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Funded by the Research Council of Lithuanian (LMT), the project 'Collective Agency: Towards a Three-Part Philosophical Theory' will be led by Dr Vilius Bartninkas, a researcher at the Faculty of Philology at Vilnius University. The project research group, which includes Dr Simas Čelutka and Dr Aistė Noreikaitė, will explore contemporary philosophical discussions on social ontology and epistemology.

Based on the perspective of ontological individualism, it is commonly believed that real actors are individuals, not collectives. According to this perspective, social phenomena and collective actions are determined by the actions and mental states of individuals. However, this position has been criticised for its undesirable ethical consequences and its inconsistency with practical reality and social facts. In response to these criticisms, scientific discussions over the past few decades have significantly moved towards theorising collective agency — that is to say, towards the position that at least some forms of collective action cannot be reduced to the actions of individuals. The project group will conduct research on this topic, for the first time bringing together thinkers from both the classical and continental traditions (e.g. Plato, Michael Oakeshott and Robert Spaemann). The project will address questions on the conditions, which create group agents, activity, and understanding, by presenting a new theory that sets out an overarching ontological and epistemological justification of collective agency.

The project began in December 2025 and will run until 2028. Its results will be published in scientific articles and a monograph, and national seminars and an international conference will be held.

Credit:  Veslava Sidaravičienė 

Credit: Vilnius University / Ugnius Bagdonavičius

My name is Orlagh Woods, and I am delighted to formally introduce my EU-funded postdoctoral project, Repro-fiction, which I began at the Faculty of Philology in September 2025.

I’m from Ireland, and my interest in reproductive narratives began during the 2018 campaign to legalise abortion. At that time, I noticed how many people turned to literature—novels, essays, poetry—to express what they could not say publicly or convey through policy language. In a moment of heightened polarisation around reproductive issues, literature offers a vital space for women to articulate complex experiences in their own terms.

Across borders, writers are reclaiming the reproductive body as a site of power, vulnerability, and protest. Repro-fiction emerges in response to significant cultural and political shifts surrounding reproductive rights and healthcare, and its narratives resonate globally. By blending personal experience with broader social realities, these works challenge traditional representations of reproduction and open up new ways of thinking about gender, embodiment, and agency. In doing so, repro-fiction participates in global conversations about reproductive justice and the politics of care.

My project brings together literary analysis with perspectives from medical humanities, cultural studies, and feminist theory to understand how reproductive bodies are represented and why these representations matter. The interdisciplinary nature of this research also shapes the public-facing events I’m currently planning.

In June 2026, I will organise a workshop on narrative medicine, exploring how storytelling practices intersect with healthcare. The following year, in May 2027, I will organise a Global Symposium on Repro-fiction, bringing together scholars, writers, activists, and artists to discuss the important role of narrative in reproductive justice movements worldwide.

I look forward to developing this project within the Faculty of Philology under the supervision of Prof. Eglė Kačkutė, and to building international collaborations that reflect the interdisciplinary and intercultural scope of Repro-fiction.

To stay connected with the project as it develops, we invite you to follow us on on Instagram, where we will be sharing research updates, reading recommendations, and information about workshops and the 2027 symposium.

Thank you!

Orlagh Woods

Congratulations! In her teaching practice, this lecturer applies the principles of active and Challenge Based Learning. During her seminars, students analyse theoretical sources and solve creative and analytical tasks that require them to apply theory to real-life contexts. For instance, when studying "Linguistics Gone Pop", students draw on academic works concerning the links between language, identity, power and ideology, and use these insights to critically analyse familiar media content, such as films, video games and song lyrics. This may explain why the seminar is so popular.

Students say that this lecturer encourages them to discuss and share insights, think creatively and critically analyse language phenomena. They say that she is able to explain even the most complex topics in such a way that even the least favourite subject can become unmissable. Students appreciate that the lecturer 'cares about every student', 'strives for the well-being of her students', and 'maintains a fun and friendly atmosphere in her seminars'. They also value the fact that she recognises their personal achievements and considers their opinions.

Congratulations to Jekaterina Šukalova on being named the best lecturer at the Faculty of Philology in 2025!

Credit: Vilnius University / Ugnius Bagdonavičius

On 5 December, we celebrated the 70th birthday of our colleague, Associate Professor Dr Pavel Lavrinec. During the celebrations, a collection of articles published for this occasion entitled 'Baltic and Slavic Studies: Language, Culture, Literature' (edited by Prof. Dr Galima Michailova), was presented.

Credit: Vilnius University / Ugnius Bagdonavičius

On behalf of the Faculty of Philology community at Vilnius University, we would like to sincerely congratulate Associate Professor Pavel Lavrinec on his 70th birthday. We would also like to express our gratitude for his many years of dedicated work, his contributions to science, and his comprehensive participation in the activities of the Faculty of Philology community. Through these contributions, he has helped to promote the prosperity of our university.

During your three-decade-long scientific career, you have conducted numerous significant studies, published over a hundred scientific articles and two seminal monographs, and established yourself as one of the foremost researchers of the culture of Vilnius and the Baltic region. Your work has significantly broadened our understanding of multilingual and multicultural Vilnius.

We also appreciate your principled civic stance and your courage in defending the values of democracy, human rights and cultural dialogue. Your work in the field of ethnic communities and social integration, recognised with state awards, not only testifies to your high professional qualifications, but also to your civic maturity.

On this honourable anniversary, we wish you good health, creative energy, new ideas and meaningful work.

Credit: Vilnius University / Ugnius Bagdonavičius

Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to the seminar “Corpus Linguistics Meets Data Science” by Professor Łukasz Grabowski (University of Opole), which will take place on December 9 at 3 pm. in Room 92.  

Abstract: Nowadays, in many empirical language studies researchers make ample use of large volumes of linguistic data, which often requires application of statistical methods, data visualization techniques, etc. This makes such language studies, especially the ones conducted by corpus linguists, closer to data science, which has recently become, in a sense, a separate discipline devoted to data analysis. In this presentation targeted at, but not limited to, MA students, I will discuss the overlap between corpus linguistics and data science using two case studies focusing on the use of apologies by British men and women, and on the factors that impact literary translators’ decisions when dealing with recurrent reporting verbs signalling direct speech in the English-to-Lithuanian language pair. The second case study is a fragment of an ongoing research project titled “Stance and voice and their relation to repetition in literary translation: a multifactorial study in English-Polish and English-Lithuanian perspectives” conducted together with colleagues from Vilnius University and funded by the Polish Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). Apart from presenting the latest partial findings, I will also make an attempt at identifying the skills that may help aspiring corpus linguists to flourish in the research field in the 2020s.

Łukasz Grabowski is Professor of Linguistics at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Opole, Poland. His main research interests include corpus linguistics, formulaic language, translation studies and computer-assisted methods of text analysis. He is currently interested in the application of multifactorial statistics in explanatory research on translation. In 2013, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Research on English (CARE) at the University of Birmingham (UK). He also worked at the University of Ostrava (Czechia) and, on a number of corpus projects, at the University of Łódź (Poland) and Aston University (UK). Łukasz is an editorial board member of English for Specific Purposes and Applied Corpus Linguistics. In the fall semester 2025/2026, he is a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University, funded by the Polish Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) under the agreement no BPN/BEK/2024/1/00078. 

Credit: Vilnius University / Ugnius Bagdonavičius

Dear all,

My name is Silvia Peterssen, and I began my EU-funded postdoctoral research project DARE at the Faculty of Philology this past October. It is a pleasure to connect with you. 

I would like to warmly invite you to the first seminar of the DARE series, where I will introduce and contextualise the project. The seminar will take place in person at K. Donelaičio auditorija and online via MS Teams on 11 December, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. After the talk, everyone is invited to continue the discussion with a cup of hot tea or coffee and some snacks. 

Please find the key information below:

Analysing abortion and polarisation in news media discourse: Contextualisation of project DARE

This seminar will introduce and contextualise the EU-funded postdoctoral project DARE, discussing its main theoretical framework. As the opening event of the DARE seminar series, the talk will first outline the objectives and timeline of the project. After that, since DARE aims to critically analyse how polarisation surrounding abortion has been represented in European news discourse between 2020 and 2025, an overview of abortion access in Europe during the outbreak and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic will be presented. This will be followed by a summary of the key concepts and literature on abortion and polarisation in political and media discourse. Finally, these theoretical tools will be integrated into the framework of Feminist Socio-Cognitive Critical Discourse Studies.

MS Teams link: Analysing abortion and polarisation in news media discourse: Contextualisation of project DARE  | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams 

You canalso follow project DARE updates on our website and Instagram.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to seeing you on 11 December!

Best regards,

Silvia

Credit: Vilnius University / Ugnius Bagdonavičius

On October 1st, the Faculty of Philology began implementing a two-year postdoctoral research project entitled 'Abortion in European Mainstream News Media: A Feminist Critical Socio-Cognitive Discourse Study (DARE)'. We are delighted to announce the launch of the project website: https://www.dare.flf.vu.lt/

This website presents the EU-funded project DARE (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101244447), which explores how abortion is represented in European mainstream news media.

• The site aims to share the project key information, including its objectives, research areas, work packages and findings with a broader audience.
• It also introduces the project team, highlights upcoming and past communication events such as conferences, seminars and workshops, and provides contact details for collaboration and inquiries.
• The website is designed especially for students, researchers and professionals interested in media, discourse, identity and polarisation and social issues in Europe.

Dr Silvia Peterssen Fernández, from Spain, will be implementing the project under the supervision of Associate Professor Dr Liudmila Arcimavičienė. Dr Peterssen invites everyone to explore the project's goals, research, team and upcoming events.