In the 1990s, EU governments begun a shift towards Activation Policies to deal with large numbers of people dependent on welfare benefits. The move took place within the framework of a major reform of the Welfare State, from welfare to work. Underscoring these developments there was a taken for granted ideology called neoliberalism. It consisted of a broad set of contradictory policies, though they had a common goal: profits first. Regarding the self, the hallmarks of neoliberalism were entrepreneurship, independence, and self-responsibility.

March, 13th (14:10 – 17:20), and March, 15 (14:10 – 17:20). Please contact Marina Kondrashova for additional course resources mkondrashova@eu.spb.ru. Course overview

On September 14th-16th the Department of Anthropology at the European University at Saint-Petersburg held an interdisciplinary seminar for young scholars entitled “Theoretic-Methodological Approaches to the Study of Collective Social Memory and Individual Construction of Identity: A Dialogue between Russian and German Schools of Thought”. This seminar served as a continuation of another one which took place in November 2015 at Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz) entitled “Russian Culture - German Culture. The Concept of National Identity in Modern Humanitarian and Social Sciences”.

Beginning in 1958 and until the late 1980s, students from the so-called “developing countries” studied in Soviet universities—in Moscow and Leningrad, as well as in Tashkent and Kharkov. These students benefited from the Soviet government’s ambitions to expand its influence in the new independent post-colonial states, but also experienced difficulties in everyday life in Soviet society.

On November 14th, as part of the VDNH-9 conference, the “Arctic Social Sciences” and “Migration Studies” research groups held a session titled “Infrastructure, Migration and Mobility in the North: Das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein?” The session was devoted to the issues of mutual influence and adaptation of infrastructures and societies of different levels. The central discussion question was the following: how are infrastructures used and modified in accordance with the needs and interests of northern communities? This issue was examined in terms of migration and mobility in the North.

16 December at 18.00 in the Golden Hall, Anika Walke (Washington University in St. Louis) will present at a joint meeting of the interdisciplinary seminar “Eurasia without Borders” and the Anthropology Department’s seminar “Transnationalism and Migration Studies.” The presentation will be in English, followed by discussion in Russian and English.

On October 14 at the European University, St. Petersburg held the “Oriental” research seminar hosted by TAIF Professorship in the History of the Muslim Peoples of Russia in collaboration with the seminar on the Anthropology of Religion.

From March 26th until March 28th, the EUSP’s Department of Anthropology hosted the fourth annual conference “Anthropology, Folkloristics, Sociolinguistics”.

Saskia Sassen works in the fields of globalization, international migration and urban studies. She is the author of more than ten books, the most well-known being The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo, which was first published in 1991 and republished ten years later as a new edition. In her research, Sassen posits the concept of an economy based on the concept of a global city: the contemporary global economy can be conceived of as a network of trade and finance chains whose links are composed of large (global) cities.

Program (in Russian) 

 

 

Presentation of two new monographs published in Studia Ethnologica series Ekaterina Melnikova. IMAGINARY BOOK. Essays on the History of Folklore about Books and Reading in Russia. Alexandre Lvov. PLOUGH and PENTATEUCH: Russian Judaisers as a Textual community.  

Seminar program (pdf 199KB) 

Maksim Krongauz is a Doctor of Philology, professor, Head of the Russian Language Department, and Director (and one of the founders) of the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian State University for the Humanities. He graduated from the Philology Department of Moscow State University. He specializes in problems of the semiotics of language and culture, Russian grammar, theories of dialogue, political discourse, and humor. In recent years he has concentrated on changes in contemporary Russian language.

In the past few years as a part of the ethnology of religion, everyone has been talking more frequently about the need to create an "anthropology of secularism," which would teach contemporary secularism as an ideology and a political practice. To Western academics, secularism is usually perceived as an aspect of political liberalism, and the aim of its examination is as a criticism of liberal ideas about the privatization of religion and the world outlook of a neutral state.

Professor Markus Kaiser studies migration in modern Europe and Asia, as well as various cultural, social, and economic processes in multicultural societies. He is the author of several publications in these and related fields, including the monograph “Eurasia in the Making: Revival of the Silk Road. A Study on Cross-border Trade and Markets in Contemporary Uzbekistan” (Bielefeld University, 1999).

Routledge published a book edited by Albert Baiburin, Catriona Kelly, and Nikolai Vakhtin. Graduates of the EUSP Anthropology Department are present among the authors.