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Vera Pozzi – A Year of Russian Intellectual Culture

Vera Pozzi – A Year of Russian Intellectual Culture

Ever since she completed her dissertation on ‘The role of the Ecclesiastical Academies in Reception of Kantianism in the Russian Empire’ in 2015, Vera Pozzi, a native of the northern Italian city of Lecco, has sought an opportunity to return to Russia to take her research to the next level. When she saw HSE’s call for international fellowships, she was drawn by the internationally oriented nature of the application and the opportunity to apply for a field like ‘History of Russian Intellectual Culture’, which aligns perfectly with her current research interests. In September, Vera will be enrolled in the Faculty of Humanities, School of Philosophy for one year under a post-doc fellowship.

Both an opportunity and a challenge

‘I am currently carrying on my research on Russian Orthodox thought, focusing on its contemporary achievements’, Vera said. ‘My interests fall in a circle of Moscow intellectuals that meant a great deal both in the 1980s and in the post-Soviet era. I am especially fascinated by their perspective, which is traditional and innovative at the same time. ‘That has a lot to say not only in Russia, but in contemporary Western intellectual culture as well. I see this research exploration as a “crossing the boundaries” challenge’.

Vera said she also sees the fellowship at HSE itself as both a challenge and an opportunity. ‘The opportunity is to improve my research in an international and dynamic context, which will give me the possibility of thinking and working continuously. On the other hand, the challenge is to translate my thoughts into effective instruments of communication, for example for papers for scientific journals and conferences and to receive feedback’, she said.

Surrounded by a new world

‘I lived in Moscow for more than a year during my M.A. and Ph.D.’, Vera said, stressing how difficult it was at the beginning but how over time people would help her. ‘Every day I met someone who helped me, with kindness and naturalness’.

Eventually, Vera realized that she was surrounded by a new world and that her goal was above all to know and understand it. Learning Russian plays a key part of that, as does her approach to reading.

‘I will always remember an exhortation from a Russian friend of mine: “The linguistic barrier lives only in your brain!” I can’t wait to improve my Russian again, and refresh it after quite a long period outside Russia!’ she said.

As for reading, she claims that the best book one can read about Moscow, or Russia, is Russia itself – watching the crowds of people that seem to flow from one metro station to another in the most modern face of Russia, or in the fields around a dacha in a small ancient village in the region of Tula. That said, when pressed to recommend a book, she doesn’t hesitate to name Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita as her favourite.

See also:

Digitization of Manuscripts: Months of Searching Can Turn into Hours and Even Minutes

HSE staff members are participating in the ‘Russian Cultural Heritage: Intellectual Analysis and Thematic Modeling of the Corpus of Handwritten Texts’ project. This is aimed at developing a methodology for the automated analysis of manuscripts, eliminating the need for manual processing. HSE News Service spoke to Ekaterina Boltunova, project manager, Professor, Head of the Laboratory 'Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective' at HSE Faculty of Humanities.

I’m Writing to You: What Postcards Can Tell Us

Not so long ago, postcards were a popular way to congratulate someone or send a message. Today the postcard can instead be described as an exotic means of communication, and a rich field for research. This is what encouraged the students and teachers from Fundamental and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities to embark on a flash mob project called ‘Send a Postcard to a Linguist’. Deputy Dean Timur Khusyainov of the Faculty of Humanities (Nizhny Novgorod), the curator of this flash mob and an experienced postcrosser, discusses whether postcards can be helpful for researchers and how they relate to digital humanities.

Poletaev Readings Consider New Turns In and Away from Theory in the Humanities

The Poletaev Readings, dedicated to the memory of Andrey Poletaev, one of the founders of the Poletaev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (Russian acronym — IGITI), is a major annual event of the Institute. The event was set to mark its 10th anniversary in 2020, but due to the pandemic, the anniversary forum has been postponed to 2021. In its place, the organizers have arranged the Poletaev Readings 9¾, which were held online. HSE News Service spoke with the event organizer and some of the participants.

What Does the Lens of Gender Reveal?

In June, faculty members from HSE’s School of Cultural Studies, the School of Philosophy, and the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities met with colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) and a Russian art historian to participate in a round table on the importance of gender studies in the humanities. The researchers discussed questions such as what historians, philosophers, and historians can achieve when approaching their fields of study from the standpoint of gender studies, and what the state of gender studies is in contemporary Russia and abroad.

‘In Russian the Word “Justice” Is Not Associated with the Word “War”’

Researchers from the Higher School of Economics have begun working with the research centre of the French Saint-Cyr Military Academy (École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr) on the moral and political issues of modern-day warfare. One part of this partnership was a conference devoted to just war theory and problems with combating terrorism. Below, Faculty of Humanities Professor Boris Kashnikov, also a participant of the conference, tells Scholar Viewpoint whether there can be justice in war and how scholars of the humanities are able to work together with the military.

Studying Medicine in the Humanities

At the most recent Andrey Poletayev Memorial Readings held by the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (IGITI), participants discussed the relationship between the natural sciences and the social sciences. HSE Professor Elena Vishlenkova tells us why scholars in the humanities are interested in the natural sciences and what contribution they can make to this field.

Berlin Scholar to Return to HSE for Series of Lectures on Literature

From September 25 till October 5 2016, Professor Dr Joachim Küpper of the Free University of Berlin will deliver a series of lectures on ‘Humanities and Conceptualization of Time at HSE Moscow. Joachim Küpper’s travel to HSE follows the university’s decision this past summer to join a key project run by the Dahlem Humanities Center at the Free University of Berlin called ‘The Thematic Network Principles of Cultural Dynamics’.

Russian and Italian Intellectuals Speak a Common Language

In late May Moscow hosted a Russian-Italian research conference marking the anniversary of the birth of Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce. The conference entitled 'The Legacy of Benedetto Croce in the 21st Century' was organized by and held at the HSE's Humanities Faculty in conjunction with the Italian Cultural Institute in Moscow.

HSE Expanding International Cooperation in the Humanities

In 2016, the Higher School of Economics will be the first Russian university to become an associate member of a large project being carried out by the Freie Universität Berlin’s Dahlem Humanities Center. The project, entitled the Thematic Network Principles of Cultural Dynamics, aims to strengthen international cooperation in humanities research. Its objective is to study the factors that affect the cultural processes in the history of humanity’s development.  

How Are Human Sciences and Sociology and the Humanities Related? The Debate Continues

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.