The open lecture by Lenart Škof "War, Ontology of the Child and Peace"

The lecture is the first activity in the joint interdisciplinary event series "Transformed Humanity" implemented by Interdisciplinary Research Center of the Academic Library of the University of Latvia (lead by Dr.phil. Ineta Kivle) and the Department of Philosophy and Ethics of the Faculty of History and Philosophy (lead by Dr.phil. Raivis Bičevskis). The “Transformed Humanity” intends to search for new theoretical approaches to the understanding of humanity, looking at human and humanity from the viewpoints of philosophy, religion, art, and ethics and analyzing individuality and deconstruction of individuality in the age of constructed rationality. In this series of events, Lennart Škof's lecture will look at the war and peace in the context of future democracy and humanity.

Russia's invasion in Ukraine is a reality – Europe is caught in war, and the war crimes committed against the Ukraine require a new philosophical, ethical, and religious explanation.  Dedicated to the suffering of children, women and men in Ukraine, this lecture wishes to address the possibility of a future political philosophy and political ethics as signs of the coming caring and unwounded democracy. It is unbearable to think about newborn and children, not being protected in the sacred sleep of the night and not being able to breathe the sacred air of peace. As this lecture will show, as an idea, being on the opposite side of violence, destruction, and war, this new unwounded democracy should be imagined in a feminine key – as peaceful and all-nursing atmosphere of compassion, care, and love. The need for protection of children was never greater and with them we all, as it were, feel exposed in our fundamental vulnerability.

What happens when thinking about war dominates thinking about peace? How did Ernst Jünger, who said that war is not only annihilation and destruction, but also the masculine form of procreation, argue on behalf of this unhappy constellation? What kind of experience is explained in the work War`s Unwomanly Face by Svetlana Alekijevich (the recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature)? Are we each able to protect ourselves and others from violence and war? Lenart Škof's lecture will search for a new democracy and a new symbol of peace in the sign of femininity, compassion, care, and love.

Lenart Škof is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Institute for Philosophical Studies at the Science and Research Centre Koper (Slovenia), Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Alma Mater Europaea and Visiting Professor at Bennett University (India). He received KAAD grant (Universität Tübingen), Fulbright grant (Stanford University) and Humboldt fellowship (Max Weber Kolleg, Universität Erfurt). Among his recent monographs are Antigone's Sisters: On the Matrix of Love (SUNY Press, 2021), Breath of Proximity (Springer, 2015) and Pragmatist Variations on Ethical and Intercultural Life (Lexington Books, 2012). He recently coedited Shame, Gender Violence and Ethics: Terrors of Injustice (Lexington Books, 2021), Atmospheres of Breathing (SUNY Press, 2018), Borders and Debordering (Lexington Books, 2018), and The Poesis of Peace: Narratives, Cultures and Philosophies (Routledge, 2017). Škof is a regular member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, World Religions Class (Salzburg, Austria) and the president of Slovenian Society for Comparative Religion.

Contacts for information: Ineta Kivle ineta.kivle@lu.lv, phone: +371 29418434

*The lecture is organized by the Interdisciplinary Research Centre of the Academic Library of the University of Latvia (lead by Dr.phil. Ineta Kivle) and the Department of Philosophy and Ethics at the Faculty of History and Philosophy (lead by Dr.phil. Raivis Bičevskis), in cooperation with the Institute for Philosophical Studies at the Science and Research Centre Koper in Slovenia (lead by Prof Dr Lenart Škof).