"St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo
Faculty of Philosophy
Society for Philosophy as Global Conversation
DAAD German Academic Exchange Service

International Colloquium in Contemporary
Philosophy and Culture"Converging Differences: Global Thinking and Local Existence"
March 21-23, 2018

Colloquium Chair:
Dr. Rossen Roussev, Associate Professor in Contemporary Philosophy"St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo"St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo
Europa Hall, 10:00 am
ul. Teodosiy Tarnovski 2, 5003 Sveta Gora, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, E.U.

COLLOQUIUM PROGRAM

March 21, 2018
9:30 am – 10:00 am
Registration

Wednesday Panel I: 10:00 am – noon
Global Conversation and Responsibility
Opening Remarks“Global Conversation on the Spot: What Lao-tse, Heidegger, and Rorty Have in Common”
Dr. Rossen Roussev, "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo“Place and Responsibility: Weil, Levinas, Heidegger”
Dr. Tomokazu Baba, University of Nagano

Wednesday Panel II: 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Enlightenment, Paradise, and Transnational Solidarity
Chair: Dr. Tomokazu Baba, University of Nagano
Critique as Limitattitude: Foucault’s Reading of Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?”
Dr. Alicja Kowalska, DAAD & University of Prešov
From the Local Universe to the Global Cosmos: Conversations and Conversions of Space in John
Milton’s Epic Poem “Paradise Lost”
Peyo Karpuzov, “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
Between the Local and the Global: The Meaning of the Banlieue, Nation, Religion and Transnational
Solidarity in French Muslim Rap
Dr. Alexandra Preitschopf, OeAD & Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”

Wednesday Panel III: 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Global, Hyperlocal, and Borders
Chair: Dr. Rossen Roussev, "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo
The Own and the Foreign in the Global Village
Dr. Mitko Momov,“St. St. Cyril and Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo&
Dr. Mirena Patseva, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
The European Union's policy on cross-border migration,
Dr. Cristina Ilie Goga, University of Craiova
The Hyperlocal and the Temporary
Dr. Nicholas Birns, New York University

8:00 pm
Immunity (2015): A film by the American expat filmmaker Raymond Steers, followed by discussion
with the director. Venue: Bar TAM, 2A Marno Pole Square, Veliko Tarnovo.

March 22, 2018
Thursday Panel I: 10:00 – 11:30am
Quarrels, Violence, and Security
Chair Dr. Rossen Roussev, "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo
Kantian Neighborliness and QuarrelsomenessDr. Micah Daily (The New School for Social Research)
Religion, Identity, and Violence
Dr. Jonathan Mahoney, Kansas State University
Security policies and the fight against terrorism in the globalization era
Dr. Ionut Serban, University of Craiova

Thursday Panel II: 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
State, Justice, and the Face of the Other
Chair: Dr. Tomokazu Baba, University of Nagano
A Realistic Approach on the Relation between Global Organizations and National States
Dr. Alexandra Porumbescu, University of Craiova
Non-fixed justice
Dr. Larysa Karachevtseva, H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine
The Face in the Philosophy of Levinas: Phenomenon or Enigma
Ivelina Stoeva, “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo

Thursday Panel III: 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm
Hermeneutics, Public Engagement, and the End of History
Chair Dr. Rossen Roussev, "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo
The Hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey: Identity and Biography as Constructions
Andreas Chetkowski, DAAD & “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Phronesis as a Guide Public Engaged Scholarship
Dr. Marie Sandy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Heidegger’s Renewed Relevance in the Aftermath of the End of History
Borislav Sotirov, New Bulgarian University

4:15 pm
Art Opening “Being Glocal”

7:00 pm
Colloquium DinnerMarch 23, 2018
Friday Panel I: 10:00 am – 11:30 am

Literary Classics, Cross-cultural Negotiations, and the Creation of the Self
Chair: Andreas Chetkowski, DAAD & “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
From East to West and Back Again: Transcultural Influence amongst Literary Classics
Dr. Frank Passani (University of Barcelona)
Writing “like a drawing compass”: cross-cultural negotiations in Elif Shafak’s novel Honour
Dr. Petya Tsoneva, “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
The Role of Perceptions in the Creation of the Self in the Works of William Blake
Gergana Plamenova, “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
Friday Panel II: 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Global Thinking, Healthy Life, and Community Building
Chair: Dr. Rossen Roussev, "St. Cyril and St. Methodius" University of Veliko Tarnovo
Global Thinking – An Implicit Reality in the Reality of Life
Dr. Zbigniew Jan Marczuk, Rowan College
Human person, health, and self-creation
Dr. Shivani Khetan (Open International University of Complementary Medicines)“DARPLAY: Building Communities out of Differences”
Denitsa Aleksandrova, Music and Theatre House of Languages in Veliko Tarnovo
Closing Remarks

Friday Panel III: 8:00 pm till lateClosing Party
Chair: You, International Colloquium in Contemporary Philosophy and Culture
Venue: Bar TAM, 2A Marno Pole Square, Veliko Tarnovo
Live performing bands
Keira Is You + From Love To Reflux [PL]ABSTRACTS AND PRESENTERS' INFORMATION(listed alphabetically by presenter’s last name)

DARPLAY: Building Communities out of Differences
byDenitsa Aleksandrova
Music and Theatre House of Languages in Veliko Tarnovo
My presentation is focused on the communicative game DARPLAY which has been created by Anna
Kancheva, Rumyana Kovacheva and me -- Denitsa Aleksandrova. It is a game which puts all players
in the role of speakers and listeners. It gives them the opportunity to speak on a topic for 3 minutes
without being interrupted. In Bulgarian DAR means “present” or “gift” and we believe that being
listened to is a present or a gift indeed. It helps converging differences and most importantly
accepting and tolerating them. It also facilitates learning from each other, and maintaining good
psychic health. It is well known that a system consists of different elements and that the moreconnected these elements, the more stable the system. People are the elements and local communities
are the system. We strongly need different mechanisms to help people feel closer to each otherwithin the community. Communication and exchanging ideas and opinions is one way of connecting
on a deeper emotional and intellectual level. Nowadays we tend to lose our listening skill and interestfor the others -- being obsessed with what we want to say, we often fail to make the others feel
understood and listened to. DARPALY is an innovative game which restores balance incommunication, trains active listening skills, and helps the people in the local community feel moreconnected. DARPLAY sharing circle with the participants will be held after the presentation.
Denitsa Aleksandrova holds an MA degree in English language and literature from “St. Cyril and St.
Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo. She has been trained as a suggestopedic teacher and forthe last 7 years she has been teaching English using the suggestopedic approach developed by Prof.
D-r Georgi Lozanov. She has founded a centre for studying and practicing foreign languages called
Music and Theatre House of Languages in Veliko Tarnovo. She is a co-author of the communicative
game DARPLAY. Her personal interests include improvisation theatre, dancing and psychology.

Place and Responsibility: Weil, Levinas, Heidegger
byDr. Tomokazu Baba
University of Nagano
What is the universal condition for human being to feel at home even if s/he is not literally in her/his
own house? At first glance, the question seems to be odd. But in an era of displacement which we
see everywhere on the planet in various forms, the question appears to be urgent. There are morethan 60 million displaced people in the world according to UNHCR, even inside borders.
Uprootedness by displacement is a universal phenomenon of the globalized world.

Starting from a study on the loss of home town of evacuees from Fukushima, this paper
explores an existential dimension of the place of living. Enrootedness and uprootedness are not only
a matter of environment. In fact, they have a complex existential structure. Root in its existential
sense has its temporal relation to past and future as well as its ethical relation to family, friends, andneighbors. Among the many factors of being enrooted in home in an existential sense, we try toreveal the role of responsibility in enrootedness by reading Heidegger, Levinas, and Weil. In doing
so, we can understand the concept of responsibility in its multiple aspects, including its role of acondition for being enrooted without having a certain fixed place.
Dr. Tomokazu Baba is assistant professor at Nagano Prefectural College, University of Nagano. He
received a PhD from Hitotsubashi University (2008) and another one from the Sorbonne Paris IV(2013). His research discipline include Contemporary Philosophy, Ethics, History of Ideas,
especially 20th century French and German Philosophy, Levinas and Heidegger.

The Hyperlocal and the Temporary
byDr. Nicholas Birns
New York University
The hyperlocal is so small, so minute, as to operate beneath the subsidiary. Yet it is not just about theminute, the very small. The hyperlocal is not just small, it is also elastic; it can move around. Indeed,
it can move around more than the regional. Concepts of regionalism are stuck in themselves-in thepeculiar solidity of a region-and also locked into aspiring towards just what they are rebellingagainst. Scotland or the French rebels feel limited by the general dictates of the nation. Yet if
Scotland were to become a nation or the Vendeans to take over France, they would be in the position
to render dictates and thus locked into stolid power. The hyperlocal can gravitate from the narrow to
the wide. In this sense, my particular use of the term is inflected by Timothy Morton's idea of thehyperobject, the entity that is so protean as to be unclassifiable in schematic terms. I seek to extend
this elasticity down the scale of size, seeing the hyperlocal as that which can at once be minute but
elastic: not strictly definable, not stolid and subsidiary. The difference between the regional, or what
I call the 'subsidiary', and the hyperlocal is indeed one between subsidiarity and elasticity. I define
the regional as that which can possess 'subsidiarity." Some might recognize "subsidiarity" as a word
used with respect to the European Union, that if possible important decisions should be made at thesmallest effective subsidiary unit. The hyperlocal is what is below the subsidiary, because it is below
decision-making. Thus, regionalisms in Western Europe- Scottish nationalism, or the revolts of the
Vendée in the west of France against the French Revolution in the 1790s, as explored by Anthony
Trollope in his sole historical novel, or North-South tensions in England itself as assayed by
Elizabeth Gaskell and by Dickens in Hard Times, are, because they can be subsidiary, too unitary tobe hyperlocal. The hyperlocal is so small, so minute, as to operate beneath the subsidiary. discuss thehyperlocal with respect to the production of colonial space in the Anglophone world between 1750
and 1850, concentrating particularly on Canada and Australia, and how even as these colonies cameinto view as an agglomeration of regions, an idea of space at once more granular and more mobile
than the regional spoke to issues such as spirituality, indigeneity, and performance. A particularfocus will be travel narratives, that seem to be about visiting one big place, but in terms of their
textual production end up being about sundry little places, that reverberate globally with a very
different force than their regional equivalents, but nonetheless reverberate. The distinction is also

potentially able to be aligned with that between the temporary and the monumental. The monumental
is enduring, imposing, unusually monuments, real or symbolic, that are erected have the endorsementof popular sentiment or at least political authority. But not only can monuments be a symptom ofdespotism, they can stand for an ossified canon or, as the recent issues with Confederate statues in
the US, represent fasces of a society that many now wish to repudiate. In addition, as Noah Guynn
argues in his essay from 2000 on the medieval Anglo-Norman Roman d'Enéas, the monumental canbe used to marginalize, to honor, in his example, a queer valence that European civilization wishes todeny is part of its foundational narrative. The monumental's preservative capacities can also freeze,anneal, and thus abject. In contrast, the temporary, even if it is necessarily ephemeral and evensometimes trivial, cans navigate around the shoals of certainty and not be fixed in a formulated
phrase. It is in temporal terms what the hyperlocal is in spatial terms.
Nicholas Birns is Associate Professor at the Center for Applied Liberal Arts, New York University,and author of Theory After Theory (2010), I Barbarian memory (2013), and Contemporary
Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead (2015). He has contributed articles to MLQ, Partial
Answers, Exemplary, and many other journals.

The Hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey: Identity and Biography as Constructions
byAndreas Chetkowski
DAAD & “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 - 1911) is not only considered an epoch-making pioneer of hermeneutics. In
his own extensive work he deals with questions of philosophy and epistemology, psychology andpedagogy, but also art and literature. The variety of objects and disciplines is connected by theattempt to determine for them a common method of cognition, differentiated from the naturalsciences. While the latter explain the physical world, Dilthey's so-called humanities are meant tounderstand the human world "insofar as human states are experienced, provided they are expressedin expressions of life, and insofar as these expressions are understood.”This presentation deals with Dilthey's hermeneutic method, in which the key is lies in'understanding' the mental contexts. The process of understanding represents a mental act of 'putting
oneself in the place' and 'empathizing'. In addition, the terms 'context', 'spirit', 'subject' and 'meaning'are to be discussed in greater detail. They represent the central elements of hermeneutic
consciousness. In addition, for Dilthey, the hermeneutic model of understanding need to be placed ina systematic context with autobiography. In the autobiography, the essential memories are
remembered and brought together to form a sense unit; The "meaning of the moments of life" is "atthe same time experienced eigenvalue of the moment and its acting force."
For Dilthey, the genre of autobiography suits best his hermeneutic method of“understanding”. The examples of Augustine, Rousseau and Goethe's autobiographies, which put
together the individual parts of their life courses in an understandable context, give an overview ofthe history of their minds.
Andreas Chetkowski studied German Philology and Economics at the TU Berlin. After completing
his studies, he taught German Studies and Linguistics at the UMCS Lublin in Poland from 2014 to2015. Since 2016 he is a DAAD Lecturer at the at “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko
Tarnovo.

Kantian Neighborliness and QuarrelsomenessbyDr. Micah Daily (The New School for Social Research)
This paper explores Kant’s notion of ‘love thy neighbor’ from The Metaphysics of Morals
and ‘quarrelsomeness’ from the Idea for a Universal History to address the hyperpolarization
riddling conversations, locally and globally, on college campuses, online, and in everyday
experience. I argue i) that Kant’s moral anthropology, a prospective project concerned with “thesubjective conditions of human nature that hinder or help them in fulfilling the laws of themetaphysics of morals”, is a useful framework for addressing our current crisis in communication,and ii) that Kant’s rigoristic ethics has an application to addressing that crisis. A robust
understanding of the duty of beneficence (love of neighbor), requires an awareness of the natural
inclinations that seem to undermine that duty. This paper focuses on the natural inclination toward’quarrelsomeness’ as one aspect of Kant’s notion of unsocial sociability. The antagonism inherent
therein is not to be overcome but, rather, is to be sculpted with actions motivated by rational moral
principles. Framed this way, moral principles do not dominate to destroy our natural inclinations –which turns out to be impossible and unhealthy – but rather allow freedom (moral duties) and nature(natural inclinations) to commingle. According to Kant, one does not have a duty to love, but one
does have a duty of beneficence. And yet, he insists, “do good to your fellow human beings, andyour beneficence will produce love of them in you.” While one does not act on the duty of
beneficence to attain some particular end, one does achieve something by obedience to that duty,
namely, the development of an “aptitude for love,” calling to mind Kant’s remark, “Virtue is its own
reward.” I propose that bringing awareness to the tension between love of neighbor – whether locallyor globally – and quarrelsomeness, will serve us well in addressing the presently looming polarized
deadlock that fosters isolation and hate.
Dr. Micah Daily received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research in 2014.
Prior to that, she attained a B.A. in philosophy, storytelling, and filmmaking from Sarah LawrenceCollege. Dr. Daily specializes in Kantian and modern moral philosophy as applied to everyday
experience. She is an established lecturer and recipient of the most influential person and excellencein teaching awards from her students at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Los Angeles where shetaught philosophy and cultural studies for eight years. Her research interests include:‘Neighborliness’ and ‘quarrelsomeness’ in our developing global community and the power ofrational discourse as a method to address issues of free speech and hyperpolarization in politics, oncollege campuses, online, and in everyday experience.

The European Union's Policy on Cross-border Migration
byDr. Cristina Ilie Goga
University of Craiova
This presentation focuses on analyzing European Union policy on cross-border migration. We will
start by presenting the concepts of European citizenship and freedom of movement. We will continue
through the analysis of the main communications and reports, such as: The Green Paper on an EU
approach to managing economic migration" (COM (2004) 811 final), Policy Plan on Legal
Migration (COM (2005) 669 final) or the European Migration Agenda (COM (2015) 240 final),issued by the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs, which is the European
Commission body responsible for European cross-border migration policy. We will also present themost important European legal acts in the field of cross-border migration. At the end of the analysis,
we will highlight, as a conclusion, the main changes to EU migration policy in recent years and theeffects of this policy on the economic and social situation on the Member States.
Keywords: European Union, migration policy, cross-border migration, European Commission’s
Reports.
Dr. Cristina Ilie Goga is an Assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of
Craiova and a lawyer at Dolj Bar. She has a PhD. in Sociology since 2012. She graduated in both
Sociology and Law, having two masters respectively in ”Public law and criminal science” (Law
specialization) and ”Community development and in European integration” (Sociology
specialization). Her areas of interest are: legal sociology, sociology of communication and sociologyof European integration. Email: cristin_il@yahoo.com; Telephone: 0040766291455

Non-fixed JusticebyDr. Larysa Karachevtseva
H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
One of the modes of philosophical reflection today is solving the problem of collision of theuniversal and particular. In the realm of ethics, this complexity is embodied as a problem ofdetermining the nature of ethical motives, universal or particular. For example, if someone acts
morally, what is the source of his/her morality – the individual (particular) assimilation of theuniversal norms or his/her particular ethical initiative, that independently, at its own risk, invests tothe universal order? So, does universality manifest itself in me as an anonymous impulse to act
morally, or morality is my personal decision, my ethical “creativity,” my personal contribution to the
ethical universality? In other words, who is the author of this ethical impulse – the particular “I” or
the universal “all”? That complexity concerns the issue of civil protest and its ethical foundations.
Civil society makes claims for justice. However, justice as an ethical regulative of civilsociety is a problem. On the one hand, the idea of justice belongs to the critical resource of civilsociety: public initiatives challenge the current state of things in the name of justice. On the other
hand, the inner sense of justice as equalization supports social stability and harmony. After all,justice is the order of universality, the moral and ethical framework of society and, consequently, thefactor of stabilization. This is the question, whether justice might be both universal value andparticular action.
Contemporary philosophical thought gives positive answer to that question. In the horizon ofrethinking Emmanuel Levinas’s de-ontologized concept of justice, it attempts to present a newunderstanding of justice as both ideal and practical force of civil society. A distinctive feature ofjustice is its non-fixed character. For Simon Critchley, justice is the basis of self-revision of
democracy; it develops democracy as a political form of human coexistence. Jacques Derrida
articulates the importance of non-foundational justice in the formula “the decision of the other whichis accepted by me:” the political decision cannot be deduced from the foreground concept of justice;instead, it arises from the contingent context as the ability to respond to the ethical challenge. In
contemporary thought, justice means both the ideal universality that exists “in the form of absolute or
infinite claims which are symbolically raised against the limits of any institution" (E. Balibar), and“the art of answering the ethical demand of the other” (S. Critchley), which, in turn, can appear as acivil “discourse of action” (P. Ricouer). The viability of civil society is not possible without
particular ethical initiatives. Ethics gets the meaning of incompleteness and openness that correspondto the dynamic nature of civil society.
Larysa Karachevtseva is doctor of philosophy, junior scientific fellow of the Department of
Philosophy of Culture, Ethics, and Aesthetics at H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of NAS of
Ukraine. She teaches Jewish philosophy at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla academy.” As
an internship, she advanced her qualification at the Maria Sklodowska-Curie University (Poland)and Paideia – European Institute for Jewish Studies (Sweden). She is interested in ethics,
phenomenology, philosophy of consciousness, as well as she is inspired by learning modern andancient Semitic languages.

From the Local Universe to the Global Cosmos: Conversations and Conversions of Space in John
Milton’s Epic Poem “Paradise Lost”
by
Peyo Karpuzov“St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
The purpose of the proposed paper is to make up for a poetics of literary space. Although space,cosmos and/or universe are usually treated as a topic of mutual interest between literature andphilosophy in a broader sense, literature finds itself more often than not at the receiving end. This is
the standard critical approach towards the universe in John Milton’s 17-century epic poem Paradise
Lost. For four centuries, critics have been squabbling if Milton employs the conservative Ptolemaic
or the progressive Copernican model of the world. They relate their leanings mainly to theconversation of Adam and Archangel Raphael, enacted in Book 8. This dialogue is a representationof the late Renaissance debates as to the validity of the two astronomical systems.
The present paper proposal offers insights on conversation and conversion, two words
sharing common etymology but differing in meaning, in two directions. First, literature’s
representational power, relevant to the abovementioned astronomical discussions in Milton’s poem,
was defined by Plato and Aristotle, and found its way with insignificant modifications into thetwentieth century as exemplified in Gerard Genette’s Architext. At the same time, Plato and Aristotle
were also constitutive of the 17-century European cosmological outlook. Thus, I offer a conversation
between Plato’s Republic and Timaeus and Aristotle’s Poetics and Physics with the tentative purposeof converting literature’s representational agenda into a generative one, specifically with regard to
spatial considerations and Paradise Lost. Second, I propose two interpretations of Milton’s universe.
The first and standard one is related to the propositional content of the poem: it is the product of theconversations within the poem. The second and more important one is related to the aesthetic valueof the poem: it is the result of an aesthetic conversion of the local universe into a global cosmos.
Peyo Karpuzov is lecturer at the Department of English and American Studies at “St. Cyril and St.
Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. His interests include medieval and earlymodern cosmology, history of science and Renaissance and fantasy literature. He is currently
working on his PhD on the conception(s) of John Milton’s cosmos in Paradise Lost. Email:peyo.karpuzov@gmail.com

Human Person, Health, and Self-creation
byDr. Shivani Khetan (Open International University of Complementary Medicines)
The greatest threats to the modern civilization are the speed and the tempo of life, which haveincreased vastly. The modern inventions, far from giving man more relief, leisure and rest haveresulted in giving more stress and tensions. If this goes unchecked, a day might come when our small
brain will not be able to cope with the maddening rush, and humanity might go extinct like thedinosaurs. But there is a vital difference between us and the extinct species, as humans can exercise
control and save itself from extinction. In modern times the power of the brain should be soincreased as to be able to cope with the ever-growing stress and tensions of everyday life. Humanperson, health and self-creation all three are connected to passion, which is the biggest enemy and is
so deep that it is difficult to root out. The only right way to do this is through the daily practice of
Dhyan or Meditation. Meditation is one of the modalities used in Ayurveda (Science of Life), thecomprehensive, natural health care system that originated in the ancient Vedic times of India, whichmeans to connect oneself to deep inner self. The whole important cog in the whole wheel of creationis the innovator. Realization is beyond expression. Only with the help of meditation can the mind becalmed. The answer is in the egoless mind which is only experienced by making the mind still when
it enters a state where there are no thoughts. Success in any programme of meditation depends uponconcentration and relaxation. In other words, mediation is an applied science and is known andunderstood by doing it.
The key is to start taking action by daily practice fifteen to twenty minutes every morning andevening. Small, tiny little actions which done over a period of time can create new beginnings forhumankind. You can either decide to stop in the rut or to take positive action and make changes toyour life or yourself in order to accomplish contentment. In order to understand what happinessmeans to you, the first step you should take is looking at your emotions, ask yourself questions suchas “if I could be enjoying something in my life, what would it be?” and “what makes me feelcontented in my life right now?” Once you understand what your vision of happiness andcontentment is you can build on what you have now or focus on changing your life to what you
would like it to be. In result to this a better human with healthy mind, body and soul can be createdto face the modern world with a more purposeful life where we have a clear picture of our virtues
and vices in our perspective. This will make the inner being purified and as a consequence human
day to day life can be greatly transformed to create a better and peaceful healthy world to live in.
Originally from India, Dr. Shivani Khetan, is a spiritual healer, tarot reader, school and parent
counsellor, artist, author of book, “Tarot a Healing Tool in Modern Times.” She holds a PhD
degree from Open International University of Complementary Medicines. She specialises in working
with people’s emotions using art therapy, tarot healing and meditation to help individuals inbuilding best communication practice for professional and personal development. She has
participated in various international forums and her work has been awarded.

Critique as Limitattitude: Foucault’s Reading of Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?”
by
Dr. Alicja Kowalska
DAAD & University of Prešov
In my paper I would like to revisit Foucault’s reading of Kant’s Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist
Aufklärung? Foucault takes up the discussion of Kant’s text, claiming that the question posed byKant in 1784 still pervades modern philosophy in the form of the question “What is critique?”.
Therefore, one of the aspects of Kant’s text that Foucault discusses is the way in which
Enlightenment can be understood as critique. Critique constitutes itself always in relation tosomething, and, according to Foucault, this feature of critique as that which cannot be essentiallypinned down to anything, “makes it a function that is subordinated in relation to that which is
positively constituted by philosophy, science, politics, morals, law, literature, and so forth.” In otherwords critique is a tool of questioning the status quo that is positively posited by various fields ofknowledge and expertise that dominate our lives. On this basis Foucault calls critique “an instrument,a means for a future or a truth that it will not know and that it will not be; it is a gaze on a domainthat it wants very much to police and where it is incapable of laying down the law.” Foucault talks
about a philosophical ethos that is rooted in Kant’s text. He describes it as a “limitattitude” and links
it to critique. “Criticism indeed consists of analyzing and reflecting upon limits.” My reading ofFoucault’s notion of critique will explore its fruitfulness for the conditions of the 21 st century as wellas the intervention made by Judith Butler.
Alicja Kowalska received her Ph.D. in 2013 form New York University and is currently a DAADlecturer in Presov, Slovakia. In her book project “Bildung and Rebellion. Youth in Literary andPhilosophical Texts from Johann G. Herder to Witold Gombrowicz” she investigates the revaluationof youth in 18th and 19th century German texts with respect to its implications for notions ofmodernity, theories of literary production, subject formation, and 20th century polish literature. She
has published on Heinrich von Kleist and Stanley Cavell, and is interested in representations ofGermanness in American popular culture with respect to questions of trauma and memory.

Religion, Identity, and Violence
Dr. Jon Mahoney, Professor, Philosophy
Kansas State University
I will discuss three main topics. The first is organized violence in the name of religion. I focus onorganized and coordinated violence by groups whose members share a religious affiliation. Having ataxonomy that distinguishes collective and organized violence in the name of religion from othercases (e.g. an abortion clinic bomber) is important, because the causes of violence in the name ofreligion vary by instance and by context. The second topic is how to frame collective violence in thename of religion. Should we focus on theology, religious convictions, or religious doctrine? Should
we discount religious doctrine as a variable altogether? Or should we characterize religion as about
identity, a source of community allegiances, and group affiliation? I argue that when we adopt thelabel ‘religious violence’ and apply it to organized violence, one of our central focuses should be on
ways that religion is an identity. Thirdly, as a brief illustration of the religious identity approach I
consider the scattered and somewhat organized collective violence by Uighur Muslims in northwest

China, Xinjiang province. This example is helpful because it illustrates hard questions about how toclassify (i.e., as religious, as ethnic, as a response to political domination, etc.) organized violence.
Dr. Jonathan Mahoney is Professor of Philosophy at Kansas State University. He has taught
philosophy in Turkey, Italy, and Kyrgyzstan, and is primarily interested in political philosophy. Hisinterests include international education and travel, and he has been pursuing these interests inCentral Asia for the past several years. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Binghamton
University, NY, in 2000. Email: jmahoney@ksu.edu

Global Thinking: An Implicit Reality in the Reality of Life
byDr. Zbigniew Jan Marczuk
Rowan College, New Jersey
The efficient exchange of information in our days drives our attention to a large number of global
issues. Many of these issues may not directly affect our own lives (for example, the climate change
and the fact that last summer the temperature in Kuwait, Iraq, and Pakistan reached 124 F, making
life in these areas difficult). We cannot simply ignore this news, since we share the same world at thesame time. It posts valid concerns about what we owe to the world and others.
The question is to what degree this kind of global news constructs our perception of the reality; towhat degree the global information modifies our perception of the local life we have. The reports we
receive about extremely drastic facts taking place in the world (for example, acts of terrorism) may
unite people from different parts of the world in support of doing what is right. However, we areoften stimulated to address problems, and formulate views about issues, which are ambiguous to us.
In this way, the contemporary mind becomes habituated to see the world through the lenses of thelimited information, developing and accepting a vague view of the global realty. This reality isobjectively unverifiable, often generated by our emotional response to the provided information.
The life in our hometown, among those we know and love, has much higher degree of reality.
However, in the context of the global perspective, this local and personal reality appears to be
insignificant. Moreover, our obscure perception of the global realm, in some way, excuses andpermits our vague understanding of the local needs and values. Paradoxically, our better sense ofreality, which comes from our local existence, loses its significance and distinctiveness whencontrasted with our highly imaginary participation in the global reality.
Zbigniew Jan Marczuk obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University in
California. He has done research at Cambridge University, UK (2006-2008), and prior to that hehas studied at Munich School of Philosophy Germany, (1998) and the Catholic University of Lublin,
Poland (1984-1988). He is presently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rowan College at
Gloucester County, New Jersey. His main interests include Kantian ethics, philosophy of mind,
Aristotle’s metaphysics, Aquinas and Plato’s views on the rational soul.

The Own and the Foreign in the Global Village
byDr. Mitko Momov,“St. St. Cyril and Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo&
Dr. Mirena Patseva, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
According to Gal Ariely in the situation of globalization two opposite tendencies can be observed in
respect to the feeling of national identity: increase and reduction of the sense of identity (Ariely2012). We will try to trace the dynamics of the notion in psycholinguistic tests provided in several
phases since 1989. The concepts illustrating the findings are Bulgarian, foreigner and motherland.
The test reveals the connotative meaning of the concepts on subconscious level. During the first trial
foreigner evoked intensive positive reactions. Nowadays the attractiveness and the striving forcontact with the foreign culture decreased. The foreigner is not any more representative of the West.
He is just human, can be emigrant, homeless, black. The personal experience changes the view point
and the distance between the own and the foreign.
During the first trial the declarative affiliation to motherland imposed by the totalitarianideology was not reflected in the test results most probably as a reaction against the official
propaganda. On the contrary - motherland was associated with skeptical and even negative reactions.
Our data show moderate consolidation on subconscious level during the last decades. This might beparadoxically on the background of constantly growing social criticism and radical attitude in oursocieties (Bouzov 1, 2013: 20).
It is noteworthy that in both phases of the test the main focus of the reactions is contrary to
the dominant social mood: in 1989 amid formally imposed counterfeiting patriotic pathos, young
people expressed negativity. Now amid strong social critique to the state the emotional reactions are
relieved and even more positive When it seems that the concept of homeland is threatened and when
deficit of values is felt, it appears that the defilement does not penetrate at depth level. According to
Drobnitski the very nature of the value is not in the current state but in the state which “should be”(Drobnitski 1, 1967).
Dr. Mitko Momov is an Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophical Sciences at “St. St.
Cyril and Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo. He has been teaching East Philosophy, Social
Philosophy and Business Ethics. He has specialized in Denmark, India, Russia, Poland, and
Hungary. His fields of interests are anthropology and history of philosophy. His papers are
published in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Republic of Buryatia, and India. He participate ininterdisciplinary projects.
Dr. Mirena Patseva is an Associate Professor in linguistics at Sofia University “St. Kliment
Ohridski.” Among her lecture courses are Cross-cultural psycholinguistics, Understanding as acognitive process, Anthropological linguistics, Cognitive anthropology. She has been teaching
Bulgarian language to foreigners in all levels. She spent six years as a lecturer in Bulgarian
language and Culture at Delhi University, India and at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki,
Greece.

From East to West and Back Again: Transcultural Influence amongst Literary Classics
byDr. Frank Passani (University of Barcelona)
Since the dawn of man, storytelling has been a mechanism of cultural and intellectual transmission
from one generation to the next. At the very beginning, storytelling was solely an oral practice toentertain, to pass time and to hand down tribal traditions meant to enhance group identity. Later, withthe revolutionary creation of writing systems and thus, with the development of the art of translation,
it became the main means to spread knowledge between very distant geographical areas.
Cultures, peoples and civilisations have influenced each other through the ages not only via
cultual and religious practices but also via literature, be it in the shape of poetry, plays or fiction. In
this presentation, we shall investigate these influences by focusing on two literary fluxes: on the one
hand, the one linking the Islamic Golden Age with the Modern European narrative via the classicalcompendium of tales under the well-known name of The Arabian Nights; on the other hand, the one
linking the Modern European narrative of Nikolai Gogol and Jane Austen with the Modern Far East
narrative of the Chinese and Japanese authors Lu Xun and Natsume Soseki, respectively, who wereheavily influenced by literary techniques imported from the West, namely, skaz, free indirect styleand interior monologue.
Thus, we shall analyse the current that flows from East to West in terms of objective
narrative structure and subjective perception of exoticism, whereas the opposite current that flows
from West to East will be seen through the prism of rhetorical devices and literary techniques usedby the abovementioned Asian writers to push their national literature into the 20 th century.
Dr. Frank Passani (Barcelona, Spain, 1975) obtained his Doctorate of Philosophy from the
University of Barcelona with a dissertation about the Aristotelian and Platonic influences on the
British author C. S. Lewis. His main field of interest is the relationship between Philosophy and
Literature. He became a Modern Greek translator while working in Greece as a Spanish language
teacher. Currently he lives in Singapore, where he teaches Spanish at the private academy Las Lilas
School. On his YouTube channel Read This or Die! you can follow his literary reviews with English
and Spanish subtitles.

The Role of Perceptions in the Creation of the Self in the Works of William Blake
byGergana Plamenova“St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko TarnovoThis abstract-proposal is related to the creation of the self in the context of the work of British
Romantic poet William Blake. I will begin my presentation by touching upon Blake’s book The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell with respect to the importance of a well-balanced relationship between
an individual and the world. Then I will move on to some of the poet’s short poems, among which“Memory, Hither Come” and “Mad Song”. Here, Blake’s speaker is an artist who cannot draw
inspiration from the world around. This is due to the failure to interpret this world properly throughperceptions. Without inspiration the artist cannot carry out their artistic functions, which I see as adisintegration of the self or at least as a disruption of the self-creative process. Here, self-creation isan ongoing process related to the constant interaction of the self with the environment. This
environment supplies the resource for artistic creation, viz. perceptual input to transform into

inspiration. I will employ an enactivist perspective to discuss the problematic relationship between
individual and environment that might disrupt the process of self-creation. This disruption is basedon the failure of Blake’s speaker to localize external elements in the form of perceptions. Suchdysfunctional relationship proves detrimental to the manner in which the individual views
themselves: an artist who cannot produce any art. Therefore, the environment provides essential
input not only for the creation of art but also, and more importantly, for the creation of the self.
Gergana Plamenova is in her second year as a PhD student at the “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”
University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. She specialises in English literature of the Romanticism. She
is a part-time lecturer at the Department of English and American Studies. Her main academic
interests include poetry, philosophy, and Romantic art.
Email: g.plamenova19@gmail.com

A Realistic Approach on the Relation between Global Organizations and National States
by
Dr. Alexandra Porumbescu,
University of Craiova
Since the end of the Second World War, numerous international organizations have been founded,aiming at improving worldwide cooperation and establishing simplified means of communication forstates. In terms of international politics, many scholars observed that this sudden rise in the numberof international intergovernmental organizations worked as a catalyst for the globalization process,aiding national governments to promote and settle political, cultural or economic agreements. At thesame time, the establishment of a global rule of international law previously approved by themember states has proved successful at maintaining peace among the democratic systems, butseveral disputes have emerged, regarding the role of national sovereignty in the building andstrengthening of international organizations. The aim of this paper is to identify the elements on
which the relationship between national states and international intergovernmental organizations isbuilt, and observe which of the two types of international actors controls them more.
Alexandra Porumbescu teaches International Relations and European Studies at the University of
Craiova. Doctor in sociology at the same institution, she published several studies in the area ofinternational migration, the major subject of her PhD studies. Other papers approached topics suchas globalization and its impact on the European Union, the social effects of globalization orEuropean policies. Tel.: 0040740364309, E-mail: alexandraporumbescu@yahoo.com

Between the Local and the Global: The Meaning of the Banlieue, Nation, Religion andTransnational Solidarity in French Muslim Rap
byDr. Alexandra Preitschopf,
OeAD & Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”

In contemporary youth and popular culture, politically conscious rap plays an important role as an
artistic expression of social protest as well as an identity marker and a means of differentiation. In
this context, the case of France is especially interesting, considering that French rap artists often arechildren or grandchildren of immigrants mostly from former French colonies and/or from Muslim
background. Many of them have grown up in poor banlieues (suburbs) of large French cities and use
their upbringing in this difficult environment as a source of inspiration. In their music, they often
denounce French policy and social problems such as racism, discrimination or Islamophobia.
Nevertheless, most of them cannot be considered as anti-French. Rather, several musiciansdeliberately declare themselves as French citizens, refer to the principles of the French Republic andput emphasis on “republican values” such as liberty, equality and fraternity. At the same time, manyof them present themselves as proud “banlieusards”, and put emphasis on their origins, their religion
and identity as Muslims. Often, this goes along with declarations of solidarity with Muslims in otherparts of the world, as for instance in Chechnya, Myanmar or especially in Palestine. In doing so,these rappers also offer to their listeners a clear (rather black and white) worldview they can easily
identify with.
In this sense, local, national and historical belongings (the Banlieue, France, the Maghreb,…)
and a global Muslim identity (the Umma) interact and converge. However, this phenomenon cannot
not only be found in rap music, it rather reflects general contemporary socio-political processes inFrance, and Western Europe. On this basis, the proposed paper aims to take a closer look at selected
lyrics of French Muslim rappers and analyse them in the wider context of ongoing debates on
integration, Islam, laicism and multiculturalism.
Dr. Alexandra Preitschopf (born in 1987) studied French and History at the University of Salzburg(Austria). She finished her PhD in contemporary history in 2016 with thesis “Solidarity with
Palestine, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism among Muslims in contemporary France.” After working
as a research assistant and lecturer at the universities of Salzburg and Linz, she now teaches onbehalf of the OeAD (the Austrian academic exchange programme) at “Sofia University “St. Kliment
Ohridski.” Her research interests include: Modern Jewish history, anti-Semitism, culture of
remembrance.

Global Conversation on the Spot: What Lao-tse, Heidegger, and Rorty Have in Common
byDr. Rossen Roussev“St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
I explore the supposition that any form of philosophical and cultural difference involves an interplayof both global and local significations, or a peculiar kind of global conversation. I maintain that therecurrence of the global into the local and vice versa is not accidental, as it makes a much sought
difference of significance both in the life of the single individual and in a variety of cultural andpractical senses. I explore specifically its philosophical sense within the thought of Lao-tse, Martin
Heidegger, and Richard Rorty.
In Lao-tse’s Tao Te Ching, this sense is tied to the concepts of the Tao and Te. Tao is the
eternal and inexplicable source of all existence; Te is its localized actualization in the life of each andevery person. Tao ensures the universal harmony of the world; Te is the principle of one’s individual
relation to that harmony. Both they constitute the inevitable presence of global and local into eachother.
Heidegger transformed the philosophical thinking of the last century by localizing its
knowing subject in its existence. The subject, thus reinvented as Dasein (being-there) and as beingin-the-world (in-der-Welt-sein), could disclose the world (Welt) only via its familiar surrounding
world (Umwelt) to gradually become aware of its most general (indeed global) epistemic concern of
the Being (Sein) of beings (Seinde). Yet, Heidegger would claim that the question of Being had
guided Dasein’s epistemic concerns, even when Dasein was still unaware of it.
For his part, Rorty sees the task of philosophy and the rest of culture as set by history on theutilitarian goal of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Whereas thistask thus inevitably means starting up locally to reach out globally, Rorty’s pragmatic approach to it
utilizes not just the trustworthy resource of the global cultural tradition, but also the involvement of
the individuals in their locality as problem-solvers (including as scientists, artists, engineers, andothers).
Dr. Rossen Roussev is an Associate Professor in Contemporary Philosophy at “St. Cyril and St.
Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo. He has been a Visiting Associate Professor at the Kazakh
British technical University, Assistant Professor at Kyungpook National University, Daegu, S.
Korea, and at St. Johns University in New York. He also taught at the University of Aktobe,
Kazakhstan, the City University of New York, and Mercy College in New York. He obtained his
doctorate in philosophy from The New School for Social Research in New York (2005) under theadvisement of Prof. Agnes Heller. His interests include phenomenology, philosophy of language,
critical theory, and philosophy of culture. Among his publications is the monograph Philosophy andthe Structure of Modernity: Fragments of Actualization (2005). He has also made a number ofinternational presentations at conferences and by invitation in EU, US, Canada, China, Australia,
South Korea, Singapore, Kuwait, and Kazakhstan.

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Phronesis as a Guide Public Engaged ScholarshipbyDr. Marie Sandy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
All theory is public, according to Hans-Georg Gadamer. It gains power through being shared andbelongs to all people, enabling people to discover their identity in a common reality (Gadamer,
1976/1993; 1983/1998). In the theoretical (techne) and practical sciences (phronesis), theory is
beautiful in the sense that it possesses an excess of what is necessary to function. The primaryconcern of theory is “seeing what is” (Gadamer, 1983/1998, p.31), a task that demands overcoming
illusions and working through prejudice. While not specifically directed toward a particular outcome,theory possesses practical or political significance.
Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is ‘the music that accompanies my dance’ as an
academic partner and qualitative researcher working for social justice in public health and education
settings. The concept of friendship, an orientation to the good, and the understanding that there areno experts in phronesis are important accompaniments for reciprocal, respectful community-based
scholarship. Gadamer’s treatment of beauty is usually considered separate from his work on practical
wisdom or phronesis. This paper will consider the possibilities of understanding beauty as part of the
ontology of being, and that the radiance of beauty on the way to the good is what can be understoodand shared among people (1960/1975). These grace notes have the potential to transform themeaning of public engaged scholarship. The paper will consider Gadamer’s “relevance of thebeautiful” in collective and individual forms of phronesis, and discuss implications for Gadamer’s
aesthetic consciousness for public engaged scholarship.
References- Gadamer, H-G. (1998). Praise of theory. C. Dawson (Trans). In H-G Gadamer, Praise of
Theory (pp. 16-36). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Original work published1983)Gadamer, H-G. (1993). Hermeneutics as a theoretical and practical task. F. Lawrence(Trans). In H-G.
- Gadamer, Reason in the age of science (pp. 113-138). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original
work published 1976)- Gadamer, H-G. (1975). Truth and method (Sheed and Ward, Ltd. Trans.). (2 nd Ed.). New
York: The Crossroad Publishing Company. (Original work published 1960)
Dr. Marie Sandy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Community
Studies and Affiliate Faculty member in the Zilber School of Public Health at the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work focuses on the "scholarship of engagement," including community
building and organizing as pathways to social justice, ways to integrate the humanist tradition ofpractical philosophy with processes for public discourse, and community-based qualitative inquiry.
She teaches courses on philosophy of education, community organizing, and qualitative researchmethods.

Security policies and the fight against terrorism in the globalization era
byDr. Ionut Serban
University of Craiova
In recent years, the international community has faced a terrible challenge, terrorism, which has had
and continues to have important consequences in Western societies. In the context of current
transformations in the global sphere, the way in which authority, legitimacy and the right to use
coercion has been substantially changed.
Globalization as a phenomenon is not a new thing. It has existed from historical times, fromthe first attempts of human communities to cross the borders known through trade, geographicaldiscoveries or territorial conquests. Attempts to regulate these inter-connectivity are of recent date.
As a phenomenon, the Government was developed later than globalization.
Although globalization has shaped reality for centuries, the rules governing this reality
continue to be underdeveloped. If this has not had important repercussions in the past, in the current
environment of a very inter-connected world, the lack of global rules to organize these interconnections can have serious consequences, such as the 2008 financial crisis. The ordering of sectors
such as nuclear proliferation, the access of the population to drinking water resources or thedevelopment of renewable energy is turning global governance into a key concept that needs to beclarified.
In today's globalization, it is necessary to take a stand against the new international terrorism
through the instruments it has at its disposal (juridical, economic, political and social). All important
decisions taken at the global level must be subject to the principle of the laws and norms ofinternational law.
Key words: globalization, terrorism, international law, global risk, security.
Dr. Ionuț Șerban specializes in International Relations and Diplomacy, EU security and strategy
studies, EU institutions and policies, good governance. He has been active in conferences and grant
projects on international relations, diplomacy, EU governance and politics, EU economic policies
and development, and in a Jean Monnet module among others. He was head of the Social Sciences
Department and founded the Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Craiova. He is Dean of theFaculty of Social Sciences – University of Craiova, and an associate professor in several
Universities, including University of Bucharest and University of Chieti-Pescara (Italy), as well as avisiting professor at University of Molise (Italy).

Heidegger’s Renewed Relevance in the Aftermath of the End of History
byBorislav Sotirov
New Bulgarian University
When, at the start of the 1990s, Francis Fukuyama announced that history had come to its
conclusion, he was signalling the triumph of a new era of global liberalism which, despite the various
challenges levelled at it over the past decades, remains the key frame for interpreting world affairs
today. In the context of this new liberal age, Heidegger’s philosophy gains additional significance asa discourse informed by a vision of liberalism’s inherent risks. For Heidegger, these risks—such as
the disappearance of care and the forgetting of Being—are not the making of the liberal doctrine but,instead, are given leeway to grow under its reign (hence Heidegger’s problematic and deeplyparadoxical attempt to side with Nazism). The fact that Heidegger’s scepticism towards liberalism isbalanced by his conviction that each Dasein has to assume its freedom in order to attain authenticity
makes him a figure uniquely capable of contributing to the discourse of liberalism in a time that has
seen that discourse turned into an empty polemic between liberals and anti-liberals whose exchanges
add nothing to what had already been said by the mid-20th century. In my presentation, I will
examine how the ordinary subject living in conditions of liberal capitalism today is increasingly
prevented from “caring” as Heidegger defined it. In the context of this topic, the local’s
disappearance in favour of the global will be linked to the increasingly limited space left toindividuals to find, experience and understand things for themselves (rather than get them preinterpreted and ready for consumption). By throwing light on the manner in which liberalism, whenleft unchecked, inevitably compromises itself, Heidegger, whom history remembers for his antiliberalism, may prove the only one able to guide liberalism away from catastrophe.
Borislav Sotirov is Bachelor from New Bulgarian University, currently writing graduate thesis
Interested in exploring the possible proximity of Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Lacan,
and Jacques Derrida with a thematic focus on questions of meaning, world, and history. A fan of

Samuel Beckett, Marcel Proust, William Burroughs, and the cinema of David Lynch, Alain Resnais,
Stanley Kubrick, and Werner Herzog.

The Face in the Philosophy of Levinas: Phenomenon or Enigma
byIvelina Stoeva“St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
Emmanuel Levinas was a French philosopher. His work is related to existentialism, ethics, ontology
and phenomenology. Is the Face phenomenon or enigma - this is the topic I am interested in. Whatmeans the term ‘’Face’’ and why does the language from a tool of communication between people
becomes a tool of mass disinformation and delusion?
First, I should look at the meaning of the term Face in Levinas`s view. It`s not that simply as it
seems to be because it`s culturally overdetermined. There is something really special and bright in
the Face but cultural, symbolic and social roles cover it. In nowadays is very important to rethink the
traditional meanings of the phenomenons which construct our society and to take a look at influenceof the most common phenomenon from all : Speech of Hate. Levinas does exactly this - he gives usvery good inception by his concept of the Face.
What`s more important – accepting the orders as they are in their settled form or to change thewhole view about them, to break them? Levinas`s concept about the orders is helping us to rethinktheir basis, to rupture them.
Who we are and where is our place in the society? What`s the difference between me and the
Others? The Otherness is not only in the Face of the Others, it`s in our own Face too. As a humanbeings, whom are not living isolated, we should understand that it is a bilateral process. Only if wefind a way to stop hating each other about our Otherness we can reach a new level of comprehensionof our existence as human beings.
Ivelina Stoeva is a PhD student of Philosophy of Law and Politics at “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”
University of Veliko Tarnovo, where she also obtained her master’s in Social Philosophy andbachelor’s in Philosophy prior to that. The focus of her work has been on the conceptual metaphorsand their relevance to social units. She is also interested in ethics, aesthetics, art (especially poetry),and politics, social and cultural issues in modern society.

Writing “like a drawing compass”: cross-cultural negotiations in Elif Shafak’s novel Honour
byDr. Petya Tsoneva“St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Tarnovo
Shafak’s novel questions certain presumptions about the Middle East which, significantly, theregion has advanced itself. She not only writes about its geographically closest parts neighbouring
Europe; she directs her narrative perspective from there and her writing which she compares to the
expanding circle of a drawing compass configures the multidirectional relationship between
vernacular and world cultures. This movement, at first approached as a symptom of self-Orientalism,has much wider implications. Shaping a response to Kemalist “westernisation”, it seeks to restore aninternally split Turkey to itself, mediating between its excessive seclusion and culturally violent
ways of self-assertion, on the one hand, and the willingness to discard its past and traditions
altogether in an attempt at emulation of western secularism, on the other.
Shafak’s quest for a productive pathway out of such confinements yields the perspective ofsecular Sufism, a more philosophical and ethical attitude than a religious conviction. This paradigm
shifts the modes of self-location from external observation of traditional norms that leads to violent
practices of cultural control such as honour killings, to inward understanding and appreciation ofdifference. In a TED talk, she refers the two perspectives to the two conflicting visions of God shecame to know from her two grandmothers – Jalal, punishing and masculine; and Jamal – maternallyall-embracing. In a wider cultural context, Jamal and Jalal represent two figurations of Turkey (and,by inference, the Middle East) within national boundaries and beyond them. Jalal apparently refers toa violent, homogeneous version of nationalism and cultural confinement while Jamal coincides withthe ethos of multiplicity and conviviality.
Dr. Petya Tsoneva is senior lecturer at the Department of English and American studies, Universityof Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Her interests and publications span over postcolonial studies, English
and French literature, literary responses to migration and borderline experience. She is holder of
one of the ESSE bursaries for postdoctoral research in 2015. Her recently completed monograph
Negotiating Borderlines in Four Contemporary Migrant Writers from the Middle East has been
accepted for publication by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.