22 August 2013. The brochure is illustrated with portraits (lomographies) of regular guests with which Yvette Sánchez, the President’s Delegate for Public Programmes, would like to thank auditors warmly for their loyalty over the years. Some of them have attended several lectures every semester. The wide range of 38 courses will provide them with ample opportunity to attend lectures again in Autumn Semester 2013.

History in various disciplines
In this semester, several disciplines will be homing in on history. Thus the faculty member of the cultural sciences will look at Christians in Islamic Syria and the autocratic aftereffects of the Russian democratisation process of the last two decades. Architectural history will be analysed in the mirror of the cinema, and the music lecture will be about the country legend Johnny Cash. The history of science will be brought to life with the help of the dispute among scholars from the 17th to the 21st centuries. Contemporary history will deal with life in Switzerland between the 19th century and the First World War. Furthermore, the Abbey Library will offer a lecture on the history of the city.

University in St.Gallen
The University’s bonds with the city and the region will become apparent in cooperation with various institutions and faculty members. Besides the Abbey Library, the St.Gallen Theatre will be represented at the HSG twice, once with a play and once with an opera, while the Eastern Swiss editors-in-chief will speak about digitalisation. In the field of society, current St.Gallen research on the gender debate will be presented. In addition, some lectures will take place in the middle of town: this semester, lectures will for the first time be held in the new HSG lecture rooms near the station, in Tellstrasse 2. Further venues in town will be the post office building by the station, St.Katharinen and the Restaurant Gentile. The "HSG in the region" series will be continued on the topic of "Corruption" in Romanshorn Cantonal School.

A wide range of diverse topics
Topics of literary criticism will be offered by HSG faculty members in several languages: in German, French, English, Italian and Spanish. Faculty members from the disciplines of theology and psychology will comment on the search for God and speak about ways out of life crises. The HSG’s core subjects will also be represented several times this semester, for instance with the traditional lecture series of "Economics and law explained in simple terms".

Change in the programme directorship
With this programme, Prof. Yvette Sánchez, who has been in charge of the HSG’s public programmes, will be saying good-bye to the auditors and will hand over responsibility for the programmes to her successor, Prof. Caspar Hirschi.