“When April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein of earth with that liquid by whose power the flowers are engendered; when the zephyr, too, with its dulcet breath, has breathed life into the tender new shoots in every corpse and on every heath, and the young sun has run half his course in the sign of the Ram, and the little birds that sleep all night with their eyes open give song (so Nature prompts them in their hearts), then, as the poet Geoffrey Chaucer observed many years ago, folk long to go on pilgrimages. Only, these days, professional people call them conferences.” Iets eerder in het jaar dan in deze aanhef van David Lodge’s Small World (Penguin Books, 1984), maar daardoor niet minder vreugdevol en enthousiasmerend door de gasten en het meteorologisch vroege voorjaar, was het lente-uitje 2011. Dat uitje had de vorm van een preconferentie en stond in het teken van de Nijmeegse lente in onderzoek.

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