While Heidegger and Derrida both contributed groundbreaking reflections on hospitality (and “hostipitality”), they failed to recognize that the host-guest relationship can only succeed if it is correlated with the notion of mutual guardianship. The lecture will describe historic guardian civilizations and then turn to Ricoeur’s linguistic hospitality as a possible blueprint for future cultural hospitality. However, the latter scenario will have no need for a third party, i.e., a “translator” who mediates between host and guest. The challenge consists of designing a host-guest relationship in which both parties become each other’s translators - and guardians.

Tamara Albertini is a professor and department chair at the university of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Professor Albertini’s research in Renaissance philosophy focuses on Nicholas of Cusa (mathematics, cosmology), Marsilio Ficino (metaphysics, aesthetics) and Charles de Bovelles. Within Islamic philosophy, Professor Tamara Albertini’s publications aim at reintroducing the vigor and vision of Muslim intellectual contributions from the classical period.