Centre of Oriental Studies

Sukurta: 17 September 2013

5 Universiteto, LT-01513 Vilnius
Tel./fax 268 7256
E-mail

www.oc.vu.lt

DirectorAssoc. Prof. Dr. Valdas Jaskūnas

STAFF

Professor: Dr A. Beinorius.
Associate professors: Dr. V. Čiubrinskas, Dr. V. Jaskūnas, Dr. Poškaitė, Dr. D. Švambarytė.
Lecturers: Fabio Balafatti, Dr. G. Degėsys, V. Devėnaitė, K. Dolinina, J. Ignotienė, O. Jankauskaitė, J. J. Kazim, Dr. V. Korobov, M. Larbi, A. Litvinas, Dr. V.Silius, N. Statkienė, Dr. D. Valančiūnas, V. Vidūnas. 

RESEARCH AREAS

Transnational and Global Asia
Systems of Knowledge in Asia 

MAIN CONFERENCES ORGANIZED IN 2015 

Orientalism

Colonial thinking and the former soviet periphery: exploring bias and stereotype representations of Eastern and Central Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (conference convenor Fabio Balafatti)

RESEARCH PROJECTS CARRIED OUT IN 2015

National Research Projects

Research Council of Lithuania. Cross-Cultural Normative Psychology: Mapping the Space of Evaluative Concepts in Everyday Lithuanian, English and Chinese. Dr. V. Silius, Dr. R. Berniūnas, V. Dranseika. 2015–2016.

The aim of this project is to gather empirical data that would enable to map the normative space of evaluative concepts in everyday Lithuanian, Chinese and English. Western philosophical tradition emphasizes the autonomous character of the moral sphere. Moral sensibilities are believed to be distinct and qualitatively different from the aesthetic, etiquette or legal judgments, thus requiring a specific normative vocabulary. Chinese intellectual tradition does not emphasize differences of various normative realms of human experience. However, there is very little empirical evidence suggesting that the Chinese make distinction between moral and nonmoral normative domains in everyday evaluative judgments. There seems to be some evidence suggesting the opposite. Furthermore, current moral psychological literature in the West has little to say about people’s explicit normative judgments across different domains. Our strong (universality) hypothesis is that folk normative concepts do not imply strict distinctions between the domains of ethics, aesthetics and etiquette across three different cultures (Lithuanian, Chinese, English). Our weak (cultural) hypothesis is that there will be a significant overlap of different kind of normative concepts among Chinese participants, while US participants will tend to differentiate these different normative domains, with Lithuanians being somewhere in between. 

Main publications:

Beinorius, A. 2015. Žydų (savi)reprezentacija ir recepcija kolonijinėje Indijoje. Logos 83, p.  64–77.

Beinorius, A. On the intercourse between Indian and the Arabic/Persian astrologies. 2015. In SEAC 2011: Stars and Stones: Voyages in Archaeoastronomy and Cultural Astronomy: Proceedings of the SEAC 2011 conference. BAR International Series 2720, Oxford: Archaeopress, p. 130–136.

Poškaitė, L. 2015. Daoism for the contemporary society: the panacea for the consumerism? Journal of Religious Philosophy, vol. 74, p. 119–126.

OTHER SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES

Prof. Dr. A. Beinorius –

  • editor-in-chief of the journal Acta Orientalia Vilnensia;
  • editorial board member of the journal Kultūrologija: komparatyvistinės studijos (Comparative Studies of Culture);

Assoc. Prof. Dr. V. Jaskūnas –

  • editorial board secretary of the journal Acta Orientalia Vilnensia;
  • editorial board member of the journal Kultūrologija: komparatyvistinės studijos (Comparative Studies of Culture);
  • member of the Board of Baltic Alliance for Asian Studies (BAAS);
  • senior research fellow at the Research Institute of Lithuanian Culture, Vilnius.

Dr. V. Korobov –

  • editorial board member of the journal Acta Orientalia Vilnensia.

Assoc. Prof. L. Poškaitė –

  • editorial board member of the journal Acta Orientalia Vilnensia;
  • editorial board member of the journal Kultūrologija: komparatyvistinės studijos (Comparative Studies of Culture);
  • senior research fellow at the Research Institute of Lithuanian Culture, Vilnius.

Assoc. Prof. D. Švambarytė –

  • of the journal Acta Orientalia Vilnensia.