DONSKIS, Leonidas 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born August 13, 1962, in Klaip da, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Lithuania); son of Simas and Joana (Cukermanait) Donskis; married Jolanta Valuckait, 1986. Education: Lithuanian Academy of Arts, B.A., 1985; University of Vilnius, M.A., 1987, Ph.D., 1990; University of Helsinki, D.Soc.Sci., 1999. Hobbies and other interests: Music, literature, theater.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Hill House, University of Montevallo, Station 6501, Montevallo, AL 35115-6000; fax 205-665-6523. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Klaip da, Klaip da, Lithuania, teacher of philosophy and aesthetics, 1991-97, member of university senate, 1991-2001, department chair, 1991-97, director of Comparative Civilizations Center, 1995-97; Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, international visiting scholar and visiting professor of philosophy, 1998-99; University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL, Paschal P. Vacca Visiting Professor of Liberal Arts, 2001-02. Visiting lecturer at University of Vilnius and Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, 1991-93; Karlskrona/Ronneby University College (Sweden), visiting lecturer in East European studies, 1992; Estonian Institute of Humanities, visiting professor of philosophy and comparative civilizations, 1993, 1995, and 1998; Dickinson College, visiting fellow, 1993-94, teacher, 1994; Ohio University, visiting lecturer, 1994 and 1995; visiting lecturer at Hillsdale College and University of Michigan, 1995; Vilnius Technical University, visiting professor, 1996; University of Gothenburg, Swedish Institute guest researcher, 1997-98; University of Helsinki, visiting lecturer in East European studies, 1997, 2000, and 2001; University of Bradford, visiting research fellow, 1999-2000; University of Uppsala, guest professor, 2000; Gotland University College, visiting professor, 2000; Baltic Center for Writers and Translators, Visby, Sweden, scholar-in-residence, 2000; also lecturer at universities in the United States and elsewhere, including Shippensburg University, London School of Slavic and East European Studies, and University of Derby. Open Society College, Vilnius, director, 1996-97. Member of Lithuanian National Prize Committee for Culture and Art, 1992-94.

MEMBER:

International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, American Philosophical Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellow of International Research and Exchanges Board, 1993-94; Fulbright scholar, 1994; fellow of Leverhulme Trust, 1999-2000.

WRITINGS:

An Outline of the Modern Philosophy of Culture (in Lithuanian), Science and Encyclopedia Press (Vilnius, Lithuania), 1993.

Modern Consciousness and Its Configurations: Culture between Myth and Discourse (in Lithuanian), Baltos lankos (Vilnius, Lithuania), 1994.

Between Imagination and Reality: Ideology and Utopia in Current Civilization Theory (in Lithuanian), Baltos lankos (Vilnius, Lithuania), 1996.

Between Carlisle, Pennsylvania and Klaip da: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism (in Lithuanian), University of Klaip da Press (Klaip da, Lithuania), 1997.

The End of Ideology and Utopia? Moral Imagination and Cultural Criticism in the Twentieth Century, Peter Lang Publishing (New York, NY), 2000.

Identity and Freedom: Mapping Nationalism and Social Criticism in Twentieth-Century Lithuania, Routledge (New York, NY), 2001.

Editor of book series on Baltic studies, Rodopi International Publishers (Atlanta, GA), 2001—. Contributor to books, including Ground Control: Technology and Utopia, edited by Lolita Jablonskiene, Duncan McCorquodale, and Julian Stallabrass, Black Dog (London, England), 1997; Between East and West: Cultural Encounters in East Central Europe, edited by Karin Junefelt and Martin Peterson, FRN-Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (Stockholm, Sweden), 1998; Ethnicity and Nationalism in Russia, the CIS, and the Baltic States, edited by Christopher Williams and Thanasis D. Sfikas, Ashgate (Aldershot, England), 1999; and New Ethics—New Society, or the Dawn of Justice, edited by Timo Airaksinen and Olli Loukola, Philosophical Society of Finland (Helsinki, Finland), 2000. Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals in the United States and abroad, including Comparative Civilizations Review, East European Politics and Societies, Innovation: European Journal of Social Sciences, Soundings: Journal of Politics and Culture, and Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. Member of editorial board, Liaudies kultura (title means "Folk Culture"), 1992—, Metmenys (title means "Patterns"), 1993—, Archiforma (title means "Architectural Form"), 1996—, Problemos (title means "Philosophical Issues"), 1996—, and Tiltai (title means "Bridges"), 1997—.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Forms of Hatred.

SIDELIGHTS:

Leonidas Donskis told CA: "As a nonfiction writer, I am foremost motivated by my academic and theoretical interests. Self-comprehension and interpretation of my multicultural background are also among the primary driving forces and concerns that motivate my research and writing.

"I have been greatly influenced by such eminent social scientists of the twentieth century as Lewis Mumford, Louis Dumont, Ernest Gellner, Isaiah Berlin, and Zygmunt Bauman. At the same time, I owe a great debt to such towering figures in literary scholarship as Lionel Trilling and Stephen Greenblatt. I consider Vytautas Kavolis (1930-1936), a great Lithuanian scholar who immigrated to the United States, as my mentor. Among my favorite philosophers I could list St. Augustine, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Oswald Spengler.

"My writing process absorbs me completely. I can prepare a manuscript very quickly, but then I have to spend much more time polishing it.

"My multicultural background and East European experience may be said to have been a major inspiration to write on the subjects I have chosen; namely, identity, freedom, tolerance, dialogue, intersubjectivity, moral imagination, and exclusion."