Deeds and Days / Darbai ir Dienos

Pronounce “declamationes”: the place of creative activity in the university and the question of academic identity

Austėja Vaičiulevičiūtė — 2025-09-02

Editorial Board, Table of Contents, about Authors

2025-09-02

Catch a wave, discover another world

Indrė Žakevičienė — 2025-09-02

The (post)humanist image of human in Ieva Toleikytė’s prose and poetry

Beata Starodubova — 2025-09-02

This paper analyzes the human image in Ieva Toleikytė’s collection of short stories “Garstyčių namas” (2009) and the poetry collection “Raudonas slidus rūmas” (2020) through the lens of posthumanism. The article introduces the philosophy of posthumanism and posthumanist reading as the foundation for analyzing these literary works. The research problem examined in this article is how the representation of a human evolves in Toleikytė’s work and whether it corresponds to the envisioned posthumanist conception of the human. The analysis shows that the portrayal of a human deviates from the ideal of humanism in Toleikytė’s poetry, suggesting a significantly altered perception of humanity. It was observed that the character images in the short stories do not considerably diverge from the humanist individual: in the book “Garstyčių namas,” an ambitious, individualistic, self-sufficient human is exalted. In one way or another, all texts return to the image of man as distinct from other forms of life.

Posthumanist intonations in contemporary Lithuanian literature

Ida Daiva Povilaitė — 2025-09-02

This article examines how posthumanist ideas are reflected in contemporary Lithuanian literature, particularly focusing on the hybridity of human identity and the evolving relationship between humans and nature, technology, and non-human beings. It also addresses the ethical challenges posed by climate and technological change, as well as themes of irony and stylistic fragmentation. The article approaches literature through the lens of posthumanist theory, drawing on the work of Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, and others. It analyzes poetry and prose by specific Lithuanian authors — Undine Radzevičiūtė, Austėja Jakas, Darius Žiūra, Sara Poisson, Agnė Žagrakalytė, and Sigitas Parulskis — to identify posthumanist themes within their texts. These authors deconstruct the anthropocentric worldview, suggesting that human identity is not homogeneous but multidimensional and evolving. Their literary narratives are fragmented, scattered, ironic, and shaped by ecological, mystical, and global technological contexts. Nonetheless, the significance of humanism in literature is not dismissed; rather, it is enriched by new posthumanist interpretations. The lens of irony adds an unexpected dimension to this discourse.

Reading fiction books as a stimulus for changes in intrapersonal and interpersonal communication: a bibliotherapeutic approach

Jurgita Girčienė — 2025-09-02

Bibliotherapy, as a somewhat formalized interdisciplinary practice, is traditionally associated with providing expert assistance to individuals through books, whether in the form of recommended reading or interactive support. This is also reflected in empirical studies that investigate the effects of bibliotherapeutic reading. However, recently, with the emergence of an educational focus on bibliotherapy aimed at personal growth, there have been calls to explore the bibliotherapeutic effects of leisure reading. This article employs the tools of the bibliotherapeutic approach in an exploratory study of leisure reading to examine how Lithuanians who enjoy reading fiction perceive its impact on intrapersonal and interpersonal communication. The study revealed a positive transformative effect on both levels of communication and confirmed the hypothesis that the bibliotherapeutic impact of deep reading can be experienced without professional assistance. This implies that the bibliotherapeutic approach is suitable for examining readers’ perceptions of the effects of leisure reading.

With the Lithuanian state stamp: opera soloists’ tours in Great Britain in 1948–1949

Danutė Petrauskaitė — 2025-09-02

In 1944, thousands of people fled Lithuania to escape the advancing Red Army, including many artists from the Kaunas State Opera. Founded in 1920, this Opera House played an important role during the interwar period. Most of the musicians found temporary refuge in Germany. In 1948, to mark Lithuania’s 30th anniversary of independence, the Lithuanian Union and the Baltic Council in the UK, with support from the Arts Council of Great Britain, invited four singers and an accompanist from Germany: Izabelė Motekaitienė, Alė Kalvaitytė, Stasys Baranauskas, Ipolitas Nauragis, and Vladas Jakubėnas. They were contracted to participate in the jubilee event and to visit Lithuanian communities in England, Scotland, and Wales. The concert programs featured Lithuanian songs and excerpts from classical operas. Some of the concerts were also open to English audiences. The soloists presented themselves as artists from the Kaunas State Theatre, emphasizing the continuity of independent Lithuania’s traditions in exile. Twenty-two concerts were held over two months. The audience praised the performers, but the British press was reserved in its coverage. The Lithuanian Union invited the same performers to tour Great Britain again in 1949 to mobilize their compatriots and achieve political goals (this time Antanina Dambrauskaitė replaced Izabelė Motekaitienė). Twenty-nine concerts took place, half of which were organized at the initiative of the Arts Council of Great Britain. This time, the British press paid more attention to the artists, and tickets sold out quickly. Lithuanian soloists in the UK sought work in their profession but faced challenges due to time constraints, financial limitations, and a lack of concrete offers. However, they effectively served as “singing ambassadors,” representing Lithuania as a cultured nation and advocating against the illegal incorporation of Lithuania into the USSR.

Acting in „theatre of the real“: ethics, politics and the impact on the spectator

Jurgita Staniškytė — 2025-09-02

The pursuit of authenticity or the effect of reality in contemporary theatre manifests through various forms of “theatre of the real” (Carol Martin): documentary, verbatim, autobiographical theatre, and various reconstructions and reenactments. All these theatrical forms are linked with non-acting or post-acting, whose essential feature is the effect of reality. In recent years, numerous productions have emerged on the Lithuanian theatre stage where the subjects of the narrated stories perform themselves, and the texts spoken on stage originate from interviews or autobiographical material shared during creative workshops. These performances can also be categorised under the “theatre of the real” trend.

First-person narratives and embodied autobiographies invite audiences to experience a distinct sense of reality. When the subjects of life stories, rather than professional actors, present their own experiences on stage, it inevitably enhances the sense of authenticity in the theatre. Furthermore, such performances provoke questions about the evolving relationship between reality and acting in contemporary theatre and serve as compelling examples of how theories of social roles (Erving Goffman’s concept) and double consciousness (Richard Schechner’s term) are rooted in artistic practice. This article analyzes Lithuanian theatre productions based on first-person life stories and embodied autobiographical narratives, defining the emerging modes of acting, their aesthetic principles, and broader cultural consequences. Drawing on performance theory, the article also seeks to identify the dominant artistic strategies and discuss key issues that arise in these types of performances.

Neo-gnosticism and egregor: a critical study

Gintautas Mažeikis — 2025-09-02

The paper explores the idea of “egregore” in A. Breton and D. Fortune’s, P. Mabille’s, and L. Karsavin’s books and practices. It interprets perceptions of these scholars in the context of critical theory and discusses how the critical study of the egregore can enhance understanding of the idealization, personalization, and acknowledgment of symbolic organizations. The paper differentiates between religious (occult) and non-religious (ideological) symbolic organizations, with non-religious neo-Gnosticism addressing different types of “knowledge-power” and the related symbols we use to understand the world and explain our actions. This article offers an opportunity to critically examine both historical and contemporary theories of leadership and acknowledgment, as well as interpret some literary works at the intersection of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literature. Mabille and Karsavin, two geographically, culturally, and philosophically distant thinkers of the inter-war period, wrote about a concentrated, supra-individual personality fundamentally different from Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch. Mabille used the Hermetic term “égrégore” to refer to this type of personality, defining it as a group of people or their imaginary, common “energetic” thought distinct from the individuals who comprise it. Mabille discusses this idea in his 1938 book “Egrégores, ou la vie des civilizations” (“Egregores or the Life of Civilisations”). A shared vision and a profound emotional upheaval are prerequisites for the emergence of such a personality. The paper’s author views Egregor as a human group representing economy, politics, culture, religion, and capital (Das Kapital). Capital is accumulated through circulation, then depleted and exchanged for other forms of influence or consumption. Wealth is created when people use or enjoy objects, ideas, art, and status. Sometimes old objects, ideas, and images lose popularity and people reject them. This means that capital has to be constantly renewed, and its creators must feel the demand for symbolic meanings, cosmic oscillation. P. Bourdieu, who has written extensively about symbolic or cultural capital, was not interested in Gnosticism, neo-Gnosticism, or the egregore theory. He believed capital is accumulated by identifiable persons or institutions, not by their vision, ideal double, or “astral” twin. In cases where the person is not a symbol of a broad movement but is merely a writer, composer, or scientist, there is no essential difference between the ideal image and the real person. However, the difference is huge when discussing religious or ideological groups that begin to influence others, like Luther, Calvin, Huss, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao did.

The classical philosophy seminar in the modern university: an insider’s perspective

Ramūnas Čičelis — 2025-09-02

The article explores the ontological, gnoseological, and ethical aspects of the classical and contemporary philosophical seminar. The primary focus of the research is on a comparison between the ancient and the modern philosophical seminar, highlighting the questions of whether the old tradition of philosophising in the academy and the university has lost its relevance today, and how the principles of the philosophical seminar have evolved in the course of more than two thousand years. In addition, the article addresses many of the identities, contexts, and fates of the contemporary philosophical seminar and the university in our day. The research demonstrates that the classical philosophical seminar remains relevant and has a future in academic institutions, despite numerous social, political, business, and cultural interferences. As long as the seminar continues to be a rigorous, insightful examination of philosophical texts and other related issues, philosophising about many phenomena of reality will remain a small and silent alternative in a world where the importance of the written source is gradually diminishing, the development of screen culture is reaching its apogee, and no longer questions arise about where we have come from and for what we are living. The philosophical seminar is a time capsule of sorts, containing the foundations of Western civilisation and their potential relevance to the current fate of the planet.

How do we think pandemics?

Sean Ryder — 2025-09-02