INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURAL RESEARCH

Anna SOLOV'EVA

Russia, Arkhangelsk.
Northern (Arctic) Federal University (NArFU).
Department of Culture and Religious Studies.
Dr., Professor.

“Ethnic Subculture”: The Conceptualization of Ethnicity in the Context of Cultural Differences

The paper represents the categories of “ethnicity” and “subculture” as reflecting the theoretical traditions of social constructivism and poststructuralism. The categories’ content reflects the basis for Western ethnocultural discourse polarization “I (we, our) / The Other”. It determines similarities in their application to the analysis of contemporary ethnic group differences.
The concept “ethnic subculture” demonstrates its heuristic potential for the realization of antiessentialist and poststructuralist cultural research programs, which stress the multiplicity and ambivalence of an individual social position in the postindustrial world. The critical approaches to cultural difference analysis develop as a result of the deconstruction of monolithic and static objectified interpretation of the “ethnic culture” category, and also in the process of individual realization and demonstration of the ethnocultural differences’ creative and dynamic natures.
The specific character of the actualization of individual membership in ethnic subcultures reflects the composition (and its’ demonstration) of the number of ethnic, racial, class, territorial, gender and other features. These features represent the “border” and “transitional” character of subcultural subjects’ social position within the contexts of polarized and contradictory meanings, ‘between” the dominant and deviant interpretations of ethnic values.
The identification and analysis of the “ethnicity and culture” discourse is a way to investigate the multitudinous subcultures’ reactions regarding outside factors (ethnic, racial, gender and national differences, represented in public discourse). The idea of the “double nature” of ethnic subcultures presupposes their analysis as the combination of autonomy and domination, culture and structure values. It provides an opportunity to identify historical and social situations, where ethnicity may be understood as a form of individual and group autonomy.

Key words: globalization, cultural differences, ethnicity, subculture, critical analysis theory, cultural studies, multiculturalism, media, postmodernity, poststructuralism

Larisa MORINA

Russia, St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philosophy.
Department of Cultural Studies, PhD in Philosophy, Senior Lecturer.

Conceptualization of the Alien from the aspect of the problem of multiculturalism

The article is devoted to the research of paradigmatic principles in the conceptualization of the Alien from the aspect of the problem of multiculturalism. It analyzes two opposing versions of the social and cultural being (Modern and Traditionalist) in contemporarymulticultural society, and discusses the possibility of their coexistence (dialogue), with regard to their basic characteristics. The article presents an attempt to use the method of paradigmatic analysis for solving specific problems of multicultural interaction.

Key words: multiculturalism, conceptualization of the Alien, paradigm, other, alien, self, own, different, modern, tradition, dialogue

Vitaliy DARENSKIY

Ukraine, Kiev.
National Academy of Personnel Management / Center of Arts and Culture. Department of Theory аnd History of Culture.
PhD, Seigneur Lecturer.

The Urgency of ‘Alien’: On the Concurrent Structure of Cultural Identity

The author of this article considers the principles of a dialog between different cultural actors as a special type of interaction, which includes the figure of the “alien” or “other”. The concept of “dialog” is considered to be the fundamental principle of the relation between different cultural actors, from “alien” to “alien”. The author considers the specifics of the dialogical identity of cultural actors as a phenomenon related to their “self-differentiation”. In a dialog with “alien”, as a type of interaction, eachactor retains his own self-identification, but this dialog also enriches each and every one of them. The concept of “dialog” makes it possible to discover hidden dimensions of human existence and the intricacies of their cultural forms of being. Due to the different culture of their “alien”, cultural actors can self-actualize as individuals.

Key words: alien, culture identity, cultural actors, dialogue, interaction, self-differentiation, self-actualization, person, concurrent, structure

Oksana DOVGOPOLOVA

Ukraine, Odessa.
Odessa National University, in memory of I. I. Mechnikov.
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Natural Sciences.
PhD in Philosophy, Professor.

Ambivalence as characteristic of Alien Image

The nature of the Alien Image in culture is discussed in this article. The author reveals the significance of ambivalent characteristics of the Alien Image in the investigations of historical forms of mastered spaces of life. The phenomena of the human body’s ambivalence and “twinkling” ambivalence are described in the text.

Key words: alien, alien’s image, ambivalence

Irina PAKHOLOVA

Russia, Samara.
Samara State University, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities.
Assistant Professor, PhD in Philosophy.

Hospitality of unrequited gift as a sociocultural experience of a "strange/alien"

In this article, the principle of the unrequited gift, its value for the sociocultural experience of the “strange/alien”, as an example of hospitality is considered. The term unrequited gift is not a well-known term, but the concept is mentioned by such authors as G. Bataille, E. Levinas, J. Derrida, S. Zizek, etc. Unlike the concept of the gift, mentioned in the studies of M. Moss, the unrequited gift is not used to establish exchange relationships, but to terminate exchange relationships. Hospitality, expressed through the principle of the unrequited gift, shows a specific “strange/alien”relationship, the essence of which expresses the notion that there is no organized community with “strange/alien” that allows “strange/alien” to remain “strange/alien”. In the social-cultural space, behaving according to the principle of the unrequited gift provides an opportunity to maintain clear borders with the “strange/alien”.

Key words: gift, hospitality, exchange, strange/alien, phenomenon, delay, community, experience, guest, gesture, liturgy, love, sacrifice, other

Lev YAKOVLEV

Russia, Saratov.
P. A. Stolypin Volga Region Academy of Public Administration.
The Department of sociology, social policy and regional history.
PhD in sociological sciences, professor.

Demarcation of living space: The paradigm of design against the binary opposition of “our own vs. the alien”

Operational distinctions between “us vs. them” are considered in the context of the evolution of sociality, as having a long-term traditional basis and have now taken on radical new forms. Contemporary expressions of intolerance towards “outsiders” are implemented in the social and cultural space, rather than in everyday behavior. In the political space of binary opposition “our own vs. the alien” is a source of marginalized communities, hegemony, aggression, and ultimately genocide. Globalization enables corporations to directly realize their subjectivity without the mediation of territorial states. Instead of design differences — expressed by the isolation of local communities — there is now functional design, implemented through the strategy of brand promotion. A brand serves as a tool that designsthe living space, and compels the differentiation of “us vs. them”. However, the brand, by its very nature, can’t be an instrument of complete control of human rights. The space of individual freedom is indeed expanding.

Key words: socio-cultural space, the operations of distinction, identity, globalization, brand, individual freedom

Francisca FOORTAI

Russia, St. Petersburg.
Leningrad State University n. a. A. S. Pushkin.
PhD in Art History, Associate Professor.

Trash (garbage, punk) — from Ruins to Dump: Axiological Outlooks of Modern Culture

The life of a private person or a social organism is from the beginning accompanied by trash. Anything that has lost its place, that is built emerging into space or that falls from the sky (as well as our living surroundings and even being itself), anything to which we become indifferent, becomes trash.
All a culture’s trash can, according to its origins, be classified like this: in the first group we include the oldest forms of trash — foodstuff waste. This, which we may call temporal trash, includes everything that has lost or exhausted its functional existence due to the destruction of the object or because its condition doesn’t allow it to continue its former functions: the thing ceased to be as such; it lost its organic essence.
To the second group we may assign technological trash. So far as culture is merely one dimension of nature, the productive activity of man is such that the primary volume of available material before the beginning of productive human activity is more than the volume of produced objects. The source of the entire cultural environment is nature, wherein there is neither an awareness of time nor an idea of over-indulgence or excess. Trash as a phenomenon is first of all defined by its human origins, its temporality, and as a process of devaluation. Trash is a consequence of culture, and in this respect it is inevitable and conforms to the laws of culture. Most things produced in the cultures of hand technologies were unique in esthetic and artistic respects, which are what provided them a stable value for a long time.
Another factor that provided valorization of production in manual technologies was their orientation to quality (for the essence of a thing – for its lived practicality, referred to as necessity or inevitability in the narrow communicative space, for its place in the rhythmical order of everyday life).
After the transition from hand to machine technologies the culture faced the problem of waste in other social fields. First, the quantity of trash dramatically increased. An important component of trash — packaging and shipping material — was added to the traditional temporal kind of waste. While previously the waste of man’s cultural activity was ecological and could be utilized as the result of natural biological cycles, with the development of machine technologies many classes of waste can no longer be reprocessed by natural processes or absorbed back into nature. As a result the world began to face the problem of waste storage.
In the conditions of machine production trash is everything that retains its functionality but, due to the tempo and scale of social demands, has become outdated and no longer relevant.
In recent decades the variety of trash has given rise to different social and cultural phenomenon that are characterized not so much by the use of different types of trash as by the forms and purposes of its utilization.
Garbage is an object’s and a thing’s trash, unattractive and smelling of decomposition. Nevertheless, the concept of such trash-reality (garbage) becomes attractive and attains certain popularity in the aesthetic of mass-culture. Punk means trash, rotten stuff, and everything that becomes inappropriate (nonsense, rubbish, uselessness).
Intellectual waste also acquired the name trash. In English it means rubbish, nonsense or bad literature or bad artistic work. For the last thirty years trash has evolved from an avant-garde trend into a leading trend in literature and the artistic field of mass culture. More often trash becomes not only the reconstruction of a latrine or other unnoticed material, but it represents an artistic or parodic variant of some high culture (i.e. expensive, talented) example. Early in the XXI century trash in all its forms has been taken up by culture and included in its production.
In such a context the problem of waste can be taken as a regular figuration and/or image of time, requiring the stimulation of cultural will. On the other hand the increase in the mass of trash of different origins is already stimulating the will of the culture and represents it as an effective factor of the liberation (survival) of the human and the human individual reduced by mass practices to mechanism.

Key words: garbage, mass culture, punk, trash, machine industry, disvaluation, social destruction

Konstantin PIGROV

Russia, St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philosophy.
Head of the Department of Social Philosophy, PhD in Philosophy.

The Basis of Culture: Irony and Love Dimensions

In this article, the author shows the basic incommensurability of Man and Culture, the Universe and God. This incommensurability becomes the basis for man’s irony towards both himself and his own Culture. However, Culture cannot be limited by this powerless irony. The Love dimension necessarily eliminates irony, making human life, per se, possible. This article shows that Love of cultural creations as well as Love for the process of creation becomes the fundamental basis of human existence.

Key words: culture, irony, tragic irony, love, work, love to work, jealousy, incommensurability, Universe, God, cultural creation

Steven SHANKMAN

USA, Oregon.
University of Oregon.
UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies, Interreligious Dialogue, and Peace. Professor of English and Classics and Director of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue.

Rembrandt’s The Sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham’s Suspended Knife, and the Face of the Other

In literary and cultural studies today, the term “the Other” appears to have largely lost its moorings in the primacy of the intersubjective encounter, focusing rather on the social construction of the Other. For Emmanuel Levinas, in contrast, the Other is precisely that which eludes construction and categorization. In a study that ranges from literature of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America, Steven Shankman tests Levinas’s ideas by reading literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian orbit for figurations equivalent to Levinas’s notion of the Other. He places ethics at the center of intercultural — or, in his words, “transcultural” — comparative literature. In contemporary literary and cultural studies, it is often assumed that culture has the last word. However, as Levinas insists — and as Shankman argues throughout his book — it is ethics that is the “presupposition of all Culture,” that is situated “before Culture.” "Other Others" begins and ends with a meditation on Rembrandt's "The Sacrifice of Isaac," a painting that hangs in the Rembrandt gallery in the Hermitage. With the kind permission of SUNY Press, we present that meditation to the readers of this journal. In "Other Others," Professor Shankman opens himself to those unexpected moments that record or effect the transcendence of the ego of the writer and/or the reader in the direction of the Other, moments analogous to Rembrandt’s depiction of the stunned face of Abraham.

Key words: alterity, the sacred, the holy, transcendence, the face

Tatiana ARTEMYEVA

Russia, St. Peresburg.
Herzen University, Department of Theory and History of Culture.
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Helsinki University.
Professor, Dr., Research Director.

M. M. Shcherbatov and A. I. Herzen: The Creation of an Intellectual Reputation

Prince Michael Shcherbatov (1733–1790) was underestimated by his contemporaries and misunderstood by his descendants. Fateful roles in the life of his works were played by Ivan Boltin, who destroyed the Prince’s reputation as a serious historian by chicanery and multivolume reviews, and by Alexander Herzen, who determined his relevance and place in the authority system of national thought. Shcherbatov’s principal work On the Corruption of Morals in Russia was first printed in only 1858 by the Free Russian Typography in London. Herzen published this work under one cover, together with with Alexander Radischev’s Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
This collaboration was not accidental. Herzen deliberately paired the two thinkers, making one of them a victim. Herzen criticized Shcherbatov because he interpreted the Prince’s moral criticism as a justification of pre-Petrine Russia. In Radishchev’s work, he saw a call to overthrow the reactionary regime.
However, a careful reading of the pamphlet shows that Shcherbatov did not idealize the past. Unlike Radishchev, he proposes not to destroy the imperfect society, but to improve upon it, according to the understanding of the logic of history. If morals are “corrupted” because of neglecting the laws of social development, then they may be “fixed” once these laws have become known, and realized.

Key words: Michael Shcherbatov, “On the Corruption of Morals in Russia”, enlightenment, Russia, Alexander Herzen, intellectual reputation, historical PR

Christoph WULF

Germany, Berlin.
Professor of Anthropology and Education and a member of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Historical Anthropology, the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) “Cultures of Performance,” the Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion”, and the Graduate School “InterArts” at the Freie Universität. Berlin.

Emotions in the Teaching of History

The history of teaching history in Europe shows that emotions are highly ambivalent here. One is reminded of forms of history instruction in which identification with the nation was at the center of education. The goal of the teaching of history was not to open it to an understanding of the otherness of other nations and cultures, but instead to seal it off from the foreign. We need to ask how a teaching of history that is open to the other and oriented toward multidimensionality and complexity can also encourage an emotional identification and contribute to the cultivation of a reflexive emotionality. Emotions in the teaching of history are also evaluative, i.e., they evaluate the events discussed and lead to an emotional assessment that is sometimes even independent of the arguments. This emotional evaluation of events or storylines of other people often takes place unconsciously or semiconsciously and is only accessible by consciousness in a limited manner. This evaluating aspect of emotions makes it possible to make distinctions and to understand the meaning of situations, storylines and contexts. Emotions thereby make an important contribution to the understanding of historical events and storylines. Their energetic side can even help the students to find interest and enjoyment in the discussion of historical events, structures and persons. With the aid of reflexive emotionality to the past, the past will gain a new presence and relevance for the future.

Key words: Emotions, school education, teaching of History, alterity, performativity, mimetic processes, remembrance, reflexive emotionality

Sergey LISHAEV

Russia, Samara.
Samara Academy of Humanities.
PhD, Professor of Philosophy Department.

Love of the distant (aesthetics of range in abstract)

The article deals with the important phenomenon of range, a meaningful concept for both Russian and European cultures. The study of range is introduced by a brief semantic analysis, which sets the boundaries, differentiating the term range from those of "prospect" and "horizon". The analysis of range is carried out in terms of the post-classical aesthetics of arrangements. In the conceptual domain of the aesthetics of the Other, the aesthetic experience is divided into the aesthetics of body (classical aesthetics), time, and space. The phenomenon of range belongs to the subjective sphere of the aesthetics of dimensions - a special part of the aesthetics of space. A phenomenological description of range is presented through its comparison with the phenomenon of space. Whereas the particularity of space is determined as the ability to move, the particularity of range is viewed as the feeling of directed movement to the Other. The horizon, which is so important for the spatial configuration of range, is perceived here as a symbol of never-ending movement in limitless space, but not as an absolute visual boundary. Range, then, is the basic arrangement of the aesthetics of space. The Other is discovered at the reference level. Experiencing range is eventful, but range — as an aesthetical arrangement — presupposes certain conditions, which make experiencing range possible and more likely. The last part of the article deals with an analysis of pre-aesthetical conditions of experiencing range, both as regards external reference as well as the subject of contemplation.

Key words: range, aesthetics, aesthetical arrangements, space, ability, movement, horizon, directionality, purpose, the Other, future

Alexander LYUSY

Russia, Moscow.
Russian Institute for Cultural Research, Seniour Rearcher.
PhD in Cultural Science.

The NEWEST HABAKKUK. On the phenomenology of the Petersburg text and the First World Crimean semantic war

Considering the theater of modern semantic wars and proceeding from before the stated concept of the Crimean text of Russian culture as the South Pole of the Petersburg text, the author stormily defends the idea of the textual revolution of humanitarian knowledge in modern Russia and the nuclear structure of the local text of culture. The problem of methodological neo-colonialism arising over the course of the mechanical application initiated by the books of Edward Said’s methodology of postcolonial research, with reference to the post-Soviet territory, is sharply debated. Published earlier in an interactive section of the International Magazine of Cultural Research, the article has caused much controversy among readers: http://www.culturalresearch.ru/ru/hist-c/54-errormed

Key words: semantic wars, semiosis, supertext, textual revolution, medialization, methodological neo-colonialism, ectropion, saidism

Richard J. BERNSTEIN, Christopher VOPARIL, Jacquelyn Ann K. KEGLEY, John RYDER

Richard J. BERNSTEIN, Ph.D., Vera List Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York, New York, USA. Christopher VOPARIL, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy and Politics, Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Jacquelyn Ann K. KEGLEY, Ph.D., President, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, CSU Outstanding Professor of Philosophy, California State University at Bakersfield, Bakersfield, California, USA. John RYDER, Ph.D., President, Alliance of Universities for Democracy, Professor of Philosophy and Rector, Khazar University, Baku, Azerbaijan.

Richard Rorty and Cultural Criticism

In the short essays that follow four scholars of American philosophy and on Richard Rorty offer their own assessments and criticisms of the cultural value and impact of Rorty’s thinking.

Richard Bernstein was a life-long friend and colleague of Rorty, and one of the leading expositors and critics of his philosophy. Here Bernstein offers an overview of the trajectory of Rorty’s thinking and a sense of how and why Rorty has become an important figure in contemporary intellectual culture.

Christopher Voparil, who with Bernstein has recently edited a selection of Rorty’s writings, outlines the “democratization of culture” that is Rorty’s objective in his rejection of traditional, foundationalist philosophy.

Jacquelyn Kegley, a leading specialist in the philosophy of Josiah Royce, criticizes Rorty for having too “thin” a conception of community and for making too much of the public-private distinction to achieve the kind of social reform he advocated.

John Ryder focuses on the potential pitfalls of the sort of ethnocentrism that Rorty endorses as the alternative to traditional philosophical truth.

Taken together these comments suggest both the importance of Rorty’s ideas in our current circumstances and directions in which we may develop, expand, revise, and improve those ideas. This is, in other words, an exercise in the very sort of cultural conversation that Rorty advocated so passionately.

Key words: Richard Rorty, pragmatism, analytic philosophy, linguistic turn, cultural criticism, liberal democracy, community, ethnocentricism

Dennis SOBOLEV

Israel, Haifa.
Haifa Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature,
University of Haifa. Dr., Professor.

"What is Literature?" and Contemporary Cultural Theory

The paper aims to analyze the problem of the identification of literary texts in light of the findings of contemporary cultural theory. After a brief analysis of the transition from the traditional ‘essentialist’ approach to different positions associated with post-modern literary criticism, it reformulates this problem in intentionalist and cognitive terms. The paper defines its goal as the formalization of those interpretative codes and procedures, which the subjects of contemporary culture use for the identification of literary works — even though, in most cases, they do this non-consciously. Although these procedures are collective, and their results are highly predictable, on the formal level they turn out to be quite complex and multi-parametric. Correspondingly, the paper analyzes the major parameters involved in these procedures of identification, their formal meaning and the difficulties that arise from their use. These are the parameters of ‘diminished referentiality,’ ‘the recursive function of discourse,’ and ‘the attenuated pragmatic orientation.’ In addition, as the paper demonstrates, the influence of the effective combinations of these parameters is different for versified and prosaic discursive segments. In the concluding sections of the paper, the impact of different combinations of these parameters is analyzed through the use of distributive tables. These tables show that in most cases there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the stable combinations of these parameters and the results of the identification of corresponding texts. This result, in turn, means that the non-conscious procedures of the identification of literary texts, however historically conditioned, can be formalized and analyzed by cultural research.

Key words: literature, cognitive approach, intentionality, intentional forms, historicity, interpretative communities, referentiality, recursive function, pragmatism, verse and prose, parallelism, distributive tables

Alina VENKOVA

Russia, St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Institute for Cultural Research, Deputy Director.
Herzen State Pedagogical University. Department of Theory and History of Culture.
PhD in Cultural Research, Senior Lecturer.

Icon and Idol: Phenomenology of the Vision of Jean-Luc Marion. Notes on the book “La croisée du Visible”

In reviewing La croisée du Visible by Jean-Luc Marion, the author shows the differences between Jean-Luc Marion’s concepts, such as image-icon and image-idol. This article explores Jean-Luc Marion’s approach to the phenomenological connection between “visible” and “invisible” (or “l’invu”, inMarion’s philosophical terms) in contemporary visual culture.

Key words: image, icon, idol, visible, invisible (l’invu)

Olga KIRILLOVA

Ukraine, Kiev.
National Pedagogical University n.a. M. P. Dragomanov, Department of Cultural Studies.
Associate Professor, PhD in Philosophy.

I (me) as the Other — A double as a Lacanian mirror image in the thanatological approach to “decadent films”

The article focuses on the concept of the Other and the images of otherworldy doubles regarded through the prism of the Lacanian concept of the “mirror image” in the, so-called, “decadent” trend in early and contemporary Russian film. Three main patterns of “mirror” identification with the Other are constructedon the basis of various films’ analyses: “I (the subject) — me (the mirror image) as an otherworldy double”, “I (me) — simulacrum: alive and dead”, “Me-in-perspective: the image of the older sister”.

Key words: I, me, Other, subject, identification, mirror stage, mirror image, decadent film, thanatology, Lacanian psychoanalysis

Sergey TIKHOMIROV

Russia, Saint-Petersburg.
The Higher School of Folk Arts.
Managing Director of Postgraduate School, PhD.

"Creativity" in youth culture: Peculiarities of forming a gopnik (chav) image

Based on the research of various artifacts of folklore culture (‘creativity’), the peculiarities of the widespread image of gopnik (urbanized white trash) among youths are analyzed in the article. The author shows that a gopnik is not a representative of a single subculture, but rather a symbolic enemy image that is actively created by young urban citizens. The research deals with the reasons for the relevancy of this specific image in youth culture; the significant part of the study focuses on the comparison of the images of gopnik and ‘standard youth’. The research examines the following subjects: consumption techniques of mass media products, strategies related to leisure time and spending, elements of clothing language and public behavior.

Key words: youth, youth subculture, lococentric and idiocentric communities, identity, ‘enemy image’, gopnik

Margarita GUDOVA

Russia, Ekaterinburg.
Ural State University, in memory of M. Gorky, Faculty of Philosophy.
Chair of Ethics, Aesthetics, Theory and History of Culture.
Ph.D., Associate Professor.

Current popular reading and the problem of interaction — "Own "and "foreign" in contemporary Russian culture

The article examines the cultural practice of reading, and its integrative and differentiating potential. The work is based on material taken from Gallup and the Levada’s Center’s sociological studies on reading, as well as the institutional approach in the interpretation of cultural processes related to reading. The article contends that, in the past, Soviet culture engaged in reading on a daily basis, while the new Russian culture is fragmenting and segmenting the readers’ community. In addition, the article identifies the structural and institutional factors of the modern processes of fragmentation and segmentation of readers, such as a large range of publications with small circulations, the destruction of the State Library and Bookselling network, a variety of technologies and technical reading, and the emergence of industry magazines. The effects of the differentiating factors are analyzed at the level of newspaper, magazine and book reading. The conclusion discusses the necessity of forming new global reading institutions.

Key words: popular reading, readers’ imagined community, segmentation of the readers, local social cell, the global network, glocal forms of communication

Anna KONEVA

Russia, St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Institute of Cultural Research.
Head of department. PhD in philosophy, senior lecturer.

Experiencing Nihil

The book “The Old and the Decrepit: An Experience of Philosophical Interpretation” by S. A. Lishaev presents a heuristically productive approach to the interpretation of the contemporary practice of philosophy, the formation of a new categorical apparatus, research into cultural phenomena and the meaning of human existence in its time horizon. The Decrepit, as a phenomenon and an aesthetic category, becomes the basis for the new world view of things and people. The book reveals new themes and invites discussion, which gives it particular importance.

Key words: the decrepit, the old, thing, time, presence, existence, age, aesthetics, the Other