Humanities and academic cultures: towards dialogue
ENHumanities in post-Soviet Lithuania underwent significant changes during the last decade, however they are still burdened by the legacy of the past. Though discourse strategies have shifted and the areas of academic interests have largely expanded, there is an obvious lack of structural reforms and an urgent need for interdisciplinary approaches and dialogues between diverse branches of humanist studies. It is argued that professionalization, departmentalization, rigidity of disciplinary boundaries leading to "ghetoization" have disastrous effect on humanities and that mental attitudes shaped by modernity and its ideologies are to be challenged by making use of new strategies suggested by social scientists. Expansion of public space is one of the most urgent tasks that humanities have to address in order to perform their role in society. The scientistic mentality that still shapes the politics of science and ignores the essence and nature of humanities is to be contested. Creating conditions for dialogues between disciplines as well as for exchange between cultures is a strategy that humanities can and should adopt.
