ATHENS HUMANITIES NETWORK

AHN

The Athens Humanities Network is founded with the purpose of supporting and furthering the study of the Humanities.

The founding members, representatives of eight universities, feel that the Humanities are under threat in an increasingly market-oriented academic environment and believe that this is a circumstance that can and must be reversed for a number of reasons:

• The Humanities have always been at the heart of all scientific research, providing

-       the tools of reasoning on which all thinking and knowledge is founded and

-       the moral principles which ensure its optimal use in the interests of humanity

• The Humanities have always been at the heart of education:

-       Secondary education relies on the humanities to develop specific skills and mainly to transmit ideas and instill principles

-       Significantly, most modern universities were founded with the Humanities playing a central role, frequently forming a single academic unit with the Natural Sciences, often named “Faculty/School of Philosophy”

• The Humanities may not be directly connected to the markets but, apart from their intrinsic value for society in all its aspects, they constitute an important indirect economic asset for all the countries of Europe and the surrounding area.
• Far from being an idle contemplation of the past, the Humanities are the only field that truly affords a vision for the future.

The Network started in Southeastern Europe and the Black Sea, an area inhabited by a remarkable variety of peoples of diverse origins, mirrored most clearly in its diversity of languages from several language families, but at the same time peoples with close cultural ties. The universities of the area have an excellent record in the Humanities, which remains largely unknown to society, but greatly enhances the image of our countries in the international community. We welcome members from all countries of the area and from the rest of the world.

Athens was chosen as the centre of the Network because of its powerful symbolism as the birthplace of humanist values through the work of the philosophers, poets, dramatists, orators and historians of the Classical period; from these very values as they developed through the centuries it follows that all present and future members of the Network are entirely equal.

The Founding Members

• Amalia Moser, Dean, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
• Rahmi Er,  Dean, Faculty of Humanities, University of Ankara
• Milos Arsenijevic, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
• Κaterina Kopaka, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Crete
• Maxim Kisilier, Head of the Greek Institute, Saint-Petersburg State University
• Galina Rousseva-Sokolova, Vice-Dean, Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology, University of Sofia "St. Kliment Ohridski"
• Darejan Tvaltvadze, Dean, Faculty of Humanities, Tbilisi State University
• Tea Gergedava, Head, Department of Foreign Relations, Tbilisi State University
• Damir Boras, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
• Ivana Franic, Vice-Dean for programs and life-long learning, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,  University of Zagreb
• Branka Galic, Vice-Dean for research and international cooperation, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb