In 2018, the EHU hermeneutics seminar commemorates its fifth anniversary. In Spring 2013, the EHU President Prof. Anatoli Mikhailov held a presentation “Hermeneutics in the European intellectual tradition”. Over the next five years, the evolution of the hermeneutic tradition has become the leitmotif of a series of seminars. This time Prof. Mikhailov addressed the seminar participants with the topic “Hermeneutics of Facticity”. EHU Rector Prof. Sergei Ignatov and Prof. Andrei Vassoevich of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia (Herzen University) narrated on the formation of European civilization and the influence of the European tradition on modern education, including the framework of the educational model of EHU.
The seminar was devoted to the preparation of the course, which will be a part of the unit of EHU Core Curriculum for the third- and fourth-year Bachelor students in AY 2018/19. The key issues forming the basis for the course are the problem of education in Humanities, the problem of the language of Humanities and the hermeneutics of facticity. All of them are formed on the basis of previous courses of EHU, which were held on the model of liberal education, such as “First Year Seminar: Introduction to Humanities” and “Second Year Seminar: Introduction to Social Sciences”. During the first year of studies students try to come to understanding of themselves, afterwards they study the nature and specifics of society. Within the framework of the seminars Third and Fourth Year Seminars they will strive to determine the interaction between their own “I” and society, and to identify relevant social problems, including contemporary education.
The hermeneutics seminar is inextricably linked with the phenomena of creativity, Humanities, learning as a process of understanding the world around oneself. Active discussions on these issues between members of EHU academic community and invited lecturers took place during four-day seminar. Among participants were Prof. of Institute of Human Philosophy of Herzen University Prof. Andrei Vassoevich, Acting Dean of the Department of Aesthetics and Ethics of Herzen University Lev Letyagin, as well as Audra Kristina Zabulionytė, an Assoc. Prof. of the Department of Interdisciplinary Research and Practice in the Arts, and a Prof. of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University Alvydas Jokubaitis.
Within the framework of the seminar first- and second-year students presented the results of their work during AY 2017/18 within the framework of the courses “First Year Seminar: Introduction to Humanities” and “Second Year Seminar: Introduction to Social Sciences”. Besides that, a student project “Art of Paul Klee and Humanities”. In the days of the seminar in the new EHU Campus in the Vilnius Old Town, a multimedia mini-exhibition “Paul Klee Room” took place. The exhibition gathered the projections of the paintings of the avant-garde German and Swiss artist Paul Klee. Also essays of EHU students, which were written after visiting the exhibition of the artist in Munich, were presented.
Within the framework of the hermeneutics seminar, the presentations of the work of extracurricular projects of the Academic Department of the Humanities and Arts were held. Assoc. Prof. Sergei Seletsky presented the Art Workshop, Assoc. Prof. Victor Martinovich presented the Literature Workshop, and the Theater Workshop was introduced by a lecturer Ervinas Koršunovas. Each workshop had been created and operated during the academic year 2017/18 at the University, and was aimed at the creative development of EHU students beside Core Curriculum. A group of workshops was supplemented by a new concept of the Translation Workshop, which was presented by Natalia Mikhailova.
