Although many KTU students are familiar with professor Šarūnas as a philosopher, he does not identify himself with a specific discipline. His scientific interests include philosophy, sociology, media and technology; however, the most important aspect of his research is interdisciplinarity. Saying no to strict categories has come up from the professor’s personal cultural experiences. Šarūnas has studied in New York, London and Damascus, while time in India has helped to develop critical thinking skills and played a key role in seeing some cultural aspects in a different light without categorizing them as “close” or “different”. Professor tries to bring these critical thinking skills to his students by introducing them to technological shifts and challenges of the 21st century.
You received your PhD in political science; however, the field of your scientific interests is much wider, including philosophy, media, sociology and many others. How does this relation between different disciplines comes in handy in practice?
Interdisciplinarity is one of the most important aspects of my research. I had never identified myself with one specific discipline and relationship with them was more formal. I look back to the times when I was an undergraduate student, and remember that I used to choose study modules from different disciplines as I was so interested in everything. It expands one’s views, which is impossible when studying a specific discipline. Because of this attitude, the range of possible ways to approach the research object has broadened. It has been useful for me, as a scholar, to look at the problem differently. Every discipline provides scientists with a “toolbox” to solve problems, which we call methodology. However, there is a limited number of tools in each “toolbox”, while an interdisciplinary scientist has a set of different tools from several disciplines and can improvise easily and freely, changing these tools as needed. I believe that to understand and analyse problems of the modern world, especially of the 21st century, the keyword, in this case, is interdisciplinarity.
You have travelled to different countries around the world, although India is the centre of your research. What was it about India that attracted you? How did you become interested in Indian culture? You also know Hindi and Bengali languages—why did you decide to learn them?
I got interested in India while studying at the university in London. Till then I was more interested in the Middle East. I would say this attraction to modern India is related to the influence of lectures and research of one professor. So, that’s how it all started and at the time I didn’t think it would become the axis of my research. Later I travelled to India and wrote my PhD thesis on representations of nationalism in Indian cinema. The outcome of my research done in India after my PhD – a monograph of the transformation of Indian cinema in 21st Century published by Oxford University Press. Learning languages has always been an integral part of studying Indian (or any other) culture. Language helps to “unlock” the culture and helps one get to know it even better. So, India is my home now.
You have emphasised the importance of understanding other cultures and trying to know and accept them. How do you manage to do that? Is it through language, art and literature? Or maybe it’s practice and other nuances?
Indeed, all these things can improve your knowledge and it will be the first step towards understanding and tolerance. Literature and cinema were these first steps for me. I try to see other cultures without any prior assumptions. I try to understand prevailing stereotypes and their history, which can explain how they arise. However, these are just theoretical things that are not always helpful. You have made a good point about the importance of practice. It has been useful for me that I studied in London and New York because these cities are full of cultural diversity. I have also studied for some time at the University of Damascus in Syria and spent a lot of time in India. I believe that all these experiences contributed to my point of view—this is why I don’t see any culture as “different” and don’t try to strictly demarcate any culture as “my own”. I think it’s not even possible to do so in the contemporary world. However, without my studies and practical experiences, it would’ve been not easy to reach this point. These experiences were the basis for the book which I am the co-author of and which is published by the publishing house “Brill” in the Netherlands.
You are a media researcher; however, you tend to take digitalisation with a pinch of salt. How do you manage to maintain an appropriate relationship between evaluating technological progress properly by studying the newest tendencies and keeping the distance from it?
Technologies are neither bad nor good in themselves. The problem is in those corporations that are developing technologies by exploiting human weaknesses to persuade people to use certain products. Knowing this is beneficial for the critical assessment of digitalisation. Let’s say, I understand that social media platforms are constructed to be addictive and contribute to negative behaviour patterns. I also understand that various platforms collect users’ data. Therefore, I use such social media platforms adequately and responsibly because I know the processes behind them.
You have said that the purpose of smart media platforms is to make life more convenient for people. What do you think about this adaptation in the bigger picture? Do you aim to make the subjects you teach convenient for students, giving them the knowledge on how to make other subjects more convenient? Or maybe the opposite? Do you aim that the knowledge you provide would encourage students to look at the modern world critically and not look for convenience?
Of course, your latter statement is true, although just partially. I aim to encourage critical thinking and understanding that the progress of technology is not only a positive phenomenon designed to help people. On one hand, technology companies promote this concept of comfort but on the other hand, this idea is only a part of a much wider discourse of technological progress. Even since the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries different kinds of intellectuals, like Mary Shelley—the author of “Frankenstein”—emphasise our potentially excessive faith and trust in technology. This is why we will enter the dystopia, instead of the utopia, that technological progress is supposed to lead to. To some extent, we are already in a dystopia; however, we still have a chance to escape. Indications of the dystopian world can be various—it can be the addiction to social media, collecting users’ data and using it for multiple purposes (let’s remember the American presidential election in 2016 and the Cambridge Analytica scandal), various cultural bubbles in which we end up because of social media algorithms, Chat GPT, etc. Indeed, technologies make our lives convenient but isn’t the price that we pay for this comfort too big? Completely rejecting all technologies and comfort that comes along is not an answer, of course. If it were, then I wouldn’t need to talk about this topic so much and KTU’s study program Digital Culture would be unnecessary. Critical thinking skills raise awareness which can later help develop technologies that are not directed against people. I believe this is the most important thing. Developing your critical thinking skills can be a very unpleasant experience, as you must turn inwards, critically evaluate your own assumptions. However, I think the result is worth it. My colleagues and I have tried to analyse these problems in the Indian context, exploring cinema and different content platforms. The outcome is the book, of which I am one of the co-authors. It was published last year by the publishing house Palgrave Macmillan.
Maybe you discovered a book, a movie or something else in recent years? Could you share it with other students and colleagues?
I read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies. Unfortunately, of late I don’t have much time for fiction, but I do “collect” books written by my favourite authors that I intend to read in the future. I would recommend a non-fictional book Smoke and Ashes: A Writer‘s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories by a Bengali author Amitav Ghosh. Maybe it’s not for everybody’s taste, but I enjoy books about colonial history, especially of eastern India, Bengal, and this book is exactly it. And as for films, I could pick several. For example, Aparajito by a Bengali director Anik Datta. It’s a biopic about a famous Bengali film director Satyajit Ray and the making of a specific movie of his. Another movie could be Lunana, by a Bhutanese director Pawo Choying Dorji. It’s a unique movie from an exceptional country, which I always love to come back to.
Do you have a dream or a goal of yours that has been long planned but is yet unaccomplished? Maybe you can share it?
I want to see the new Pawo Choying Dorji movie The Monk and the Gun (the professor is laughing). It‘s not long planned but I haven‘t done it yet.
What can‘t you imagine not doing in your free time?
I like spending my free time at the foothills of the Himalayas, in North Bengal. I try to go there on every vacation.
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