pantheon Books, 1987.

Pages	Presenter
pp. 53–70	Dian
pp. 70–99	Lidia
pp. 99–113	Franklin
pp. 114–129	Shiva
pp. 129–143	Nubong
pp. 143–160	Mohan
pp. 160–191	Ravi
pp. 191–205	Xin
pp. 205–217	En
pp. 221–263	Dukor

These presentations (5–7 minutes each) will constitute the first part of the Session. For the last portion of the Session, we shall also read the following article: Calhoun, Cheshire. “The Virtue of Civility.” In Moral Aims. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016, equally attached hereby. This material (which all are equally strongly encouraged to read) will be formally presented as follows:

Pages	Presenter
pp. 251–265	Oleksandr
pp. 265–275	Michal

Hoping that everyone enjoyed, and at least felt encouraged by, today's Session, here is the book to be read during this first week of our proceedings:

Elias, Norbert. The History of Manners. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. New York: Pantheon Books, 1987.

Participant Groups

Each participant has been assigned one of four discussion groups (I–IV) for this coming Wednesday:

Participant	Group
Dian Nafiatul Awaliyah	I
Frank Maduabuchi Dukor	II
Lidia Godek-Ostrouch	III
Franklin Ibáñez	IV
Oleksandr Kulyk	I
Yueming Luo	II
Isaac Zachariah Mutelo	III
Sivakaran Navaratnam	IV
Nubong Henri Ndifor	I
Indukuri John Mohan Razu	II
Sally J. Scholz	III
N. Ravi Vincent	III
Xin Zhao	IV
Adrienne Black	I
Wang En	II
Michal Reka	III
Yu Yeping	IV

Group Focus Questions

I — Articulates how N. Elias redefines “civilization,” namely, not as a fixed achievement or moral superiority, but as a long historical transformation of conduct, affect, and social constraint.

II — Clarifies the relationship between sociogenesis and psychogenesis in Elias's account, so that there is a clear and substantiated understanding of how changes in social organization become changes in individual habits, emotions, and self-control.

III — Enunciates how for N. Elias shame, embarrassment, delicacy, fear, etc. come to function both politically and psychologically in the formative process of “civilized” behaviour.

IV — Focus on how, according to the author, apparently minor practices such as eating, bodily functions, spitting, sleeping arrangements, sexuality, and aggression are ultimately revelatory of much broader transformations in power, hierarchy, and social interdependence.

Another important question for the entire week dedicated to Elias is the one regarding the connection he establishes between self-restraint and State formation. In the first part of the Session, each participant should take up to five minutes to present the “problem”/question that was allotted to them.

First and foremost, please just take the book and read carefully. Kindly be reminded that our Sessions have two parts (plus an initial moment of socialization through the sharing of “experiences”), for an effective total of about three hours (plus a much-needed break). Last but not least, keep always in mind that during the Seminar all kinds of questions that are relevant and pertinent shall always be most welcome. All!

With kind regards,
João Vila-Chã

Structure

The 2026–2027 edition of the RVP International Seminar, as in previous years since 2021, will consist of three Phases. Phase I — Thematic Reading: 17 August – 18 September 2026, five weeks, 15 sessions (Monday / Wednesday / Friday). Phase II — Participants' Papers: October 2026 – March 2027, six months of presentation and discussion sessions leading up to the revised and final version of each participant's paper. Phase III — Editorial process and publication of the volume containing the papers submitted and approved.

Format

Hybrid, 9:00 AM–12:15 noon Washington, D.C. time, ca. 3 hours per session.

Participants

Dian Nafiatul Awaliyah (Indonesia), Frank Maduabuchi Dukor (Nigeria), Lidia Godek-Ostrouch (Poland), Qinghui Huang (China), Franklin Ibáñez (Peru), Oleksandr Kulyk (Ukraine), Yueming Luo (China), Richa Kapoor Mehra (India), Indukuri John Mohan Razu (India), Isaac Zachariah Mutelo (Zimbabwe), Sivakaran Navaratnam (Sri Lanka/UK), Nubong Henri Ndifor (Cameroon), Sally J. Scholz (USA), N. Ravi Vincent (India), Xin Zhao (China), as well as Adrienne Black (USA), John Farina (USA), En Wang (China).

Moderator

João J. Vila-Chã (Pontifical Gregorian University, Roma). The Moderator chairs the proceedings of Phases I and II and functions as editor or co-editor in Phase III.

Official Representatives of the Host Institutions

William Barbieri (CUA McLean Center for the Study of Culture and Values) & Yeping Hu (The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy).

Local Start Times

Lima 8:00 · Washington 9:00 · Dublin, Lagos and Yaoundé 14:00 · Warsaw and Harare 15:00 · Kyiv 16:00 · New Delhi 18:30 · Jakarta 20:00 · Beijing 21:00.

Modus Procedendi

The Moderator (J. Vila-Chã) prepares materials, chairs Phases I–II, keeps time and pace, and co-edits the volume; content leadership rests with presenters. Sessions are recorded with participants' consent. Up to three Presenters per session (15–20 min. each) rotate so that every member of the Seminar presents at least once, staying close to the assigned text itself while at the same time trying to keep up with the cross-civilizational hermeneutic tradition exemplarily practiced by George McLean, OMI. Fixed Reading Circles of 4–5, mixed by region/tradition, each with a rotating rapporteur logging open questions and disagreements for possible later use in the papers. A living glossary of key terms (self, solidarity, civility) across participants' languages shall begin with Week 1; proceedings and papers are in English, but multilingual sourcing is encouraged.

Preparation Protocol

Weekly reading packets circulate at each week's start. Each participant posts (in a platform yet to be announced) a one-page pre-session note ≤12h before the session — personal, not a summary, built around a genuine question, tension, or counter-example tied to their own research/tradition. Discussion proceeds: (1) text-immanent reading of the author's actual argument; (2) possible cross-cultural comparison with another tradition represented in the Seminar; (3) plausible return to contemporary problems. Active listening is fundamental and required from all; AI and other distractive devices should be considered as forbidden in-session without permission of the moderator; all participants must do everything possible to remain visible throughout the entire Session.

AI-Use Policy

In this seminar, the use of AI shall be regulated in terms of disclosure and shared judgment, not in terms of policing. Some of our principles: live-presence over automation, disclosure rather than detection, personal authorship as the core contribution. Permitted with disclosure: bibliographic search/verification; rough translation for personal comprehension, but checked against the original; review of structure/clarity of one's own already-drafted argument. Not permitted or to be avoided by all possible means: presenting AI-generated interpretive claims or summaries as one's own; AI-generated pre-session or discussion content without authentic and justified appropriation; the use of live AI in sessions without the agreement of the moderator; the use of undisclosed AI-generated text in papers. In other words: our Sessions are designed to be AI-free in order to maximize the experience of authentic dialogue and deep thinking together.

Community-Building

Despite the fact that our meetings online will happen across ten time zones and for a considerable amount of time, it is crucial that the present edition of the Seminar preserves RVP's informal, solidarity-building gathering culture of the last four decades. Therefore, we shall open each session in an unhurried manner (while at the same time requesting strict punctuality) and will provide room for personal/socio-political/cultural sharing. Furthermore, the fact that a select group of Members of the Seminar are physically present in Washington, DC, mostly sharing accommodation, will be an important factor in preserving (however vicariously) the long-standing RVP Seminar tradition.