BALTIC STUDENT CONFERENCE BRIDGES IN THE BALTICS
Rīga 2025
The 12th Baltic Student Conference “Bridges in the Baltics” was organized by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Latvia and took place in on October 9–10, 2025.
The aim of the conference is to bring together students whose studies and research are related to the languages and cultures of the three Baltic States. It offers an opportunity to present academic work, exchange ideas with fellow students from other universities and countries, and establish new contacts across the region and beyond
The conference hosted 48 students from 15 universities and 8 countries. In addition to student presentations, 3 plenary lectures were held by guest speakers.
The conference welcomed everyone who is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD degree at any university in the Baltic States or elsewhere to submit proposals on any of the following aspects of the Baltic countries:
- language and literature;
- history, folklore and culture;
- arts, film and music;
- modern technology and innovation in the Baltic societies;
- political and social developments in the Baltic region.
PROGRAM (updated October 7)
ABSTRACTS (Updated October 7)
PLENARY SPEAKERS
Dr. philol. ANDRA KALNAČA. DATABASE OF LATVIAN MORPHEMES AND DERIVATIONAL MODELS: FROM IDEAS TO RESULTS
Andra Kalnača is a tenured professor in Latvian linguistics at the Department of Latvian and Baltic Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia (Riga). Her research interests include morphology, morphosyntax, morphemics and morphophonology, functional grammar, modality, and evidentiality. Her main work focuses on the Latvian grammar and grammatical theory.
She is the author of several monographs and edited volumes, including “Morfēmika un morfonoloģija” (2004), “Morfoloģijas stilistika” (2011), “A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar” (2014), “Latvian Grammar” (2021; with Ilze Lokmane), and “Insights into the Baltic and Finnic Languages. Contacts, Comparisons and Changes” (2022; eds. Helle Metslang, Miina Norvik, Andra Kalnača). Andra Kalnača is the editor-in-chief of the journal “Valoda: nozīme un forma / Language: Meaning and Form”.
Dr. phil. VILIUS DRANSEIKA. IN DEFENSE OF FORGETTING
Vilius Dranseika is a philosopher at Jagiellonian University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Ethics in Kraków, Poland. His research focuses on the psychological underpinnings of philosophical concepts and theories. Recently, the main themes of his work have been personal identity, death, and memory. He is also interested in computational approaches – ranging from natural language processing to citation analysis – applied to philosophy, including its history.
JAYDE WILL. Trends in Literary Translation in the Baltic Countries 2015-2025
Jayde Will is a literary agent working for the Latvian Literature Platform, which promotes authors from Latvia. In addition, he is a literary translator working from Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, and Latgalian, and has translated close to 30 books ranging from academic works on history to novels and poetry. He received the 2020 Silver Ink Translation Award for Best Translation from Latvian into a Foreign Language for his translation of Alberts Bels’s novel Insomnia (Parthian Press, 2020), and the 2024 Ostana Prize for Translation for his work promoting Latgalian literature.
