Call for Papers: Special Issue of Russia's Directions — Sociology of the Social Sciences “Through the Dark Glass of Academic Knowledge”

2025-10-28

How are Russia’s “indigenous” and “provincial” researchers faring today — and have new groups of scholars emerged (Sokolov, Titaev 2013)? What epistemic styles dominate among sociologists and anthropologists working in Russian universities (Lamont 2009)? What are scholars in the humanities occupied with today — beyond hermeneutics (interpretation) and homiletics (preaching) (Kharkhordin 2015)? Which “model cases,” serving as recurring points of reference for empirical studies, prevail across the social disciplines (Krause 2021)? And how do social researchers construct their academic careers (Sokolov, Guba, Zimenkova, Safonova, Chuikina 2015)?

Turning our analytical gaze upon ourselves always carries the risk of seeing only what we wish to see — or overlooking what is most essential. In this issue, we invite contributions that explore the foundations of the social sciences, the mechanisms of legitimating and delegitimating disciplines, the academic trajectories of sociologists, and the new barriers and opportunities shaping the development of the humanities and social inquiry.

We welcome (self-)reflective sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, historians, philosophers, and cultural theorists to contribute to a special issue dedicated to problematizing the very grounds of the social sciences in Russia and beyond. We accept submissions in a variety of genres and formats, including theoretical and empirical research articles, essays, reviews, and interviews.

Thematic areas of the issue include:

  • Sociology of the social sciences

  • Epistemic styles and research cultures (in Russia and beyond)

  • Local forms of universality: the making of “national” science

  • Ethical and political regimes of academic production

  • Social knowledge in Russia

  • Social studies of intellectuals

  • Theoretical approaches to studying the social sciences

  • Canons, classics, and marginalia in the social sciences

  • Scientometrics and journal “rankings”

  • Model cases: the formation of disciplinary exemplars

  • Ethnographies of academia

References:

  1. Kharkhordin, O. (2015). From Priests to Pathfinders: The Fate of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Russia after World War II. The American Historical Review, 120(4), 1283–1298.
  2. Krause, M. (2021). Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites. University of Chicago Press.
  3. Lamont, M. (2009). How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment. Harvard University Press.
  4. Sokolov, M. M., & Titaev, K. D. (2013). Provincial and Indigenous Science. Anthropological Forum, 19, 239–275.
  5. Sokolov, M., et al. (2015). How Professors Are Made: Academic Careers, Markets, and Power in Five Countries. Moscow: New Literary Observer.

Submission deadline: April 1st, 2026. Please send your manuscripts to: mdmalkov@universitas.ru.

Formatting guidelines are available at: https://jrsre.ru/journal/information/authors