ACADEMY OF CULTURAL HERITAGES / ACADÉMIE DES HERITAGES CULTURELS / Ακαδημία της Πολιτισμικής Κληρονομιάς/ KULTTUURIPERINTÖJEN AKATEMIA.

This is a new institution whose aim according to its statutes is to study and foster the preservation, renewal and animation of cultural heritages from Ancient Greece to contemporary European and global culture. The Academy was founded in Helsinki in Spring 2016 and it has been officially registered in Finland.

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is understood here both in its material and immaterial aspects, yet not only in the anthropological sense. Culture means here also the goal toward which man is aspiring, as in the Greek "Paideia". The term cultural heritage stems from this connection, but for the new Academy of Cultural Heritages, which has now been founded, it assumes a broader meaning. The purpose of the Academy is namely to foster particularly the roots of European culture starting from its beginning, the Greek ‘miracle’, i.e. the birth of philosophical culture around Plato and Aristotle, and, as its continuation, the heritage of Hellenism in Rome – without excluding non-European traditions, manifest f.ex. in the Persian and Arabic influence upon European culture. From this starting point the Academy tries to keep alive central canonic issues of European culture in philosophy, arts and culture in general.

Education

The Academy thus has two aspects: old and new. Its goal is remembering, restoring and maintaining cultural phenomena, behaviors, texts and values which are endangered by the globalized commercial market civilization expanded all over the world, or by other threats. Yet it is new in the way it realizes this goal by animating these traditions through an intellectual experience and new teaching methods in its seminars. It thus aims to become a more efficient form of education than what is often offered in more formalized institutional academic environments, particularly at a time when official policies are interested only in the direct utilization and economic profit to be made from science and art (“science must make money”).

The Academy will publish its findings i.e. proceedings from the seminars in the international series Acta semiotica fennica. Moreover it aims for giving some small grants per year to young scholars promoting its research programme.

International Advisory

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