Symposium - Lithuania and France: a distance neighbourhood – a shared experience

20 speakers from France and Lithuania will reflect on how shared experiences such as cultural epochs, artistic currents, innovations in thinking, creative breakthroughs of minorities, and controversies of historical memory are creating a neighbourhood that is not geographically based, but rather is a proximity of challenges, explorations and discoveries.

Three thematic groups – Enlightenment, Modernity and Memory – will cover the aspects of democratic political culture and the pursuit of freedom, important for Lithuania and France as creators of European values.

The symposium will be held in French and Lithuanian languages, supported by the simultaneous translation.

Detailed program to download at the bottom of the page.

Organization

General Curator of the Lithuanian season in France

• Virginija Vitkienė, PhD in art history and art criticism, curator of contemporary art exhibitions (2004-2022), artistic director of the Kaunas Biennial (2009-2017), general director of Kaunas 2022 - European Capital of Culture (2018-2023)

General Curators of the symposium

• Béatrice Perez, professor and dean of Faculty of Arts, Languages, Literature and Humanities, Sorbonne Université
• Artūras Vasiliauskas, doctor and vice-rector, Vilnius University

Organizational Committee

• Marija Drėmaitė, professor, Vilnius University
• Béatrice Perez, professor and dean of Faculty of Arts, Languages, Literature and Humanities, Sorbonne Université
• Adrien Picquout, Ph.D. and chief of staff of Faculty of Arts, Languages, Literature and Humanities, Sorbonne Université
• Artūras Vasiliauskas, doctor and vice-rector, Vilnius University
• French Institute

Speakers

• Jean-Christophe Abramovici, professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature , Sorbonne Université
• Danielle Cohen-Levinas, professor, philosopher, musicologist, and a specialist of Jewish philosophy, founder of the "Centre d'esthétique, musique et philosophie contemporaine", research associate at the Husserl Archives of Paris, École Normale Supérieure de Paris
• Violeta Davoliūtė, professor, Vilnius University and Institute of Political Science and International Relations, and project leader of Facing the Past: Public History for a Stronger Europe (Horizon Europe, 2022-2025)
• Jonas Dagys, professor and dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University
• Maxime Decout, professor of French Literature, Sorbonne Université, member of the Institut Universitaire de France and the "Centre d'étude de la langue et des littératures françaises"
• Marija Drėmaitė, professor in Architectural History and Cultural Heritage, and a PI at the Research Excellence Centre “(Post) Authoritarian Landscapes” at the Faculty of History and chair of the Master's program in Cultural Heritage Studies, Vilnius University, member of the Scientific Boards of the Joint Programming Initiative Cultural Heritage (JPI CH) and the Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformations, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Louis Guerpillon, associate professor, ENS Paris, has a degree and a doctorate in philosophy, associate member of "HIPHIMO" and a member of the République des Savoirs, 'Mathesis' component
• Giedrė Jankevičiūtė, art historian and exhibition curator, professor, Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts and senior research fellow at the Department of Art History and Visual Culture of the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute
• Luba Jurgenson, professor in Russian literature, Sorbonne Université and co-director of the collection of Russian literature "Poustiaki"
• Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, literary scholar and translator and Dean of the Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University and Lithuania’s Minister of Culture (2019-2020)
• Christophe Martin, professor of Eighteenth-Century French Literature, Sorbonne Université
• Valérie Mavridorakis, professor of Contemporary Art History, Sorbonne Université and member of the editorial board of the Cahiers du Musée national d'art moderne, the scientific committee of the GIS Archives de la Critique d'art, the Association française d'études américaines and the International Association of Art Critics
• Béatrice Perez, professor and dean of Faculty of Arts, Languages, Literature and Humanities, Sorbonne Université
• Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, political sociologist interested in governance, knowledge production and culture, and an associate professor of Criminology and Sociology, Kingston University London
• Clara Royer, professor of East-Central European cultures, deputy director  of Eur'ORBEM (Cultures et sociétés d'Europe orientale, balkanique et médiane), co-director of the CIRCE component (Centre interdisciplinaire de recherches centre-européennes) of Eur'ORBEM and co-director of "Connaissance de l'Europe médiévale" (CEM)
• Kristupas Sabolius, researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Dalia Satkauskytė, Literary scholar and critic, professor, Vilnius University and research director, Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore
• Loreta Skurvydaitė, professor and dean of the Faculty of History, chairwoman of Vilnius University Academic Protocol Commission and the chairwoman of the Editorial Board of the publication series Fontes historiae universitatis Vilnensis, Vilnius University
• Irena Vaišvilaitė, professor at the Faculty of History, Vilnius University, vice-chairperson of the National Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT) Council and chairperson of the Thomas Mann Culture Center Board of Trustees.

Event partners

This event is organized in association with Vilnius University, the Lithuanian Cultural Institute and the French Institute, in close collaboration with the Lithuanian Embassy in France, the French Embassy in Lithuania and the French Institute of Lithuania, under the aegis of the French Ministries of Europe and Foreign Affairs and of Culture, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.