CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS
The Faculty of Philosophy Library was established in 1950 and is thereby one of the oldest libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Students, teaching staff and users from other faculties, universities and scientific institutions from Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries use our services
Information on the library collection is available through the OPAC, as well as in the card catalogue at the Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy Library Catalogue (Room 11). Our library staff is available for all questions you may have regarding the search and use of our collection. The part of the library collection that cannot to be taken out of the library facilities can be used in our reading room, where you can bring your own laptop and use free Wi-Fi.
Library provides:
The Library has access to: EBSCOhost, Web of Science and Scopus.
Library develops e-services through a segment of services entitled Ask a Librarian. Library is developing social bookmarking, where webpages are marked, Internet content is reviewed and links useful for research are recommended. Library encourages the use of digital tools that make research easier. Library is keeping pace with contemporary approaches to knowledge organisation and is trying to apply them in its work.
The Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Sarajevo is the oldest institution of higher education for the humanities and social sciences in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was founded pursuant to a decision by the Government of PRBiH on 14 February 1950. Initially, the Faculty of Philosophy was part of a unified teaching and research institution, together with the Faculty of Natural Sciences, comprising eight subject areas: General and National History, Serbo-Croatian Language and Yugoslav Literature, German Language and Literature, French Language and Literature, Oriental Philology, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Geography.
Dr. Aleksandar Belić, president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, delivered a lecture in early November 1950, inaugurating the teaching process at the Faculty. Classes were initially held at the Gazi Husrev Bey's madrasa because the Faculty had not yet acquired its own premises. The Faculty of Philosophy building was designed by Juraj Neidhardt and constructed between 1955 and 1959.
At that point, the natural sciences subject areas were split off from the Faculty. At the same time, the number of departments in the humanities and social sciences grew so that there were eleven departments by 1980. Today, prospective students at the Faculty of Philosophy can choose among thirteen departments and two chairs offering single subject and combined study programmes.
In addition to teaching, the Faculty devotes considerable attention to organising research activities. The first doctoral dissertation was defended in 1961.
From 1992 to 1995, the Faculty of Philosophy went through a very difficult period. Staff depletion, material losses, and damage to the building were challenges that were met without a break in the teaching process.
After the war, the Faculty of Philosophy stabilised and in 2005, together with the other members of the University of Sarajevo, it joined the European Higher Education Area and began implementing the principles of the Bologna Process. Today, instruction is carried out in three study cycles: first cycle - undergraduate, second cycle - graduate, and third cycle - doctoral studies.
As a higher education institution where teaching and research are carried out, the Faculty of Philosophy is a prestigious institution that exerts a strong influence on Bosnian and Herzegovinian society.
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, is responsible for educating - through teaching, scientific and research processes - capable, creative and internationally competent experts in all areas of interest for the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to be able to execute, professionally and accurately, the demanding tasks of the contemporary economy in the European and global political, social, humanistic and cultural context.
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, will - through a teaching process based research, innovation, and academic excellence – educate the primarily bearers of development of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and will initiate the creation of new solutions and creative ideas, contributing thus to the knowledge-based sustainable development in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Faculty will act as part of the University of Sarajevo and as part of the integrated European Higher Education Area through the implementation of the common standards established in the Bologna Declaration, and will also reflect intensive cooperation with other universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the area of former Yugoslavia, the European Union and worldwide.
The Faculty of Philosophy, the “beating heart” of the University of Sarajevo, will soon celebrate its seventieth birthday. This is a short period when compared to the history of prestigious universities abroad, but it is long enough if we take into account the accelerated pace of change in the humanities, social sciences and arts during this turbulent time in the contemporary history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the first four decades of this period, primarily thanks to the efforts of extraordinary professors and authors in the disciplines offered at our Faculty, our society caught up with current trends in Europe and the rest of the world at a pace that is practically unbelievable. This small and to a large extent still feudal environment had to catch up to the Enlightenment while at the same time meeting all the challenges brought about by the tidal waves of modernism. The Faculty of Philosophy succeeded in this regard because of an extraordinary vitality of spirit that grew with each new generation, constantly accommodating new intellectual trends and emanating a positive social energy, while clearing new paths for social development. It was precisely at a point when the accumulation of achievements over several decades had resulted in a high academic standard that promised even greater heights in the colourful worlds of the humanities, social sciences and arts, that the most brutal aggression and the long-running siege of Sarajevo—an event that marked world history at the end of the 20th century—suddenly put an end to this trajectory. Although physically displaced, because its building was on the front line, the Faculty of Philosophy continued to operate during this period—a period when Gilles Deleuze’s words “every act of creation is [...] an act of resistance” rang truer than they ever had before. This too is part of the history of this Faculty and we have every right to call this period a time of spiritual resistance to destruction and barbarism. In the years that followed, there was a need to repair the material damage suffered and to make up for the loss of staff at the Faculty. Despite all of the anachronistic social processes that accompanied the end of the war and that are still ongoing, despite the provincializing and closing up of a once completely open environment that plunged it back into the deep past it had just emerged from, faculty and students at the Faculty of Philosophy continue their mission of “opening up” and again claiming the space of freedom of thought—thought that has always existed only as critical thinking. We have to always keep in mind that opening means allowing something to enter your space but also allowing for something to be taken out of your space and presented to the world. And freedom of thought, like any other space of freedom, has to be accompanied by a dimension of ethical responsibility—responsibility to the present moment, as well as to the time and generations that are to come. These are the principles according to which we must define and create curricula in the upcoming period.