University glossary of local universality: stalactites, stalagmites, stalagnates of social knowledge production

Abstract

This article is structured as a small glossary of observational essays on Russian university and academic life, summarizing the experiences of its participants over the past several years. It examines this life from the perspective of the dynamics of social knowledge, its content, form, organization, structure, as well as the maintenance of its stability and continuity. Emphasis is placed on the dual modes of social knowledge production under conditions of epistemic inequality and an undeclared decline in transparency in the governance of science and education. This doubling of the modes of social knowledge production has its own prehistory, an important stage of which were the revolutions of chats, spaces, and platforms, and its own consequences. Using a phenomenological-sociological description, the article sequentially examines these consequences and traces, focusing on such constellations as “evoking the imaginary”, “unsolicited expertise”, aphasia, a reliance on “studies”, “trophy piracy”, and the fetishism of the research stance.

For citation: Ganzha, A., Zhiganov, M. (2026) University glossary of local universality: stalactites, stalagmites, stalagnates of social knowledge production. Russia’s Directions. Vol. 4. No. 2. P. 141–166.

Additional Info

Submitted: December 15, 2025

Reviewed: May 5, 2026

Copyright: © Auhtors, 2026

Distribution: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)