Ilya Matveev reflects on the Russian economic crisis



On April 4, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Ilya Matveev from the European University in St. Petersburg for a lecture titled “Austerity and nationalist mobilization: reflections on the Russian crisis.” Rossen Djagalov, Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU, introduced Matveev by highlighting his multiple contributions to Russia’s intellectual and social life. Matveev is the editor of OpenLeft.Ru, a member of the PS Lab research group, a lecturer in political theory at the North-West Institute of Management (Petersburg), and an activist in the University Solidarity trade union.

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Igor Pilshchikov discusses the legacy of Russian Formalism



On March 31, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Igor Pilshchikov, lead researcher at the Institute for World Culture at Lomonosov Moscow State University and a senior researcher at Tallinn University, to present a paper entitled “The Legacy of Russian Formalism and Contemporary Humanities.” Pilshchikov discussed the lack of methodological unity and a singular paradigm in the Russian Formalist school, – a group of literary critics operating from the 1910s to the 1930s – due to the diversity of approaches and ideas formulated by its two circles. One circle was based in St. Petersburg and was known as the OPOYAZ. The second was the Moscow Linguistic Circle (MLC), which set a significant precedent for further 20th century scholarship in linguistics and literary theory, Pilshchikov said. Pilshchikov also noted that the MLC’s legacy is largely underestimated, mainly because unlike the OPOYAZ they hardly published any of their works. It wasn’t until recently that their works were published and closely scrutinized.

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Darra Goldstein brings back to life Yuri Lotman’s High Society Dinners



On Nov. 13, 2014, the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at NYU hosted “Yuri Lotman Does High Society,” a seminar featuring Darra Goldstein, Professor of Russian at Williams College and Founding Editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture. The event, part of the Feast and Famine series, was co-sponsored by the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and the Steinhardt Food Studies Program.

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Oleg Kharkhordin speaks on rules of order in Russian society



On October 15, 2014, the Jordan Center welcomed Oleg Kharkhordin with a lecture entitled “A Point of Order! The Troubled Travels of Robert’s Rules of Order from America to Russia, or How Russians Tried to Invent Order Themselves.” Oleg Kharkhordin is a political sociologist and the the Rector of the European University of St. Petersburg, which, as Director Yanni Kotsonis stressed in his introduction, is an institution with a remarkably high concentration of brain power and quality.

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