IV Kant Bakhtin Seminar

• 22.03.2016
• 2504

On the 16th — 17th of March the IV International Kant and Bakhtin Seminar was held at Murmansk Arctic State University (MASU). This philosophical forum has already become a traditional spring event, which is attended by leading representatives of the University science in the European North. Researchers from different countries gathered again in Murmansk to discuss issues of such humanities research area as «borderology». The border is not only and perhaps not so much a geographical notion because everything that we can perceive and think of, is linked with the concept of the border. Perceiving ourselves, we draw the line between ourselves and other people; comprehending our own culture base, we distinguish it from cultures of other people; talking about the laws of nature and social development, we need a clear definition of the concepts, for which we introduce multiple terminological distinctions. The mental, conceptual, cultural and social borders are the subject of borderological studies which were initiated by philosophers from Murmansk and the Norwegian city of Bodø in 2008.

This intellectual breakthrough brought very fruitful results few years later: MASU and Nord University (Bodø) implement the Joint Master program in «Practical knowledge: Boderology», Russian and Norwegian scientists are engaged in research activities, one of the most important aspect of which is a series of Kant and Bakhtin seminars. In addition, las year researchers from two universities made the collective monograph «Philosophy in the border zone» in English which was published by the big Norwegian publishing house «Orkana Akademisk» (Oslo). On the 15th of March before the opening of the seminar the presentation of the book took place at the Consulate General of Norway in Murmansk. The co-editors of the book were Professor Viggo Rossvaer (Nord University) and Professor Andrey Sergeev, MASU Rector.

This seminar focused on the theme of imaginary and real worlds and their boundaries. Apart from Murmansk researchers, it was attended by famous philosophers from St. Petersburg University Nadezhda Golik and Boris Sokolov, Norwegian colleagues from Nord University, Polish sociologist Malgorzata Bienkowska (Bialystok University), Lithuanian researcher Basia Nikiforova (Vilnius), French social anthropologist Sophie Oman ( Paris) and others. In addition, the round table on «Creativity and Borders» was held within the seminar with the participation of the Greek film director Angelos Francis, who is currently in Murmansk, where his new film is produced.