MASU held the 5th International Kant-Bakhtin Seminar
15–16 March 2017, MASU held the 5th International Kant-Bakhtin Seminar, by now traditional annual event organized by the Department of Philosophy and Social Studies in collaboration with the Norwegian Nord University (Bodo). This time, the seminar’s conversation subject was the border-like nature of human existence in its various aspects, that found its way in the seminar’s title «A human between...»
In fact, the Kant-Bakhtin seminar itself lays in a sense «between» — in the intellectual space between various cultural worlds and traditions of thought, between the immediate needs of specific points in time and the need to reflect on perennial questions. In five years, the seminar’s agenda and the geography of its participants expanded dramatically.
The fifth seminar preserved its focus on borderology issues and extended the range of discussion topics which included primarily relations between the Human and the Nature in their ethic, political and ecophilosophical aspects as well as the problem of social development sustainability and changeability.
In 2017, the seminar welcomed scholars from Russia, Norway and Lithuania as intramural participants, while a number of researchers (in particular from Poland and Bulgaria) continued the correspondence dialogue with their colleagues in the form of printed publications. As usually, the seminar resulted in forthcoming publication of annual articles’ collection and, in addition, the philosophers from Murmansk Arctic State University, Nord University (Bodo, Norway), Saint Petersburg State University and University of Bialystok (Poland) work on the joint monograph, talked over during the panel discussion «A human at the border between the nature and the culture». The first monograph «Philosophy in the Border Zone», edited by MASU rector, Doctor of Philosophy, professor Andrey Sergeev and Doctor of Philosophy, professor of Nord University Viggo Rossvaer, was published in English by the Oslo printing house «Orkana Akademisk» in 2015.
MASU and Nord University are also responsible for the joint master-degree program «Borderology», and this year the first graduates completed their studies in the program. MASU held a diploma-delivery ceremony within the framework of the 5th International Kant-Bakhtin Seminar activities on the 16th of March. The ceremony had an honor to welcome the consul of Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk, Mr. Jorgen Jorgensen.