Authors

Daniel Alexandrov holds a professorship at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg, where he has taught social theory, social network analysis, and history of sociology since 2002. He currently also serves as Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities and as academic director of the undergraduate program in sociology. He earned his doctorate in history of science from the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has also held positions as visiting professor at the University of Chicago (1992), Georgia Institute of Technology (1994), Oregon State University (1999–2000), as well as research scholarships from the Woodrow Wilson Center (Washington, DC) and other institutions. In 1996–2010 he taught in the Department of Sociology and Political Sciences, European University at St. Petersburg. His current projects deal with urban schools, ethnicity and migration, social networks in schools, online communities, and online interaction.

Ivan Chupin is an associate professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in France. Chupin taught social sciences for four years in Moscow at the French College, Moscow State University (2010–2014). He completed his doctoral dissertation at the Paris Dauphine University on the history of journalism training in France since the nineteenth century. Chupin has published several books and articles on the history and sociology of media in France and Russia. With Nicolas Kaciaf and Nicolas Hubé he edited a volume on the political and economic history of the French media titled Histoire politique et économique des médias en France (La Découverte, 2009).

Anton Kazun is a PhD student in the Faculty of Social Sciences, National Research University–Higher School of Economics, as well as a junior researcher at the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development. Currently he also teaches institutional economics in the Department of Applied Economics. His current research examines the impact of violence on business and the development of the law profession in Russia. Kazun is the author of several articles on this issue published in 2013–2015 in the Journal of Economic Sociology, Post-Soviet Affairs, and Russland-Analysen.

Simon Kordonsky received his doctoral degree in the philosophy of science from Novosibirsk State University. He is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Local Administration in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics, Moscow. Kordonsky is the author of several monographs, among them Power Markets: Administrative Markets of the USSR and Russia (OGI, 2006; in Russian), The Class Structure of Post-Soviet Russia (Institut Fonda “Obshchestvennoe mnenie,” 2008; in Russian), and Russia: The Property Federation (Evropa, 2010; in Russian). His current research focuses on the informal economy and the social structure of modern Russian society (conducted with the financial support of the Khamovniki Foundation and the HSE Science Foundation).

Vitaly Kurennoj holds a candidate of sciences degree in the history of philosophy from Russian State University for the Humanities. He is a professor and Dean of the School of Cultural Studies at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics, as well as academic editor of the journal Logos. Kurennoj is a specialist in the history of modern Western philosophy. His professional interests include philosophy, theory and empirical studies of culture, the sociology of knowledge, and contemporary sociopolitical processes. He is the author of more than 150 publications as well as a translator of the works of Karl-Otto Apel, Edmund Husserl, Roman Ingarden, Hermann Lübbe, and Adolf Reinach.

Jordanna Matlon received her PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012. From 2012 to 2015 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, and is currently an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service in Washington, DC. She employs qualitative methods to explore the relationship between masculinity and work for peripheral populations in African cities and for members of the African diaspora. Focused on Francophone West Africa, Matlon conducted her dissertation fieldwork in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and is currently preparing her book manuscript, tentatively titled “I Will Be VIP!”: Masculinity, Modernity, and Crisis on the Neoliberal Periphery. She has published numerous articles in such journals as Ethnography, Antipode, and Poetics.

Alisa Maximova received her MA in sociology from the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and the University of Manchester in 2012. She is currently a PhD student in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, National Research University–Higher School of Economics. Her dissertation focuses on social interaction in science and technology museums. Her research interests include the sociology of museums, sociology of everyday life, urban studies, and ethnographic methods.

Ekaterina Pavlenko is Junior Researcher at the Center for Cultural Sociology and Anthropology of Education at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics, where she is currently working on the group research project “Trajectories in Education and Careers.” She is also a PhD student in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the same university.

Ivan Pavlyutkin is Senior Researcher in the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics in Moscow. His research concerns the side effects of university life, gift exchange within universities, the relationship between religion and higher education, and organizational forms in education.

Juri Plusnin received his doctoral degree in the philosophy of science and technology from the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1994. He is currently a professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics, Moscow. Plusnin is the author of several monographs, among them Municipal Russia: Lifestyle and Way of Thinking. The Experience of Phenomenological Research (TsPI MSU, 2009; in Russian; coauthored with Simon Kordonsky and Vasilii Skalon), Seasonal Workers (Novyi Khronograf, 2013; in Russian; coauthored with Iana Zausaeva, Natal’ia Zhidkevich, and Artemii Pozanenko), Wandering Workers: Mores, Behavior, Way of Life, and Political Status of Domestic Russian Labor Migrants (Ibidem Verlag, 2015; coauthored with Iana Zausaeva, Natal’ia Zhidkevich, and Artemii Pozanenko). His current research focuses on informal economic practices and seasonal work as provincial population’s particular strategy to make a living, as well as the social structure of contemporary Russian society (both of these research streams have received financial support from the Khamovniki Foundation).

Nikita Pokrovsky is Professor and Head of the Department of General Sociology, School of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics. He is Chief Research Associate in the Institute of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and President of the Society of Professional Sociologists.

Natalia Samutina is Leading Research Fellow and Head of the Research Centre for Contemporary Culture, Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, National Research University–Higher School of Economics, Moscow. She is also Associate Professor of sociology at the same institution. Her fields of research include sociological and cultural analysis of fan fiction, street art, popular music, and contemporary urban change. In 2012–2013 she was principal investigator of the project “Graffiti and Street Art in the Cultural Cityscape” at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics. She is the author of numerous articles in Russian and English. She has edited two books in Russian: Science-Fiction Cinema: Episode One (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2006) and Tsaritsyno: Attractions with History (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014; coedited with Boris Stepanov).

Olena Strelnyk received her PhD in sociology from V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in 2004. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Sociology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine. Her current research is devoted to the study of mothering practices in contemporary Ukraine. She is the author of numerous articles on gender issues, family and parenthood, and family and demographic policy in Ukraine. She is a contributor to the forthcoming volume Rebellious Families: Parents’ Rights Activism in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, coedited by Katalin Fábián and Elżbieta Korolczuk (Indiana University Press, expected in 2016).

Myrto Tsilimpounidi is a social researcher and photographer. Her research focuses on urbanism, culture, and innovative methodologies. She is the author of Sociology of Crisis: Visualising Urban Austerity (Routledge, 2016) and coeditor of Remapping Crisis: A Guide to Athens (Zero Books, 2014) and Street Art & Graffiti: Reading, Writing & Representing the City (Ashgate, forthcoming). Tsilimpounidi is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of East London and codirector of the Ministry of Untold Stories.

Greg Yudin is Senior Researcher in the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics, Moscow. His research concerns the cognitive and technological foundations of economics, with particular emphasis on the roots of neoliberal subjectivity and performative effects of the social and economic sciences.

Oksana Zaporozhets is Leading Research Fellow at Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, National Research University–Higher School of Economics, Moscow. In 2012–2013 she was a participant in “Graffiti and Street Art in the Cultural Cityscape,” a team research project at the same university. Her research interests are urbanism, mobility, and new media studies. Her current research projects focus on urban transit spaces and subways, urban imagery (including graffiti and street art), and new media in the urban environment. She coedited (with Olga Brednikova) the book Microurbanism: The City in Details (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014; in Russian).