Forum

“Provincial” and “Indigenous” Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The “Forum” is devoted to the discussion of an argument put forward by Mikhail Sokolov and Kirill Titaev concerning two principal types of adaptation to “international discussion” by peripheral academic communities in the humanities and social sciences. The paper by M. Sokolov and K. Titaev is published in the “Article” section of this journal. Other participants of this “Forum” react to their thesis.

Keywords: academia, global division of intellectual labour, academic world-system, theories of academic communication.

Articles

Mikhail Sokolov, Kirill Titaev. “Provincial” and “Indigenous” Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The paper concerns two principal types of adaptation to “international discussion” by peripheral academic communities in the humanities and social sciences. It claims that all peripheral scholars face a choice between either listening to the most visible figures in their respective international disciplinary communities or communicating with those who are likely to reciprocate their attention. Each of the two choices offer conflicting guidelines for the construction of professional “attention spaces”, and both break in certain ways with the norms of academic communication. Authors use examples from their ethnographic studies of Russian sociology.

Keywords: academia, global division of intellectual labour, academic world-system, theories of academic communication.

Olga Bodrova. Ethnographers’ “Dialogue”: The Problem of Intertextuality in Scientific Ethnographic Work in the Latter Part of the 19th — Early 20th Centuries

The article reviews the intertextual aspect of ethnographic sources during the latter part of the 19th — early 20th centuries. It studies the intertextual connections between various papers and how these arise from the author’s strategy. Dialogues between researchers who focus on the intention to preserve or disrupt the scientific capital of other agents are also analyzed. The relation between markers of scientific intertextuality and the developmental stage of Russian ethnography is revealed.

Keywords: ethnographic literature, intertextuality, researchers of Sami ethnography.

Discussion of Language Genesis

This section contains several texts united by their focus on the problem of the genesis of language. The section begins with a short fore word, followed by three reviews: Alexander Barulin’s review of Derek Bickerton’s book “Adam’s Tongue” (translated into Russian in 2011), and two more reviews – by Alexander Barulin and Alexander Kozintsev – of Svetlana Burlak’s recent book on language evolution. After the reviews, Svetlana Burlak takes an opportunity to answer her reviewers. The section is concluded by a short afterword written by Nikolai Vakhtin.

Keywords: language genesis, glottogenesis, language evolution, animal communication, evolution of communication.

Reviews

The section contains reviews of three books on masculinity, a volume of conference papers on the Philippines and a collection of articles in honour of Yury Simchenko. Reviewers briefly describe the contents of the reviewed books and mention their merits and failings.

Keywords: gender studies, masculinity, Philippines, Yury Simchenko.

Letters to the Editor

Daniil Tumarkin. Should “Classic Shine” be Preserved when Studying the Life and Heritage of Miklouho-Maclay?

The section contains the author’s response to the review of the biography of Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay, which was published in Issue 18.

Keywords: Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay.