Humanities Week will take place from Monday, 17. 11., until Friday, 21. 11. 2025, and will offer a rich programme full of lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and other interesting events. The main program at CU FA will take place in the main building at náměstí Jana Palacha 1/2 and is suitable for the general public, high school students and their teachers, as well as academics.
Humanities Week 2025 is subtitled „Memory in Words, Words in Memory“ and its theme is the commemoration of the 900th anniversary of the death of Cosmas of Prague, renown chronicler and Dean of St. Vitus Cathedral. The programme will be offered by all eleven philosophy and humanities faculties in the Czech Republic associated with the Association of Deans of Faculties of Arts.
Lectures, workshops, debates, and performances
For those interested, lectures, workshops, and debates from various fields will be held from 18. 11. to 21. 11. As part of the programme, the Faculty of Arts of Charles University will also celebrate Latin Day, Spanish Day, and World Philosophy Day, with performances by Faculty of Arts graduates Olga Richterová and Marek Torčík.
Programme for Tuesday, 18. 11.
Morning lecture block In her lecture titled Russian Scholars in the Time of War: Academic Freedom vs Academic Sanctions, Dr. Mariia Kuznetcova will focus on the profound crisis that Russian science and higher education has been experiencing since February 2022. Dr. Anežka Charvátová will introduce contemporary Hispanic American literature and the main problems encountered when translating Hispanic American literature into Czech. Dr. Lukáš Kolek will introduce participants to the world of video games in his lecture Video games, History and the World Around Us, during which he will explore the connection between video games, historical events and social issues.
Doc. Petra Košťálová will focus on Armenian communities living in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in her lecture titled Armenians in Poland: Sources Known and Unknown. In an interactive lecture titled How Do Babies Learn Languages, and Can Older Children and Adults Do the Same?, Dr. Kateřina Chládková will present the processes and mechanisms by which every person acquires their native language as a small child. You can learn about the life of František Listopad between the Czech and Portuguese languages in a lecture by dr. Karolína Válová. Dr. Čeněk Pýcha will discuss Artificial intelligence for historical education, and doc. Clare Wallace will conclude the morning programme with a lecture titled Feminist Interventions: How the Waking the Feminists movement changed Irish theatre.
Afternoon lecture block The afternoon block will begin with Dr. Kristine Vaceka Ante’s Discover Latvian mini-course. Its aim is to familiarize listeners with the basics of Latvian and point out similar and different grammatical and lexical phenomena in Czech and Latvian. Dr. Pavla Kodymová’s lecture Words that Help: The Language of Social Work Yesterday and Today will focus on the role language plays in social work: how can words help or cause unintentional harm. In her lecture Food Alternatives in the Current Food Regime in Czechia, Dr. Michaela Pixová will introduce listeners to the current topic of food systems and the need for their transformation. Doc. Radvan Markus will discuss Music in Irish medieval literature. Dr. Daniel Štěpánek will lead the lecture and discussion titled Neoliberal Racism: Wacquant’s Concept of Ethno-Racial Profiling of the “Underclass” in the Context of Social Work. Dr. Ilona Starý Kořánová will prepare a lecture titled Erben, Němcová and Nezval with a foreign accent – the works of Czech authors in dramatic reinterpretations by students of Czech as a Foreign Language and Deaf Studies. In his lecture Latin American politics and Donald Trump, Dr. Radek Buben will, among other things, focus on Trump’s relations with Latin American countries, their security dimension, and their relationship to migration and the economy. Dr. Záviš Šuman’s lecture Molière: Words and Things, or, How (Not) to Understand Each Other focuses on the compositional principles and means of Molière’s comedy. Tuesday’s programme will conclude with a live recording of the psychological podcast Počitek, with a lecture on How to Utilize Your Inner Voice for Your Own Good.
Latin Day
On Wednesday, 19. 11., the Faculty of Arts of Charles University will be filled with lectures, seminars, and competitions connected with Latin and antiquity. The program of the Institute of Greek and Latin Studies is designed primarily for high school students and their teachers, but other guests interested in Latin are also welcome. The aim of Latin Day is to present Latin as a gateway to many disciplines in humanities and arts, and to challenge the widespread public perception of studying Latin equalling the pointless memorization of grammatical forms. You can find the complete programme of events here. World
Philosophy Day
Philosophy will be to focus of the programme on Thursday, 20. 11. The Institute of Philosophy and Religious Studies (ÚFAR UK) will prepare an interactive program for secondary and primary schools. The morning program will be devoted to discussions, while the afternoon program will offer workshops for secondary school students developing philosophical attitudes and workshops for primary school pupils introducing them to the philosophy of virtues and critical thinking. As part of the programme, ÚFAR will present an interactive portal for innovative education of philosophy (not only) in secondary schools, called „The Art of Thinking.“ The complete programme can be found here.
Spanish Day
Friday, 21. 11., is the day of Spanish Day celebrations. The Department of Romance Studies will prepare a series of lectures and workshops to introduce the richness of Spanish to high school seniors. The morning and afternoon sessions will take place in lecture halls 104, 300, and 116. Each session will consist of two parallel sections in two blocks from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and then from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Students can choose which lectures they want to attend. The complete program can be found here.
