Guest Lecture by Prof. Dario Martinelli

The lecture will address current situation in humanities and will present the possibilites to develop a new field of Numanities (New Humanities). Lecture will take place in room A-325 and it is organized in the framework of the doctoral seminar “Posthumanities”. Lecture is open for everybody. More information below.

Abstract

The humanities are currently facing a complex crisis that involves their impact on, and role within, society. Although the modern western world and its economical policies are usually blamed for this situation, humanists also have to be self-critical and admit that their primary fault was that of stubbornly thinking that the world’s changes could never really affect them.

The Numanities (New Humanities) project intends to unify the various fields, approaches and also potentials of the humanities in the context, dynamics and problems of current societies, and in the attempt to overcome the crisis.

Humanities have to become an “appropriate technology”, whose main goal is to rethink their position in modern society and re-establish the dialogue with “the real world”: their ways have to be empirical, interdisciplinary, creative, innovative and ethically-minded, having quality and dignity of life as targets. If natural sciences study and create what makes life possible, humanities study and create what makes life worthwhile.    

About the speaker

Prof. Dr. Dario Martinelli (1974) is Chief-Researcher at the Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Full Professor at Kaunas University of Technology, and Adjunct Professor at the Universities of Helsinki and Lapland. He is also Editor-in-chief of the series “Numanities – Arts and Humanities in Progress”, published by Springer, and has been directing the International Semiotics Institute from 2013 to 2018.

As of 2018, he has published eleven scientific monographs and more than one hundred among edited collections, studies and scientific articles. His most recent monographs include: "Give Peace a Chant" (Springer, 2017), "Arts and Humanities in Progress" (Springer 2016), "Lights, Camera, Bark! "(Technologija, 2014) and "Authenticity, Performance and Other Double-Edged Words" (Acta Semiotica Fennica, 2011).

Besides his affiliations, he has been visiting professor in four academic institutions, and has been giving nearly one hundred lecture courses in fourteen different academic institutions in Europe. He has been recipient of several prizes, including, in 2006, a knighthood from the Italian Republic for his contribution to Italian culture.

This lecture is organized by TU Centre of Excellence in Intercultural Studies and supported by the (European Union) European Regional Development Fund (Tallinn University’s ASTRA project, TU TEE)

More information: Marek Tamm