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The majority of the academic literature on non-motherhood is dominated by a clear distinction between voluntary and involuntary childlessness. Recently, the prestigious Palgrave Macmillan publishing house has published a collection of articles entitled 'Negotiating Non-Motherhood: Representations, Perceptions, and Experiences', which seeks to break down this distinction and to look at what the experiences of childlessness have in common and to see childlessness as a complex sociocultural phenomenon. The collection contains articles by researchers from different disciplines within the international Mothernet project, who examine childlessness in different cultural and national contexts. The volume is edited by Jenny Björklund (Uppsala University, Sweden), Dovilė Kuzminskaitė (Vilnius University, Lithuania) and Julie Rodgers (Meinut University, Ireland),

The Mothernet project is launched in 2020 with funding from EU Horizon 2020 TWINNING. The project brought together the Thinking Motherhood group at Vilnius University, Mother Anyway at Uppsala University and Motherhood at the University of Meignut. The MotherNet project was coordinated by Prof. Dr. Eglė Kačkutė-Hagan, a researcher at the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University, who is also the leader of the group Thinking Motherhood. One of the authors of the publication Negotiating Non-motherhood: Representations, Perceptions and Experiences is Dovilė Kuzminskaitė, PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute of Literature, Culture and Translation Studies, Faculty of Philology, and belongs to the VU group  Thinking Motherhood.

For more information, see the link below:

Please find the List of Open Electives for the 2024/2025 Spring semester here. These subjects can be chosen by MA students with the individual study plan instead of the electives suggested in your study programme.

3rd year BA students who wish to create an individual study plan can choose subjects from the list of subjects offered by the Faculty of Philology in the Individual Studies list.

More information can be found here>

Photo by Ugnius Bagdonavičius / Vilnius University

Dr. Vilius Bartninkas, an Associate Professor at Vilnius University’s Faculty of Philology, has been honored with the prestigious 2025 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise for his monograph titled "Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy."

This recognition comes from an international jury, marking a significant achievement in the field of theology.

"I can hardly express my excitement. This is my first international award, and it’s in theology! It's remarkable for the jury from the University of Heidelberg, which typically recognizes biblical and contemporary theologians, to choose a winner from the realm of pagan theology. I am incredibly grateful to my supervisors, Gábor Betegh and Vytautas Ališauskas, for their invaluable support," Dr. Bartninkas shared on Facebook.

In 2023, Dr. Bartninkas published a 300-page monograph with Cambridge University Press.

"This book reflects my childhood dreams surrounding Greek myths and gods, and it delves into the broader dream world we all share — exploring the universe and our desire to learn more about celestial bodies like Mercury and Venus. These two realms came into sharp focus in Plato's thought when he recognized celestial bodies as gods. For example, Mercury is simply the Greek translation of Hermes, and it was through the works of Plato and his disciples that these celestial bodies began to be referred to by their Greek names as gods. This brings up the question: how this transition affected other traditional gods, such as Athena? The answers can be found in my book," Dr. Bartninkas explained his work in 2023.

The Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise annually honors 10 young scholars from around the world for outstanding dissertations or first post-doctoral works within the thematic complex of "God and Spirituality." This selection process involves 20 reviewers from 15 countries, and the laureates are celebrated at a festive ceremony held at Heidelberg University in Germany.

This online module is a great opportunity not only to learn basic Lithuanian, but also to get acquainted with various theoretical aspects about languages and cultures.

The best part is…these theoretical lectures are open to all members of the Arqus alliance! It means, that even if you are not part of this module, you can register and listen to it.

Participants of the module already listened to 3 engaging lectures:

Language acquisition through sensory engagement" by assoc. prof. Giedrė Balčytytė (October 25, 12:00–13:30 CET)

Dr. Giedrė Balčytytė is an associate professor at the Department of English Philology, as well as the Head of the Department at The Institute of English, Romance, and Classical Studies, Vilnius University (VU), Lithuania. She is an active member of the academic community, serving on the committee boards of both the BA English Philology and MA English Studies programmes, and overseeing The Pedagogical Internship for English Philology at VU. Dr. Balčytytė is also a long-standing member of the International Phonetic Association (IPA, UK) and LEUTE/ESSE (The Association of English Language Teachers of Lithuanian Universities/ The European Society for the Study of English). Her expertise spans a range of fields including English Phonetics and Phonology, contemporary didactics of English as a foreign language (EFL), alternative methods in teaching EFL, and the integration of music in language teaching. These subjects form the foundation of her teaching for both BA and MA students, where she combines theory with innovative practical approaches.

In her upcoming lecture, Dr. Balčytytė will explore perceptual approaches to foreign language acquisition through sensory engagement and Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory. She will focus on how music, the rhythmic qualities of language, and auditory elements can influence language learning, particularly how rhythm and sound patterns can enhance linguistic proficiency by tapping into different cognitive and sensory channels. By emphasizing the role of music and sound, she will offer insights into how these elements can deepen learners' connection to a new language, making the process more intuitive and effective.

“Every-day-life culture in Lithuania” by assoc. prof. Inga Hilbig (October 30, 11:00–12:30 CET)

Inga Hilbig is an associate professor at the Department of Lithuanian Studies, Faculty of Philology, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Vilnius University. Her research interests comprise sociolinguistics of childhood bilingualism and family language policy. She is also interested in cross-cultural communication. Inga Hilbig teaches Lithuanian as a second language and also Lithuanian culture. The aim of the lecture will be to introduce students to a concept of every-day-life culture, highlighting selected aspects of how contemporary Lithuanians behave and think.

More about Inga Hilbig:

“Current sociolinguistic situation in Lithuania” by prof. Meilutė Ramonienė (( November 11, 14:00–15:30 CET (15:00–16:30 Lithuanian time))

Meilutė Ramonienė is a professor of the Institute of Applied Linguistics at Vilnius University. Her research interests include applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, bilingualism and multilingualism, heritage language studies, language policy, teaching Lithuanian as a second language, Lithuanian onomastics. She has led research projects “Language usage and ethnic identity in urban areas of Lithuania”, “Sociolinguistic map of Lithuania: cities and towns”, “Language of emigrants”, „The Lithuanian language in diaspora: proficiency, usage, attrition“. Her published output includes several edited books on language use and language attitudes, language and identity, she is the author and co-author of textbooks for teaching Lithuanian as a second language, including „Teach Yourself Lithuanian“ (Hoder education, 2006), „Colloquial Lithuanian. The Complete Course for Beginners“ (Routledge, 1996, 2010), pedagogical grammars, including „Practical Lithuanian Grammar“ (in Lithuanian, English, Russian, Hungarian), „Lithuanian: A comprehensive Grammar" (Routledge 2020). She is the author and co-author of numerous research articles and book chapters published in Lithuania and abroad, and is editor-in-chief of the journal „Taikomoji kalbotyra“(Applied linguistics“. She has lectured at universities in Helsinki, Tartu, Zurich, Basel, Bern, Parma, Siena, Rouen, Seattle, Hobart.

The lecture will present the current sociolinguistic situation in Lithuania and the use of languages and dialects of the Lithuanian population in various domains. It will cover mother tongues and foreign languages, language proficiency and use, language attitudes and language policy.

And another 3 lectures will be delivered during upcoming weeks.

“The socio-cultural context of Lithuania from International Students' perspectives” by associate professor Loreta Chodzkienė (November 20, 15:00–16:30)

Assoc. Prof. Dr Loreta Chodzkienė graduated from Vilnius University in English Philology, did her internship at the University of Kent (UK), obtained a CELTA diploma at SIH, defended her PhD “EU Pedagogue’s Intercultural Communicative Competence and Its Developmental Socio-educational Factors” (Social Sciences). In 2017, she won a grant for a teaching visit at Gunma University (Japan).

Currently L. Chodzkienė has been running the courses on Communication across Cultures, Design of Academic Texts and Research Methodology at the Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University. She also supervises students’ (Inter)cultural internships. L. Chodzkienė investigates the factors contributing to the development of a person’s Intercultural Communicative Competence, analyses International (Incoming) students’ perspectives on the Lithuanian socio-cultural realia and conducts trainings on Intercultural Issues. Since 2021 the researcher has been exploring the benefits of Virtual Exchange through telecollaboration projects which provide an opportunity for Vilnius University students to collaborate with the students from the University of Latvia, Leon University (Spain), Los Lagos University (Chile) and Austral University (Chile). The L. Chodzkienė designed a study book on “What Should Every Student Know about Intercultural Communication?”, disseminated her research findings in a more than 25 scientific publications, made presentations at more than 30 international scientific conferences.

The aim of this lecture is to explore empirical insights gathered from 2012 to 2023 on the attitudes of 112 international students regarding Lithuania as their host country and Vilnius University as their academic destination. Drawing from diaries recorded by students from 22 countries, this lecture will address the question, 'Why Lithuania?' while examining how incoming students perceive and experience the cultural, physical, social-relational, and perceptual dimensions of life in Lithuania.

“History of the Lithuanian languge” by associate professor Gintarė Judžentytė-Šinkūnienė (November 28, 15:00–16:30)

Gintarė Judžentytė-Šinkūnienė is an Associate Professor of Semantics and Baltic Languages at Vilnius University. Her main research fields include lexical semantics, pragmatics (especially reference: spatial deixis and deictic gestures), semantics and pragmatics interface, Baltic linguistics. She is particularly interested in the expression of place deixis in the Baltic languages, i.e. how Lithuanians and Latvians construct space using deictic words. An integral part of this research is the conditions that determine the choice of deictic words. The researcher also focuses on students' academic language, problems of cognitive semantics and some issues of Lithuanian and Latvian Old Writing.

In this webinar, Gintarė Judžentytė-Šinkūnienė, Associate Professor of Semantics and Baltic Languages at Vilnius University, will reveal the origins of the Lithuanian language, its development and its journey to the present day. Among the Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is conservative in its grammar and phonology. It retains archaic features that are otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. Exposing this conservatism is therefore the aim of the lecture. Firstly, the speaker will introduce some terms necessary to understand the overall context, such as “balts”. Later, she will explain how the Baltic language group separated from the Indo-European language group, and what are the scholarly views on this separation. The focus will be on the Baltic proto-language and its transformation, the emergence of the Lithuanian language as a distinct linguistic unit and, to some extent, the formation of dialects.

“Lithuanian women’s literature” by dr. Daiva Litvinskaitė (December 3, 13:00–14:30)

Dr. Daiva Litvinskaitė works in the Department of Lithuanian Studies at the Faculty of Philology, Institute of Applied Linguistics, Vilnius University, where she teaches Lithuanian as a second language and Lithuanian literature. Her research interests also include women’s and gender studies. The lecture will examine the development of Lithuanian women’s literary tradition from the 19th century to the present, analyzing shifts in thematic focus among female writers and highlighting the contributions of prominent authors.

There is still time to register!

Fill out this form to register:

The Arqus teaching innovation online workshop, organised by the Vilnius University, will showcase how academic debate can be used as an effective teaching activity to enhance students’ presentation skills, critical thinking, research abilities, argumentation, leadership, and teamwork.

Participants will learn how to develop students’ academic competencies for constructing research-based arguments. In addition, the seminar will illustrate how students can strengthen subject-specific skills, such as analysing discipline-related research articles and applying real-life examples.

The seminar will feature the demonstration of the academic debate activity, including its content, structure, and assessment strategies. Participants will be introduced to teaching worksheets, created specifically for this activity. The assessment strategy used for the debates will be explained, with an emphasis on innovative teaching methods such as flipped classroom sessions, peer-led debates and real-life scenario debate competitions.

As a highlight of the event, first year undergraduate students from the Institute of International Relations and Political Science will engage in a live debate on the motion: “Climate denialism should be criminalised during election campaigns.” The students, who have been developing their debate skills over the past three months (September to November, 2024), will demonstrate their progress. Tomas Valiūnas and Ieva Navickaitė will represent the Proposition team, while Adrija Sagatytė and Kajus Razulevičius will debate on the Opposition side.

Trainer: Associate professor Dr. Liudmila Arcimavičienė, Vilnius University, Faculty of Philology, Department of Foreign Language Teaching and Research

Date and time: November 26, 2024, 15:00 – 16:30, Vilnius time (EET)
Place: Online, via MS Teams
Registration deadline: 21st November 2024

Register here

The link to the meeting will be provided by the facilitators and will only be sent to registered participants.

We look forward to your participation in this engaging and insightful seminar!

Vilnius university / Ugnius Bagdonavičius photo

Dr Luca Gili, researcher and author of two books and nearly 50 articles published in various prestigious journals, started his postdoctoral fellowship at Vilnius University (VU) in May 2024. Dr. Gili a researcher in medieval and ancient logic and metaphysics focuses on the history of logic and Aristotle's philosophy. He received his PhD from the University of Leuven in Belgium and has worked at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

Although he knew Lithuania primarily as his wife's home country, the Italian scholar believes that through the guidance of the Head of the Department of Classical Studies, Assoc. Prof. Vilius Bartninkas, he has discovered a very vibrant academic environment here, where he wants to be for intellectual pleasure and a competitive academic environment. He is interviewed by Laisvūnas Čekavičius, a PhD student at the VU Faculty of Philology.

You studied in Pisa, Italy, and Leuven, Belgium. What attracted you to classics and philosophy?

What a difficult question! In high school, I chose a classical curriculum, which includes an introduction to ancient Greek, Latin, ancient literature, and philosophy. I don't remember exactly why I chose this option, but in my time it was common for good students to choose the classical curriculum, the so-called liceo classico [Italian liceo classico is a type of secondary school in Italy where it is compulsory to study Ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature]. Maybe things have changed in the last 20 years, but I think classic is still one of the best ways of teaching in Italy. When I was in high school, I realised that I really liked Greek literature and philosophy.

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do at university but I got a scholarship from the Scuola Normale at the University of Pisa, which covered food and tuition fees, so I opted for the humanities without thinking much about what I was going to do next. If I hadn't received the scholarship, I probably would have chosen studies that would have given me a more stable job, like medicine. While I was studying at the Scuola Normale, I hadn't yet decided whether I wanted to study Classics or Philosophy - two different undergraduate programmes at the University of Pisa. I was fascinated by Francesco Del Punta's lectures on medieval philosophy, so I started studying philosophy. However, Del Punta noticed my talent for reading Greek texts and persuaded me to study Alexander Aphrodisias, of whom I had not yet heard, and to write a master's thesis on this great commentator on Aristotle.

What attracted me to classics and philosophy? I love the fact that the Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle, pursue truth and wisdom in such a straightforward way. Their ideas seduced me from the very beginning and continue to amaze me to this day. I also ended up in Leuven by chance. I started my doctoral studies in Padua, Italy, under the supervision of a. a. Riccardo Quinto. Unfortunately, Riccardo fell ill with a rare disease and died soon after, and the University of Leuven offered me a generous scholarship, so it seemed wise to abandon the Italian programme and stay only in Leuven. There I worked on medieval philosophy under the supervision of Russ Friedman and joined a large group of young PhD students and post-docs specialising in ancient and medieval philosophy.

You have previously taught in Montreal, Canada, and now you teach in Chieti, Italy. What are the differences between Classical Studies in these countries?

An honest answer to this question is probably not very politically correct. The working conditions in Montreal are much better than in Italy in terms of salaries and, I would say, the freedom to do research without a lot of bureaucratic hassle. Although Italy in general is a bureaucratic nightmare, it is particularly difficult to navigate in the small areas of southern Italy. This may sound stereotypical, but it is true. You may wonder why I left Canada for Italy. The answer is that one does not live by bread alone, so I was happy to take the opportunity to return with my family to my native hills. Both universities (UQÀM in Montreal, Canada, and Chieti in Italy) have quite a diverse student body, mostly from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, which is very important to me, because the students at these institutions although they probably did not go to the best schools, are eager to learn and eager to learn, and it is a real pleasure to talk to them about the philosophy of antiquity.

Which ancient text has most shaped your personality?

It is difficult to answer. When I was perhaps 13 years old, I read the 19th-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi's book 'Operette morali' ('Small Moral Works'). At that time, I liked Leopardi's poems very much and it seemed natural to turn to his 'philosophical' work, which I do not regard so favourably today. Leopardi was in love with antiquity, but it was probably only thanks to him that I understood the greatness of Dante, another important Italian poet. I remember reading an edition of Dante that belonged to my mother, which did not contain 'Paradise'. The editor of the edition was the Marxist literary critic Natalino Sapegno, who had a habit of explaining Dante's poems with long quotations from Aquinas. I discovered philosophy in these footnotes and have loved it ever since. So, in a way, Dante's Inferno has had the greatest impact on me.

As far as my moral theory is concerned, I have always been an Aristotelian, even before I read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, so I would dare to say that Aristotle did not shape me in this respect, because in his pages I found what I already believed. I have not changed in one respect since I was thirteen: I still enjoy reading Leopardi's 'Alla sua Donna', a hymn to the ideal woman with a strong Platonic flavour: she is 'one of the eternal ideas'.

You wrote your dissertation on Thomas Aquinas' natural philosophy and have recently published a book 'Aquinas on Change and Time'. How would you describe the relationship between ancient and medieval philosophy - do you see continuities or rather differences?

You really like difficult questions! I discovered Aristotle through Aquinas, Aquinas through Dante, so in terms of order of discovery, medieval and ancient philosophers are closely related. My university studies confirmed this initial impression because F. Del Punta liked to give in-depth lectures on Aristotle's texts - it usually took us a whole academic year to get through three or four chapters, i.e. 2–4 pages of Bekker in total. Then we read all the commentators on Aristotle's texts, whether in late antiquity, medieval Arabic or medieval Latin. This in-depth approach also allowed me to see the differences between Aristotle and his commentators, but in my understanding, these great minds are in constant dialogue with each other.

How would you describe the main task and thesis of your book?

In my book 'Aquinas on Change and Time', I set three goals. First, to show that Aquinas thought it was possible to describe change (motus) coherently and that change is identical to a changing thing in the present. Second, to show that Aquinas was a consistent presentist who did not allow for the existence of time parts in the past or future. Finally, to show that time, according to Aquinas, exists independently of the mind and should be understood as a disposition of a changing thing, which must be understood as such by a capable mind.

What do you think are the most relevant contemporary research topics in relation to Aristotle's philosophy?

I think Aristotle himself has an answer to this: at the beginning of Book VII of the 'Metaphysics', he says that in the past, as in his own time, people have tried to answer the question of what is 'being', i.e. what is 'substance'. In my opinion, this is still a topical issue, although it is not as popular as it was in the 1990s, in the early 2000s, when the commentary on 'Metaphysics' Z by M. Frédé and G. Patzig appeared. If we talk about academic fads, I would say that it is now very popular to study how Aristotle practised science and how he argued a philosophical question, and people are particularly interested in the dialectical models of argumentation he adopted.

What research brought you to Lithuania and what are you trying to discover here?

A few years ago, a woman asked me on the Oude Markt in Leuven which coffee I liked better - 'Lavazza' or 'Illy'. Apparently, I answered correctly, so a few years later we got married and had children. She is Lithuanian and, thanks to her, I have been discovering every corner of this beautiful country for many years. We got married in the beautiful St Anne's Church in the centre of Vilnius.

Vilnius university / Ugnius Bagdonavičius photo

It was only about a year ago, when I was in Vilnius, that I met the head of the Department of Classical Studies, Vilius Bartninkas, and thanks to him I discovered a very lively academic environment. I immediately wanted to be part of it - for the intellectual pleasure I could get from talking to my colleagues, for the challenge of being in a competitive academic environment again, and also because I was considering spending more time in Lithuania with my family, as my older children are attending school in Lithuania so that they could get to know my mother's mother tongue better. I sometimes think that if I had said that I liked 'Lavazza' better that night in the Oude Markt, life would have been very different.

In 2025, we will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first publication of Matheus Casimirus Sarbievius' most famous Latin poetry collection 'Lyricorum libri tres' (1625). This has led to 2025 being declared the Year of Baroque Literature in Lithuania. The eminent Jesuit neo-Latin poet of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sarbievius, has been hailed as the Christian Horace and the Sarmatian Horace. His theoretical thoughts on poetry and rhetoric are still highly regarded and have inspired new research on other concurrent themes and authors. This anniversary provides an opportunity to explore the extent and diversity of Baroque literary culture, which has seen a surge of interest in recent decades, both in the academic world and in popular culture. Therefore, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, together with the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University, is organising an international academic conference "Ratio, affectus, sensus: Literary Culture of the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" on 25-27 September 2025 in the baroque city of Vilnius.

The aim of the multidisciplinary conference is to stimulate discussion on the literary culture of the "long seventeenth century" (from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This historical period, associated with dramatic changes and a general cultural crisis, is often described in contradictory terms and in constant tension between reason and senses, rigid structure and passions, classifications and impressions, etc. By embracing this contradiction, we invite an exploration of the theme in question through the lens of this dynamic interplay between reason (ratio), emotion (affectus) and the senses (sensus), which can be perceived in various genres of the period, such as poetry, biography, hagiography, rhetoric, private and public correspondence, and so on. The importance of the modern approach lies not only in what it can reveal about the Baroque in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also about subsequent and contemporary literary culture, as scholars have demonstrated the continuing influence of a 'Baroque spirit'.

More information about the event at the link below:

BaroCon 2025

On 14th November 10 am an international scientific conference 'Root Cause: Comparative Studies in Literature and Translation' will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, as part of the '2024: the Year of Estonian Literature in Lithuania' programme. The confirmed keynote speakers are dr. Aija Sakova (Ene Mihkelson Society, Tallinn University) and dr. Elle-Mari Talivee (Under and Tuglas Literature Centre of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Tallinn University). Conference participants are the following Estonian, Lithuanian and Czech literary scholars, grad and PhD students and translators: Eva Velsker, Mart Velsker, Ene-Reet Soovik, Jan-Marek Šík, Daina Valentinavičienė, Johanna Roos, Kateřina Běláková, Markas Aurelijus Piesinas. 

Conference venue: Vilnius UNESCO City of Literature (šv. Jono g. 11–16).

Registration: 9:45 am.

Conference starts at 10 am.

You may find the full programme, keynotes and abstracts attached below. 

More information:

If you have any questions regarding the conference, please contact us at .

Welcome to the conference and see you soon!