Vol. 1 No. 6 (2015): 6th Edition

The sixth issue of estrema continues to focus on the Humanities and particularly on its commitment to the young scholars in this area. Different perspectives about the ambiguous status of the Humanities have, in the last few years, inflamed discussions and critical debates about the area’s long-expected crisis and potential decline.  Whether they are a luxury or not, the study of philosophical ideas, the critical inquiry of history, as well as the analysis of aesthetic forms — not forgetting that these are not only vehicles for memory but memory in itself — have revealed themselves as fundamental to the development of moral awareness and to the growth of social and political responsibility, as pointed out by George Steiner in his 1999 essay “The Humanities — At Twilight?”.

This issue of estrema was brought to completion with a new editorial board and a team of researchers fully committed to the goal of publishing the work of students like ourselves. Moving forward, we intend to continue broadening the scope of our magazine and to reach researchers from different universities around the world. In forthcoming issues we will add a section for reviews, and occasional thematic numbers can be expected. A word of gratitude is in order for the evaluators who have collaborated with estrema, for their help in improving the quality standards that best serve both the researchers that wish to publish with us, as well as those looking for what new is being done in Humanities.

It goes without saying that our identity as a non-thematic magazine remains, as well as our aim of continuing to be a space “for the survival of values and texts in dark times and within the individual”[2] in a period overshadowed by political uncertainty and an unprecedented European humanitarian crisis.

1 Cf. George Steiner (1999, 21), in PN Review 25(4): 18-24.

2 Cf. George Steiner (1999, 21), in PN Review 25(4): 18-24.