Research & Expertise

The paper introduces a metaphor 'digital porosity' aiming to grasp the nonuniformity, limitations and gaps of digital connectivity (technological, material, spatial, social, etc.) in urban spaces. Being used as a research guidance, the metaphor raises the questions what digital porosity is? how is it produced? how is it changing? Based on the research of internet connectedness and practices of Internet use in the subways of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the paper states that the extension of the Internet zone and the inclusion of new urban spaces do not automatically increase the connectivity of the city, since the latter depends not only on the availability or the quality of internet communication, but also on the intentions and skills of the internet users and their ideas about the comfort and the possibility of internet connection, the role of the subway ride in the broader planning horizons.

On April 20, 2016, Danielle Jacquart, dean and professor of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudies (Paris), reported on the issue called Animated Body in Medieval Medical Thought.

The Article by Natalia Samutina entitled "Emotional Landscapes of Reading: Fan Fiction in the Context of Contemporary Reading Practices" was published in International Journal of Cultural Studies.

From November 12th – 14th, 2015, a workshop on ‘Historical and Cultural Narratives. Rivalries and Entanglements in Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus)’ took place at the University of Tübingen. The event attracted researchers from Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The workshop opened on November 12 with lectures by Irina Savelieva, IGITI Director, on ‘Professional History and Public History: Goals and Means of Historical Narratives’ and Tamara Hundorova, Professor of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, on 'Generations in Contemporary Ukrainian Literature’. Alexander Makhov prepared a report about the event.

The Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (IGITI) held an international conference on 29-30 October 2015 on ‘Biological Concepts, Models, and Metaphors in Social and Human Sciences’. For two days, Russian, European and American researchers discussed the relations between social sciences and the humanities and various life sciences. This topic arises largely in the light of the recent boom in genetics, medicine and biology which have led academics to reconsider previous concepts of boundaries and connections between disciplines.

The Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (IGITI) held an international conference on 29-30 October 2015 on ‘Biological Concepts, Models, and Metaphors in Social and Human Sciences’.

The review by Oleg Morozov, Research Assistant at the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities was published in the second issue of the journal ‘Kasvatus & Aika’.

The article by Irina Savelieva, Director of the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities was published in the Chinese journal ‘Social Science Front’.

The working paper ‘Images of the Past in British Popular Music of the 1960s: ‘Relevant History’ of the Kinks’ by Alexandra Kolesnik, Research Assistant at the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities has been published. The author studies the historical imagery of British popular music in the1960s drawing on the example of the rock band ‘The Kinks’. Their interest in English folklore, musical and cultural traditions, widely known to the national audience, became an original reinterpretation of relevant events in England of the 1960s, and national history as a whole.

On  April 20 Jay M. Winter, Professor of History at Yale University spoke on ‘Shell Shock in the First World War and after’. The event was organized by Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities.