Summary

Although the 76th NZ issue is not in the strict sense a “thematic” one, there is a sort of a thread topic which is the title of the first section of this release: “Gender, Art, and Power”. This issue includes texts dealing with different aspects of feminism, and short researches on other issues of gender theory (and implementation of this theory), and interviews.

This NZ issue starts with an article “Gender Regulation” by Judith Butler, the American philosopher and modern “classic” of feminism. Her text sets some theoretical framework for further publications in this issue, having something in common not only with articles of the first section, but also with such, apparently, “factual” materials, as an interview with Fay Weldon, the British writer, known for her feministic views and speaking.

The first thematic section of this NZ issue starts with a curious mini-research of American culturologist Holt Parker, devoted to interpretations of the personality and texts by Sappho. The author comes to a conclusion that “the legend about Sappho” is the result of the non-reflected imposing of man’s homosexual model at the absence of any objective information about life of the Greek woman-poet. “Modern art” and prevalence of “man’s chauvinism and the superiority” is the topic of article by Nadya Plungyan. The problem of “art and gender” is considered further – on cinema example – in two texts of this section: articles by Pavel Romanov and Elena Yarskaya-Smirnova (“Body and Discrimi-nation: Physical Inability, Gender and Citizenship in Post-Soviet Cinema”) and by Evgeny Bershtein (“Melancholic Athletes by Alexander Sokurov”). This block of materials ends with the text by Elena Gapova: in particular, she analyzes gender aspect of a known plot related to erotic photo-calendar made by students of journalist faculty of the Moscow State University for Vladimir Putin.

The feministic aspect of gender problems is the topic of the Culture of Politics section. The text by Irina Kosterina deals with so important question for a post-war feminism as gender roles at housekeeping, and Olga Zdravomyslova analyzes the rethinking of the femininity concept in the girlhood studies. The comments to a gender theme of the 76th NZ issue are in Aleksey Levinson’s traditional column Sociological Lyrics.

In spring of 2011 NLO Publishing House issues the first volume of collected works of the prominent philosopher and writer Alexander Pyatigorsky (1929–2009). In the last years of his life Pyatigorsky was the constant author of NZ, and in the current issue – there is the block of materials devoted to his work and life. It starts with the article by Alexander Pyatigorsky himself “Bats of Philosophy (and about Liberalism)”, for the first time published in Russian. Culturologist Igor Smirnov argues on personality and role of Pyatigorsky in philosophy, and Alexander Filonenko shares his memoirs on the London meetings with him.

Traditional headings of NZ are devoted to various themes. In NZ Interview there is a conversation with Elena Nemirovskaya, the founder of the Moscow School of Political Studies. Occurrence in the XVIII century of one of the major national-cultural stereotypes is studied in the article by Andrey Rossomakhin and Vasily Uspensky “Clumsy Assistance to Catherine the Great”. The Politics of Culture section presents an essay by well-known American culturologist Susan Sontag (“Thesis about Beauty”) and the next research by Polina Barskova in series of her “blockade studies” (“Real Present: About Perception of Time in Blockade Leningrad”); we also recommend to pay attention to her review of the collection of blockade prose of Lidia Ginzburg. In authors’ headings there is an essay by Alexander Kustarev devoted to historical aspect of the issue of so-called “fair price”.

Two articles of this NZ issue are the comments to recent political events. Michael Urban and Ruslan Khestanov analyze the Annual message of the president Medvedev to the Federal Assembly in 2010, and political scientist Aleksey Makarkin sums up the year of presidency of Victor Yanukovich in Ukraine.

The 76th NZ issue ends with the Russian Intellectual Journals’ Review (by Vyacheslav Morozov) and the New Books section among which we should note the review of the recent German publications on history of left political groups and movements in Germany and France (Evgeny Kazakov).