Donetsk, DNR. A new university program locally is making international waves, as Donetsk University sponsors a Summer 2017 program designed to counter western ideas of globalism in the center of a new nation between Russia and Ukraine.
DISU 2017 (Donbass International Summer University) is an educative and social project hosted by Donetsk National Technical University and organized by the University’s Latino organization, Centro Cervantes de Donetsk-led by Miquel Puertas from Spain. The session exposes international visitors to the Donbass region, city of Donetsk and the situation currently for the region in global events.
DISU 2017 will take place in summer 2017 in the Donetsk People’s Republic. DISU is a summer school open to foreign educators, researchers, journalists, social activists, and students. The project is also open to local educators, journalists, students and the general public. DISU will enable students, social activist and educators from Donetsk and Lugansk to share knowledge and experience with the foreign students, educators, and activists participating in the summer school.
The motto of DISU, “Critical Thinking”, expresses the philosophy of the entire project. It will offer the participants tools that may help them to interpret and decode the narratives promoted by the corporate mass-media and understand the economic forces that lie behind the institutional framework that conforms to what the French philosopher Althusser termed “ideological state apparatuses”.
DISU will combine a series of lectures, seminars, workshops, debates and round-table discussions in which the participants will have the opportunity to improve their understanding of the Ukrainian conflict as well as other on-going armed conflicts around the world. DISU also will include social and leisure activities and the participants will visit areas of Donbass that have been damaged by the on-going conflict in the region.
DISU includes as well semi-intensive Russian language courses for foreigners provided by experienced Russian/English speaking teachers.
DISU includes a “call for papers” on globalism/anti-globalism directed at professors, researchers and social activists. By the end of 2017 DISU will publish the best articles in a peer-reviewed on-line journal called “Dissidences” that will be a collection of emergency materials for understanding the world. Our aim is to publish at least one issue of the journal per year. The content will be closely related to the activities of DISU. If the budget suffices, there may also be a printed version of journal to be distributed among DISU participants and our institutional partners.
Puertas reports a number of international students have already signed up for the session. Participants from Hungary, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Crete and Cyprus as well as Russian and regional institutions. Interested persons may find out more at the DNR University web page: http://donbasswelcomesyou.dudaone.com/home