The aim of this paper is to try to summarize and problematize, and then to offer some theses that were discussed at the Scientific Meeting entitled Engaged Art. The gathering was held on April 18, 2024, in the premises of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. Eighteen speakers participated in this Conference. Approaches to this topic were interdisciplinary (fine art, novel, poetry, theatre, film, drama, etc.), historically different (contemporary, ancient Greece, 19th century, etc.), so the following questions were highlighted, which this text underlines: what is engaged art today anyway?, is art in itself already engaged or is there really a special genre of "engagement"?, is engaged art connected to ideology, and if so, in what way!? These and similar questions are the subject of this work.

The Institute for Literary and Cultural Studies of the NIRSA Center of the University of Sarajevo – Faculty of Philosophy, and the Department of Comparative Literature and Information Sciences, University of Sarajevo – Faculty of Philosophy, organized on 19 April 2024 an international scientific conference "Engaged Art", held at the University of Sarajevo – Faculty of Philosophy. Seventeen authors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro participated in this scientific conference. We are pleased to publish nine scientific papers that were developed after presentations at this gathering.

This paper aims to show the specific structure of the design of Uzunović's novel I Am, which on the one hand inherits a postmodern approach to the structure, and on the other hand, succeeds in concealing the relativism of the organization of the world with a zone of emotions. Genre-wise, Uzunović's novel fits in the novel book genre, in which the bildungsroman is enriched with a cultural image of a travelogue, that is, a chronotope of its events. For this reason, in this novel, the questioning of the identity of his hero concerning what was offered to him by the place and time of his birth will come to the fore, then the questioning of the subject's alienation in the zone of the Other, from which again a fragmented writing style will emerge, which, finally, will have its generalization of profits based on the phenomenon of universal sympathy.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehend the complex ethical picture of Dostoevsky through his great novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Notes from Underground, and The Brothers Karamazov. Along with the numerous topics that Dostoevsky tackles in his novels, which are directly related to the history of European ethics, his idea of absolute humanism – thymos – remains evident in his entire work. In that sense, this paper will try to provide answers as to how Dostoevsky’s work relates to some great philosophers and their ethical systems, what kind of relationship it has with Christian morality, and finally, how it relates to secular humanist ethics. In order to tackle different and conflicting ideas, this paper will show that Dostoevsky’s opus must be read with the awareness that two opposite views on the same subject do not imply reality decomposition, but a statement about its essence, and obvious truth.

Recent Bosnian criticism, directly or indirectly, deals with the issue of classification and systematization of Tvrtko Kulenović's literary work, which due to its specificity can hardly be reduced to usual conventions. This paper gives an overview of the very specificity of that, above all, polyvalent literary work, which encompasses travelogues, plays (dramas), essays and novels – genres that sometimes act separately, and sometimes represent a habitus, i.e. a unique textual universe of Tvrtko Kulenović.

Roman Braća Karamazovi F. M. Dostojevskog sa pitanjima koje postavlja – timotika čovjeka – ništa nije izgubio od svoje aktuelnosti. Ovaj rad je pokušaj da se savremenom čovjeku približe teme sa kojima se tzv. prva pitanja svode na egzistencijalna pitanja, metafizika na etiku. Dostojevski za čitatelje, putem svojih junaka, iznosi misli o povijesti življenja čovjeka na zemlji i njegovoj patnji, o slobodi i vjeri, vlasti i tajni, o autoritetu i moralu, te o samoj čovjekovoj prirodi. Zašto postoji zlo u svijetu, zašto postoji patnja?, da li čovjek, uopšte, može voljeti drugog čovjeka, može li voljeti „bez Boga“, je li u stanju „djelotvorno voljeti“, i može li, na koncu, Thanatos biti inkorporiran u Eros!? – pitanja su koja opsjedaju junake Dostojevskog. Dostojevski je u ovom romanu prikazao sukob nekoliko svjetova koji je u konačnici nerazrješiv bilo kakvim sistemom binarnih opozicija. Pojedinačni principi Ivana ili Zosime, Krista ili Velikog Inkvizitora, Aljoše ili Smerdjakova, uz svjetove svih drugih likova, čitamo kao jedan univerzum suprotnosti i, u isto vrijeme, neke čudne veze među svim tim svjetovima koji se, čini se, ne mogu do kraja razumski dokučiti. Stoga, dva oprečna pogleda na jednu te istu stvar ovdje ne znače raslojavanje stvarnosti, nego znače govor o njenoj suštini, njenoj očiglednoj istini.

Tema ovog rada je Ecov roman Otok prethodnoga dana koji u sebi, na vrlo specifičan način, tematizira dvije krize moderne (manirizam i postmodernu). Prva je vidljiva kroz razvoj same fabule romana – radnja je smještena u vrijeme prve velike naučne revolucije, a druga je vidljiva kroz književne postupke koji su rezultat obilježja postmodernog romana. Na taj način, Ecov hibridni roman, putem različitih tehnika i postupaka (autoreferencijalnost, ironija, tekstualne igre, mogući svjetovi) dekonstruira sliku moderne (jedinstveno shvaćanje historije, cjelovitosti svijeta, subjekta usredsređenog u sebe) na dva nivoa – sadržajnom (17. stoljeće) i formalnom (20. stoljeće).