2011: Rethinking Enlightenment

ABOAGORA began in Turku in 2011 during the city’s European Capital of Culture Year, as a joint effort by the Turku Music Festival, the Department of Cultural History at the University of Turku, and the Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History at Åbo Akademi University. The inaugural symposium was held on August 15-18 at the Sibelius Museum and the Old Academy Building under the theme “Rethinking Enlightenment.”

Aboagora 2011 Programme (PDF)

Agora Speakers

Ilkka Niiniluoto
Dan Sperber
Ruth Behar

The Agora lectures are available on ABOAGORA’s YouTube channel:

Ilkka Niiniluoto (Chancellor and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki)

“Progress by Enlightenment: Fact or Fiction?”

Dan Sperber (Research Professor Emeritus at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS and Director of the International Cognition and Culture Institute)

“Culture and Minds”

Ruth Behar (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Poet, Essayist, and Filmmaker)

“The Death of the Angel. Reflections on the Relationship between Enlightenment and Enchantment”