Summary

The 105th NZ issue opens with Alexander Kustarev’s regular column (Political Imaginary), where he analyses the prospects of the so-called “non-party democracy”. His essay is a response to the recent developments in the British political system, particularly the crisis of the Labour Party, its drift to the left and concerns about the future of the centrist electorate (bearing in mind that the Conservatives are also moving fast towards the edge of the political spectrum).

Kirill Kobrin (Case Study) relates a story linked to the origin of “historical anthropology” in the field of humanities. It concerns the famous French medieval historian Marc Bloch, the sociopolitical and cultural tradition that shaped his views, as well as their transformation under the influence of the First and Second World Wars.

An essay by Igor Smirnov, “Around One Per Cent” (Political Theory and Depolitisation Practices), offers a critical analysis of the theoretical “love of people” typical for some prominent thinkers of the last century. Taking this critical stance as a starting point, Smirnov interprets today's sociocultural and political situation in Russia. The “Russian” theme, with its historical imperial dimension, is further developed by the Polish researcher Magda Dolińska-Rydzek in her piece “The Ideological Myth of Antichrist and (Geo)Political Concepts in Contemporary Russia” (Culture of Politics).

Let us also mention two articles dealing with real stories set in Russia, today or in the recent years. In Morals and Mores, Oleg Lysenko writes about the outcome of the so-called Perm Cultural Project; an attempt to “modernise” the cultural life of one of the country's regions, launched as part of a policy trend (abandoned now) that only several years ago was so popular among the Presidential Administration of Russia. Some Moscow heavyweights were tasked with the “cultural modernisation” of Perm, which immediately led to a whole series of conflicts: both along the “metropolis -- region” line and within the regional opposition between “modernisers” and “conservatives”. NZ Interview touches upon one of Russia's most serious problems -- the state of its justice system -- in a conversation with the lawyer Irina Khrunova, whose title speaks for itself: “Russia's Criminal Justice has never Stopped Being Inquisitional”.

The Politics of Culture section features “Hare Time and Rabbit Time”, a piece by Vyacheslav Degtyarev. Starting from several well-known scenes in Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderland”, Degtyarev moves on to an essay by the Victorian and Edwardian author Samuel Butler and analyses the notions of the border between “the mechanical” and “the live” that characterised the era in question.

Mikhail Minakov (Culture of Politics) writes about the long-standing historico-cultural and philosophical issue: the idea of the so-called “eternal peace”. Minakov turns to Immanuel Kant, the author of the treatise “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (1795), focusing on the views of his predecessors, as well as on the Kantian concept per se.

Let’s move on to our topical sections. The first of them develops some of the themes covered in several recent issues of NZ: the question of “inventing a tradition” (see the relevant sections in issue 104 and in the celebratory issue combining numbers 100 and 101). This issue considers the notion of the “pizza effect”, introduced by the Austrian-born American anthropologist Agehananda Bharati. Bharati's own work is represented by an article on neo-Hindu movements in the West and their relationship to the religious practice in the country that gave the world Hinduism. Mark Sedgwick explores the idea of the “pizza effect” to analyse such a complex phenomenon as Islamist terrorism. In his well-founded piece, Sedgwick dismisses the view that sees the latest outbreak of Islamist fanaticism and religious terrorism as a “discharge of archaism” into “modernity”: in his opinion, terrorism, just like liberal democracy, is a product of “modernity”. Finally, Patrick Boumard offers a brief but in-depth analysis of links between the teachings of Carlos Castaneda and American anthropology of the same period. The teachings of the popular post-war mystic are considered alongside some neo-religious movements that took hold in the West over the past century.

The largest topical section, “Gender and Modernity”, considers some questions arising at the intersection of gender studies and cultural studies. The sociologist Olga Zdravomyslova surveys the notions of “girlhood” observed over the last 25 years. Ana Bento-Ribeiro narrows the issue down to the scope of post-Soviet Balkan cinema. Yulia Gradskaya focuses on a project that has resulted in a number of discussion groups for girls intended to facilitate their social and cultural adaptation through addressing personal identity problems. Lyubov Borusyak offers an article on “gender socialisation” in the context of the school curriculum in Russian Literature. Finally, Tatyana Bulakh studies different aspects of the shaping of girls' femininity manifest in the Ukrainian TV show “The Queen of the Ball”. The section is complemented by a piece centred on gender and contemporary cinema, in which Anna Shadrina analyses the transformation of the social and ethical role of the mother in late-Soviet and post-Soviet film and TV.

This NZ issue traditionally features the next instalment of Alexey Levinson's regular column Sociological Lyrics, as well as the New Books section.