Seminar on Modernity

The Seminar on Modernity has been the pedagogical center of the Institute. In the past, the Seminar on Modernity has discussed the nature of national consciousness, the nature of modern society, the nature of modern politics and major political ideologies (liberalism, communism, fascism); the nature of modern economy and of economic and social modernization, the characteristics of modern passions (crisis of identity, ambition, envy and other experiences related to anomie) as expressed through imaginative literature, specifically modern novel and poetry; modern epistemological approaches, in particular science, and modern esthetic sensibilities (specifically Romanticism).

During the academic year 2003-2004, the Seminar on Modernity was devoted to the consideration of modern attitudes to death, sexuality and the body in general in the fall semester and considered music as a modern art and as a method of emotional exploration in the spring semester.

In the past, the Seminar on Modernity was devoted, to such issues as the intellectual forms of racial prejudice; or the evolution of knowledge. The current Seminar on Modernity is devoted to the study of Mental Illness.

Each year, modern culture is discussed in comparison to other cultures, which are presented by specialists in the relevant fields.