Blended Intensive Program (BIP) « Hortus Spinozanum III: Thinking Emancipation »

BIP - Hortus Spinozanum III: Thinking Emancipation
Organizers: Luigi Emilio Pischedda and Pascal Sévérac

The project BIP - Hortus Spinozanum III: Thinking Emancipation aims to use Spinoza's philosophy to create a shared reflection on the pressing issues of the present. Blended Intensive Programs (BIPs) are a funding scheme of the Erasmus+ Program. They consist of international educational activities that combine virtual collaboration and brief physical mobility, offering challenge-based activities. The project is coordinated by the Institut de Recherches Philosophiques (IRePh) of the University of Paris Nanterre and involves multiple European and non-European partner universities.

The project explores the potential of blended learning by combining in-person and online activities involving teachers, students, and lecturers to foster the development of a broad, multidisciplinary collaboration network. The activities are structured in two phases: the online sessions will be held from May 25 to May 29, 2026, while the physical mobility phase will take place in Paris from June 1 to June 5, 2026. The phase in Paris will consist of workshops, collective readings, presentations, and discussions involving students from all three cycles of study (Bachelor, Master, and PhD) and lecturers from the partner institutions. It utilizes a bottom-up approach aimed at fostering collective dialogue. The programme carries      6 ECTS credits, and a certificate of attendance will be delivered at the end of the activities.

Activities will be conducted mainly in English and French.

In addition to providing critical tools for interpreting the present era from a Spinozian perspective, the project also offers an opportunity to study multiple aspects of Spinozism and Spinoza's thought. The project foregrounds critical-analytical reading of his texts, the study of its theoretical roots, and the historical-philosophical context in which Spinoza lived and worked, as well as an exploration of how his thought has been inherited, commented on, and criticised or extended by later thinkers. The objectives pursued include the acquisition of a vocabulary appropriate to the students' orientation towards the historical and philosophical issues in question, as well as knowledge of the secondary literature essential for contextualising these issues within the historiographical debate.

Partner universities: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Université Paris Nanterre, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Galatasaray Üniversitesi, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Europa-Universität Viadrina, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université de Reims, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Università degli studi Milano-Bicocca, Università degli studi di Roma 3, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna.