The conference will address the issue of language in the context of ongoing crisis in research and teaching in humanities with an attempt to restore an ontological ground of “sensibility” (Sinnlichkeit) and “understanding” (Verstand), and to emphasize the primal power of “word” in its integral unity with “image”.
Language in this context cannot be reduced merely to its instrumental use and becomes an alternative to abstract thought stimulating performative creativity of human being in its relation to the world. As a consequence, the cultivation of the “force of imagination” (Die Einbildungskraft – Kant) constitutes the very kernel of education. In her “Essays in Understanding”, Hannah Arendt proclaims: “Imagination alone enables us to see things in their proper perspective … to bridge abysses of remoteness until we can see and understand everything that is too far away from us though it were our own affair. Without this kind of imagination, which actually is understanding, we would never be able to take our bearings in the world. It is the only inner compass we have”.
Among key speakers of the conference are Prof. Jeffrey Andrew Barash (France), Prof. Alvydas Jokubaitis (Lithuania), Dr Christo Petkov Todorov (Bulgaria), Vessela Atanasova (France), Prof. Arturas Raila (Lithuania), Prof. Anatoli Mikhailov (Lithuania), Prof. Sergei Ignatov (Lithuania) and Prof. Emeritus Ryhor Miniankou (Lithuania).
A program of the conference is avalable online.