This is the official webpage of the research project »History of Humanities in Slovenia«, funded by the University of Ljubljana. We will be researching how the Slovenian humanities developed. What were the explicit, implicit, or unconscious scholarly and institutional policies regarding internationalisation of the Slovenian humanities? How did Slovenian scholars envisage the local and transnational objectives of their research? Certainly, these are crucial questions for understanding the local history of scholarship. But this history also raises questions relevant to international discussions on the history of literary studies, scholarship, and knowledge. For instance, what position did Slovenian scholars hold within the academic world-system, how have they influenced international scholarly discussions, and how important is local scholarship for the global production of knowledge? Finally, practical questions arise, such as whether the history of Slovenian humanities has shaped its current state and whether the historical context provides valuable insights for developing policies to support the internationalisation of Slovenian humanities. These are some of the research questions we will be tackling.
Research Team
Dr. Blaž Zabel
Blaž Zabel is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the principal investigator of this start-up research programme. He works on the history of scholarship and is especially interested in the historical development of Homeric studies, philology, and comparative literature. He is also the president of the Slovenian Comparative Literature Association, and has recently completed a project titled Towards a History of Comparative Literature in a Global Perspective: Matija Murko and His International Collaborators (funded by the Slovenian Research Agency), in which a group of scholars explored the global history of comparative literature, with a particular focus on the philologist Matija Murko.
Dr. Jan Ciglenečki
Jan Ciglenečki is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. He teaches courses in the field of ancient and medieval philosophy, and his primary research area is Eastern monastic traditions, particularly Egyptian desert monasticism. Since 2014, he has been dedicated to topographic research of the Eastern Desert and the documentation of endangered monastic heritage in Egypt. As co-author of the exhibition “Coptic Textiles in the National Museum of Slovenia”, he received the Valvasor Award in 2019. He currently leads the project “Austrian-Slovenian Consuls of the 19th Century and Egyptological Collections in Slovenia”. Within the framework of the project »the History of Humanities in Slovenia«, he is researching the beginnings and development of Slovenian Egyptology.
Dr. Petra Kramberger
Petra Kramberger is an associate professor of German-language literature at the Department of German, Dutch and Swedish, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her research encompasses German literature, German journalism, and German literary production in Slovenia, as well as Slovenian cultural history of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Slovenian-German intercultural relations during that period, and the history of science — particularly the doctoral and other scholarly output of Slovenian doctoral candidates during the Austro-Hungarian period (1872–1918). Within the framework of the project, she focuses on the history of German studies and English studies at the University of Ljubljana, with particular emphasis on their beginnings and early developmental phases, institutional development, the role of the first department heads and other key individuals, and the processes of internationalization of both disciplines.
Dr. David Movrin
David Movrin is an associate professor at the Department of Classics, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. He studied in Ljubljana, Budapest (CEU), and Oxford. He has translated works by Euripides, Athanasius, Sulpicius Severus, and others, edited numerous translations, and published two monographs: Fidus interpres / Faithful Translator (2010) and The Origins of Monasticism (2011). Together with a group of researchers, he edited the volume Classics and Communism (2013), on the history of the field in the relevant period. This was followed by Classics and Class (2016), Classics and Communism in Theatre (2019), and Proletarian Classics (2022). Within the framework of the project, he will focus particularly on Jan Luňák, the founder and first professor of classical philology at the University of Ljubljana, who in the academic year 1919/20 established the classical seminar at the Faculty of Arts and convened it through the first decade of its existence.
Dr. Martina Ožbot Currie
Martina Ožbot Currie is a full professor at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her research focuses on Italian-Slovenian relations, languages in contact, and the theory and history of translation. Within the framework of the project, she is investigating the history of Slovenian Romance studies and the history of linguistics in the process of its differentiation and emancipation from philology.
Dr. Sebastijan Pešec
Sebastijan Pešec holds a BA in history and a PhD in philosophy. He is employed as a junior researcher at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. His research encompasses the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and Daoism, the philosophy and particularly the ethics of Vajrayana Buddhism, the meditative and tantric practices of the Kagyu school, the history of Ladakh, environmental ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Within the framework of the startup program History of Humanities in Slovenia, he is investigating the history of relations, interests, and research concerning Indian and Tibetan culture, and the lands associated with them, in the Slovenian ethnic territory, as well as the development of Indology and Tibetology in Slovenia.
Dr. Nina Petek
Nina Petek is an assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. She teaches courses on Asian philosophical-religious traditions, with a special emphasis on the philosophical traditions and religions of India. Her research focuses on ontology and epistemology in the philosophical schools of India and Tibet, as well as the tradition of Buddhist eremitism. Within the framework of the project “History of Humanities in Slovenia”, she is dedicated to researching the history of Indology as a scientific discipline in Slovenia. In this context, she also pays attention to literary and philosophical works on Indian cultural and spiritual heritage in Slovenia, even before the establishment of Indology as an academic discipline. She also investigates the Slovenes’ first contacts with India, beginning in the 17th century, particularly through the study of reports and travelogues that reflect the multifaceted reception of the country.
Dr. Irena Samide
Irena Samide is a full professor of German-language literature at the Department of German, Dutch and Swedish, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. The central areas of her research are 19th-century German literature, German-Slovenian literary and cultural relations in the 19th and early 20th centuries — especially the literary production of bilingual female authors — as well as the history of German studies, historical pedagogy, the literary canon, and literary didactics. Within the framework of the project, she examines the history of German studies and English studies at the University of Ljubljana, focusing on both their beginnings and early developmental phases, their institutional development, the role of the first department heads and other key actors, the processes of internationalization of both disciplines, and their significance and social impact in the broader social context.
Dr. Tone Smolej
Tone Smolej is a comparatist and scholar in French, and a full professor at the Department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. His research focuses on imagology, thematology, and the history of comparative literature. In the project, he will focus on the history of comparative literature in Slovenia.