Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies (HCAS)

The Collegium's 25th Anniversary Newsletter is hot off the press!

Inside, you'll find our Director's reflections on the role of institutions in safeguarding the space and time required for research, our Deputy Director's thoughts on interdisciplinary work, and reflections on the people, events, and milestones that make up life at the Collegium.

Happy reading!

Access the full issue as a PDF on our website: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/helsinki-collegium-advanced-studies/publications/hcas-newsletter

“The international community must strengthen our global healthcare infrastructure in order to protect everyone's ability to live minimally good lives.”
– Creative Resolve: The Future of Global Health

Join us for a screening and panel discussion on the documentary Creative Resolve: The Future of Global Health with HCAS alumna Nicole Hassoun.

June 16 at HCAS. Read more and register via the link in the comments.

The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies celebrates its 25th anniversary this June. To mark this milestone and to launch a new chapter in its history, the Collegium hosts a series of events and unveils an updated website with a new visual identity.

Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies 25th Anniversary Celebration Weeks | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | University of Helsinki

Last week our Common Room filled with an enthusiastic group of people interested in virtues and vices. Over two intensive days, the multidisciplinary workshop “Virtue and Vice: Historical, Philosophical, and Contemporary Dimensions” brought together scholars working on moral character from a range of traditions and perspectives.

The presentations ranged from theoretical approaches to reflecting one’s life as a whole to explorations of historical and cultural varieties within virtue ethics. Global and feminist perspectives were brought to the fore, as we were invited to view humility, anger, love, justice, and other related notions from various perspectives – without forgetting the environmental and political dimension of virtues and vices.

Working towards a shared understanding was greatly helped by the collegial atmosphere that encouraged open and relaxed discussion.

HCAS Honorary Fellow and Distinguished Research Professor at American University, James H. Mittelman, hosts a panel discussion on his recent publication, Runaway Capitalism, on June 15 at HCAS.

The book offers a novel interpretation of capitalism’s new, rapidly globalizing forms that are intensifying precarity and prompting counter-movements. Mittelman’s presentation will be followed by comments and discussion with Tero Erkkilä, Anja Nygren, Heikki Patomäki, and Ann Phoenix.

Read more and register via the link in the comments.

To celebrate the past academic year, HCAS Fellows and staff gathered in Tallinn for our annual retreat. In addition to a final common seminar on interconnections between law and fiction at Tallinn University, we toured museums and enjoyed each other’s company and talents over dinner and at karaoke.

HCAS alumnus Charlie Kurth has been awarded for his courageous actions in defence of academic freedom. The Collegium warmly congratulates him on this well-deserved recognition.

Two Philosophers Win “Courageous Colleague” Award - Daily Nous The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has bestowed its Berkson Courageous Colleague Award on two philosophers. Those two philosophers are Mike Gregory and Charlie Kurth, both of Clemson University. After two faculty and a staff member at Clemson were fired for social media posts...

To be “natural” is almost always a virtue, while things deemed “artificial,” from the sweeteners and dyes in processed foods to cryptocurrencies, more commonly provoke suspicion.

The HCAS Anniversary Symposium “Artifice and Its Insecurities” asks: What is it about artifice that sparks such concern and ambivalence? And, if artifice produces a unique set of insecurities, by what techniques have social actors sought to shore up the authority of decidedly “artificial” constructions?

Read more and register via the link in the comments.

Registration for the Virtue and Vice workshop closes this week!

Join scholars across philosophy, political science, anthropology, and theology on May 28–29 to examine how virtues and vices are conceptualized and used – both in history and today.

Remember to register by May 24. The registration link is in the comments.