Meeting of Philosophical Club at ASU Dedicated to Umberto Eco

On October 12, 2016, a meeting of our Philosophical Club took place at Astrakhan State University. Its theme was “Umberto Eco: Author & Texts”.

The meeting concerned works and life of Umberto Eco (Jan. 05, 1932 – Feb. 19, 2016), the well-known Italian philosopher and postmodernism writer, who also specialized in medieval history, semiotics, aesthetics, culture, and literary criticism. About 50 people took part in the event, which was accompanied with an exposition of Eco’s books.

The meeting started with a pleasant procedure: on behalf of the Russian Political Science Association, Prof. Anna Romanova, Director of ASU’s Institute of Humanities, granted a letter of commendation to Prof. Pavel Karabushchenko for his solid contribution to the development of the Russian political science. Then Prof. Romanova gave a speech about Umberto Eco’s interesting and eventful life, as well as about his versatile artistic heritage. Her report was followed by that of Prof. Lyudmila Baeva, who paid special attention to the most profound and remarkable ideas by the great writer and thinker, who reflected them in his works. Both reports were supported with interesting and informative presentations.

Umberto Eco’s elite-related ideas, which his works reflect implicitly, were the theme of the report by Prof. Karabushchenko. As for Prof. Alexander Glazkov, Head of our Chair of Philosophy, he emphasized the issues of religious belief and nonbelief in Eco’s works. His report concerned “Belief or Nonbelief?”, a non-fiction book by Umberto Eco and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini.

The four speeches were of real interest among the meeting participants, who asked the speakers many questions and gave their own comments about the given reports. It was proposed to hold another meeting related to this theme, as not all those who wished to speak could do that.

The precise date of the next meeting concerning Umberto Eco’s works shall be specified later.