HSE Expanding International Cooperation in the Humanities

In 2016, the Higher School of Economics will be the first Russian university to become an associate member of a large project being carried out by the Freie Universität Berlin’s Dahlem Humanities Center. The project, entitled the Thematic Network Principles of Cultural Dynamics, aims to strengthen international cooperation in humanities research. Its objective is to study the factors that affect the cultural processes in the history of humanity’s development. 

‘The plan is to become a full partner in the project alongside the world’s leading universities, including Harvard, the University of Hong Kong, Johns Hopkins, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Paris’ School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences,’ comments School of Philology Head Elena Penskaja. ‘This kind of cooperation opens up broad, interdisciplinary academic prospects for researchers in our university’s entire humanities block. The strategy of the project is to bring together researchers from various countries around the world, as well as promote active cooperation, search for common “points of interest,” and prepare joint publications. We are also hoping that our colleagues from HSE Nizhny Novgorod and HSE Perm will be involved in the project as well,’ she concludes.

Participation in the project involves carrying out joint research at partner universities, teaching graduate-level courses at annual summer schools in coordination with prominent international humanities researchers, holding thematic seminars, and in the future, creating a joint graduate school.

On November 17^th and 19^th, the HSE School of Philology is organizing a series of lectures by leading European humanities researcher and Director of the Freie Universität Berlin’s Dahlem Humanities Center Dr. Joachim Küpper. The lectures are entitled ‘Flaubert, L’Education Sentimentale — Balzac, Le Père Goriot. On the French Realists’ Transformation of the Bildungsroman’ and ‘Towards a Network Theory of Cultural Production.’

Joachim Küpper is a Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, the Director of the Dahlem Humanities Center, a member of Germany’s National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize laureate, and the recipient of an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). He is also the author of various works covering periods ranging from antiquity to the 20th century. His interests include comparative literature, Roman literature, literary theory, and aesthetics.