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.
Research & Expertise
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.
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 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 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.
