Rethinking decentralized academic communication: the PHILAPS seminar

Authors

  • Petr Safronov Independent scholar Author
  • Zinaida Vasilyeva Independent scholar Author
  • Timur Athashev Independent scholar Author
  • Evgeniya Panova Independent scholar Author
  • Natalya Lipkina Independent scholar Author

Keywords:

academic communication, self-organization, feedback, gift exchange

Abstract

The article examines the PHILAPS online seminar as an experimental format of extra-institutional academic communication that emerged amid the disruption of professional networks and the shrinking space for substantive discussion in the humanities and social sciences. The authors analyze the seminar along two principal dimensions: (1) as a discussion format that embeds a practice of careful, attentive dialogue at the level of design; and (2) as an experiment in articulating principles of self-governance within a distributed community of mutual support. Methodologically, the paper is grounded in the organizers’ collective reflection and an analysis of the seminar’s communication design.

For citation: Safronov, P., Vasilyeva, Z., Athashev, T., Panova, E., Lipkina, N. (2026) Rethinking decentralized academic communication: the PHILAPS seminar. Russia’s Directions. Vol. 4. No. 2. P. 167–187.

 

Additional Info

Submitted: April 16, 2026

Copyright: © Auhtors, 2026

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

Author Biographies

  • Petr Safronov, Independent scholar

    Independent scholar. E-mail: peter.safronov@gmail.com.

  • Zinaida Vasilyeva, Independent scholar

    Independent scholar. E-mail: zvasilyeva@gmail.com.

  • Timur Athashev, Independent scholar

    Independent scholar. E-mail: timur.atnashev@gmail.com.

  • Evgeniya Panova, Independent scholar

    Independent scholar. E-mail: evepanova@gmail.com.

  • Natalya Lipkina, Independent scholar

    Independent scholar. E-mail: nlipkina@gmail.com.

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Published

2026-05-27

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2026): Russia’s Directions. The Journal of Russian Social Research and Ethnography

Section

Sociology of universities

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Петр Александрович Сафронов , Зинаида Сергеевна Васильева , Тимур Михайлович Атнашев, Евгения Львовна Панова, Наталья Александровна Липкина (Автор)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.