VDNKH

Growing numbers of people today are reluctant to describe their identity and social practices as either religious or secular, and prefer to portray themselves as "spiritual”.

On November 14th, the session “Experts in Sexuality: Scientific, Legal, Everyday, and Economic Versions of Sex” was held as part of the VDNH-9 conference. Participants discussed discourses of power that form knowledge about sexuality in contemporary society.

The session “The Energy of Nature: Toward a New Philosophy of the Environment,” organized by the EUSP’s Department of Political Sciences and Sociology, took place on November 13th as part of the 9th VDNH conference. In his introductory remarks, EUSP Department of Political Sciences and Sociology dean Artemy Magun provided an overview of the history of the concept of “energy.” Its meaning has changed fundamentally over time, as have many of its key concepts.

The section “Health and Care” took place on November 8th. Professors and students from the Gender Studies program gave presentations that laid out two primary directions of the program’s activities: the gendered aspects of health studies, and the study of care as a social institution and practice.

This section of the VDNH VIII conference was devoted to the topic of urban transportation. The panel’s inspirer and organizer Andrei Kuznetsov (PAST-Center, Tomsk State University/Volgograd State University) pointed out that a critical mass of research on urban transportation has appeared in Russia — we are possibly on the verge of a whole wave of academic texts on the “turn toward mobility.” Public transportation exists simultaneously as both a place and object of research, and is viewed with both social and technological criteria.

The section’s opening remarks were delivered by dean of the Department of Political Science and Sociology, Artemy Magun, who spoke about the history of right-wing Russian thought. Conservative ideology was born in Russia as an elite movement in the form of a defensive reaction to the French Revolution. It’s objective was mainly to preserve the status quo, with a strain of rather utopian romanticism in the spirit of “the past was better.”

The section “Migration: The Period of Limitations (The North and Immigrants) took place as part of the conference VDNH. This section was noteworthy as it presented the results of the work of two actively developing academic trends within the EUSP — social studies of the Arctic and Siberia, and the anthropological study of migration.

Conference program (pdf 107KB)

The 4th EUSP conference "The Exhibition of EUSP Academic Achievements". As a part of the conference Mary McAuley,  the Honorary Doctor of EUSP, gave a talk: “The Map isn’t of My Homeland: Thoughts of a Roving Scholar” Conference program (pdf 25KB)  

During the conference the Alexander Dallin Prize was awarded. The Alexander Dallin Prize, given for outstanding contribution to research development in the areas of history and society of Russia and the Soviet Union, was awarded to Professor Theodor Shanin. Conference programme (in Russian)