This presentation introduces the initial findings of my new research project on cultural debates about vaccines. The paper focuses on the debates surrounding the connection between the Pandemrix vaccine used in the mass vaccinations in Europe during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the reported increase in narcolepsy among vaccinated children especially in Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the UK.

This talk will reflect on the key themes of my book, Population Genetics and Belonging (Palgrave Macmillan 2018). I explore how population genetics has emerges as a means of enacting belonging in contemporary technoscientific societies. I will reflect on the contradictions that underlie the project of discovering genetic roots, focusing on the tensions between global, national, communal and personal genetic belonging. I argue that genetic roots are not discovered – they are enacted through a range of technological, discursive, affective and material practices.

European University at St. Petersburg was listed among the top 151-200 universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject for Sociology.

Following the steps of Elon Musk, groups of enthusiasts appear in Russia to explore space and master space technologies on an amateur basis. The amateurs attempt to create, test, and implement functioning artifacts that also containt performative elements.

In this work we consider a concept of sparse rationality (developed recently by Gabaix, 2014) as a selection tool in a model with multiple equilibria. Under sparse rationality paying attention to all possible variables is costly, and the agents could choose to over- or under-emphasize particular variables, even fully excluding some of them.

Yves Cabannes: University College London, Development Planning Unit, Emeritus. Participatory budgeting (PB) has been a major innovation in participatory governance worldwide, with more than 3,000 experiences listed across 40 countries. PB has also diversified over its 30 years, with many contemporary experiments (referred to as PBs) only tangentially related to the original project to “radically democratize democracy”.

The issue includes articles by Antonio Negri, Merab Mamardashvili, Evgeni Pavlov, Pascal Sévérac, Maria Chehonadskih, Andrey Maidansky, Evald Ilyenkov, Giuliano Vivaldi, Alex Levant, Artemy Magun, Keti Chukhrov, Alexei Penzin, Valery Podoroga.

European University at St. Petersburg has prepared an analytical report "How does Rosobrnadzor Work: Analysis of Open Data on Supervisory Activities in the Sphere of Higher Education" (download PDF in Russian). To what extent is the logic of actions of the supervisory agency consistent with the task of improving the quality of education and science?

EUSP Political Science and Sociology Department graduate Pavel Kononenko defended his dissertation "Vliianie glav sub"ektov Rossiiskoi Federatsii na evoliutsiiu institutov regional'noi i mestnoi vlasti [The Influence of the Heads of Constituent Territories of the Russian Federation on the Evolution of Regional and Local Power Institutions]" at the National Research University Higher School of Economics on January 29, 2018. His dissertation supervisor at HSE was Dr. Andrei Shcherbak.

EUSP Department of History alumna Daria Svirina has received the award of the German Historical Institute Moscow for the best graduation thesis. The work was titled "Germanness" in the Memoirs of Russian Germans Deported to the Krasnoyarsk Krai." Congratulations to Daria on her achievement!

The report will explore the encounter between psychoanalysis and philosophy at the point where the two seem to be the most incompatible. Sex (and psychoanalytic theory of sexuality) is something that philosophy usually doesn't know what to do with; sex is the question usually left out in even the most friendly philosophical appropriations of Lacan and his concepts. And ontology (as since of pure being) is something that psychoanalysis doesn't know what to do with, or is highly critical about.

Are Copycats Subversive?Strategy-31, the Russian Runs, the Immortal Regiment, and the Transformative Potential of Non-Hierarchical Movements

In this paper we recall the history of Jubilee debt cancellations, emphasizing what their social purpose was at that time. We note that it would not be possible to copy that procedure exactly nowadays, primarily because most debt/credit relationships are intermediated via financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies, etc., rather than by governments or wealthy families directly.

Central Banking: Past, Present and Future Financial crisis of 2008-2009 and unconventional measures of monetary policy following it raised a number of questions related to the role and functions a Central bank should play in an economy. How will the set of monetary policy tools changes? Which factors will influence monetary policy most in the future? What are the challenges Central banks should get ready to? These and other factors will be discussed by the roundtable participants.   Programme 16:00 – 16:50

EUSP graduate Evgenii Vladimirov's final thesis won the first prize at the Competition for Young Economists 2017 for the best graduation thesis in economics organized by the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy among graduates of economics schools and departments at higher educational institutions in Russia. More than 300 young economists who defended their theses in 2017 participated in the contest.

Report: Seminar "Islam and the City", European University of Saint Petersburg, 14 December 2017, originally posted on the website of The Netherlands In

The 19th meeting of the Friends and Trustees of the EUSP Endowment Fund was held at the Moscow City Golf Club on December 14. In addition to the management, trustees and professors of the university, the meeting was attended by representatives of Russian businesses, as well as public and political figures: presidential aide Andrei Fursenko, Governor of the Novgorod Oblast Andrei Nikitin, heads of the Boris Yeltsin Foundation Tatiana Yumasheva and Valentin Yumashev, chairman of the Coordination Council of the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO Alexander Voloshin.

EUSP Anthropology Department graduate Evgeniia Zakharova defended her dissertation "Muzhskie kvartal'nye soobshchestva Tbilisi: struktura i funktsionirovanie [Street-Corner Societies of Tbilisi: Structure and Functioning]" at the Dissertation Council of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Kunstkamera” on December 18, 2017. Evgeniia Zakharova was awarded the academic degree of candidate of sciences in history. The dissertation was written under the supervision of EUSP Professor Ilia Utekhin.

EUSP Political Science and Sociology Department graduate Ivan Grigoriev defended his dissertation "Transformatsiia institutov sudebnoi vlasti v protsesse konsolidatsii gibridnogo politicheskogo rezhima (na primere Konstitutsionnogo suda Rossiiskoi Federatsii) [Transformation of Judiciary Institutions in the Process of Consolidating a Hybrid Political Regime (on the Example of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation)]" at the National Research University Higher School of Economics on December 19, 2017.

EUSP Anthropology Department graduate Daria Dubovka defended her dissertation "Povsednevnye distsiplinarnye praktiki i religioznaia refleksiia v pravoslavnykh zhenskikh monastyriakh postsovetskoi Rossii: etnograficheskie aspekty [Everyday Disciplinary Practices and Religious Reflection in Orthodox Women's Monasteries of Post-Soviet Russia: Ethnographic Aspects]" at the Dissertation Council of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Kunstkamera” on December 18, 2017.