A l'agenda
21-27/05/2026 Yerevan PhD Spring School - Apologies for the Past
Dates: May 21-27, 2026
Location: Yerevan (Armenia)
Organizers:
Laboratory of the Philosophy and Theory of History, Yerevan State University
Center for Ethics in Public Affairs (ETICA), American University of Armenia
Hoover Chair in economic and social ethics, UCLouvain
Deadline for application: March 20, 2026
Target disciplines: Philosophy and related disciplines in humanities and social sciences
Contact persons:
Levon Babajanyan (YSU) - levonbabajanyan@ysu.am
Axel Gosseries (FNRS/UCLouvain) - axel.gosseries@uclouvain.be
Topic: The PhD Spring School “Apologies for the Past” is a one-week academic program focused on the philosophical analysis issues surrounding the idea of apologies for past wrongs. Calls for public and political apologies for slavery, colonialism, genocide, and historical discrimination are everywhere. They raise questions such as “what can apologies mean?”, “should we apologize for the wrongs of others?”, “in what sense can past wrongs be ours?”, “do collective apologies fundamentally differ from individual ones?” or “how important are apologies compared with other measures to address past wrongs?”.
Planned Activities
During this intensive week there will be four types of activities:
- Seminar discussions on pre-circulated papers
- Keynote lectures
- Individual tutorials on specific chapters of your thesis project
- Peer-to-peer speed presentations on specific points of student’s PhD project
Faculty / Teachers
The Spring School will be taught by a small group of senior scholars. Confirmed scholars so far:
- Axel Gosseries (UCLouvain, Belgium)
- Levon Babajanyan (YSU & AUA, Armenia)
- Valérie Rosoux (FNRS/UCLouvain, Belgium)
- Maria Baghramian (AUA, Armenia)
- Linda Radzik (Texas A & M U., USA)
- Christopher Bennett (Sheffield, UK)
- Abraham Tobi (U. de Montréal, CA and U. of Johannesburg, ZA)
Eligibility and Selection
Participation is free of charge
- PhD students in Philosophy and Social Sciences, working on apologies for the past or related topics
- We aim at selecting a group of roughly 15 participants. Online participation may be offered too, depending on the circumstances
How to apply?
If you are interested, please send an E-mail to Levon Babajanyan and Axel Gosseries
The mail message should contain “Yerevan PhD Spring School Application”
Your mail should contain 10 lines of presentation of your PhD Project
This spring school will benefit from the support of the Erasmus + program.
