News and Opinions
The War in Europe and New Political Visions
February, 27 - Two years after the start of full-scale war in Ukraine, IGRec members and invited guests discuss the...
Deadline Extension: Apply Now for 15 Courses – New Deadline January 26th!
Acceptance of applications for 15 SBB courses in the Spring 2024 has been extended until Friday, January 26th.
16 more OSUN courses are available to the Smolny Beyond Borders students
Application Deadline is January 15th. Apply Now.
Public Events
Historical Past and Contemporary Propaganda in the Global Context
June, 7 - 8, 2024 (Center for Comparative Research on...
Birth of Modern Capitalism? Two Talks on Antonio Serra’s Breve trattato
28 February, 2024 Two talks on Antonio Serra at the...
Spotlight 2024: Data and technology versus propaganda
February 17 - 18, 2024 Annual hackathon "Spotlight 2024: Data...
Narratologies to come
February, 6, 2024. Presentation by Larissa Muravieva at the Narratology...
Semester Courses Spring 2024
Contemporary Cultural and Literary Theories
Ilya Kalinin | S24 M W
Diary Film, Autoethnography, and Poetic Film Writing
Masha Godovannaya | S24 M W
Does Might Make Right? Ancient Perspectives on an Enduring Dilemma
Thomas Bartscherer | S24 Tu
French Modernism
Larissa Muravieva | S24 Fr
Homo Medievalis: Culture and the Individual in the Middle Ages
Victor Apryshchenko | S24 M W
How Did Math Begin to Rule?
Andrei Rodin | S24 T T
Political Economy in Retrospect
Danila Raskov | S24 T T
Putinism as an Ideology
Ilia Veniavkin | S24 M TH
Python and Data Processing for the Humanities (RIMA Course)
Ivan Iufriakov | S24 Т Т
Qualitative Research Methods
Victor Apryshchenko | S24 Tu
Soviet Origins of Contemporary Russia
Aleksey Gilev | S24 M W
The Art and Thought of the Renaissance: Mimesis in Artistic Theory and Practices
Maria Chernysheva | S24 T T
The Russia Paradox: Political History of the Russian Empire(s)
Victor Apryshchenko | S24 M W
Understanding Human Behavior
Michael Allakhverdov | S24 T T
Graduate Courses Spring 2024
Machines of No More War
Natalia Fedorova | S24 T T
Philosophy of War and Peace
Artemy Magun | S24 TH
Mini-courses Spring 2024
Disability Representation in the Cultural Institutions
Vera Shengeliya | FEB15 – APR18 | TH
Dystopia: history, poetics, pragmatics
Dmitry Bykov | MAR27 – APR26 | W F
Empowering People with Disabilities: Community Support and Advocacy
Vera Shengeliya | FEB12 – APR15 | M
Political History of Documentary Photography in Russia
Denis Skopin | FEB19 – MAR21 | M TH
Teen Literature as a Challenge
Dmitry Bykov | FEB14 – MAR15 | W F
Archive
Faculty
About
A group of former Smolny College faculty with the support of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, and Bard College Berlin (BCB) established Smolny Beyond Borders (SBB) in November 2022, a liberal arts initiative that continues and builds upon the legacy of Smolny College (formerly a joint program of St. Petersburg State University and Bard College), the longest-running dual degree program between any Russian and American institution.
Smolny Beyond Borders aims to recreate Smolny institutionally, but independently of St.Petersburg State, and establish not only a structure of support for the faculty who left Russia, but provide opportunities to attract, teach, and recruit new students and to sustain the successful practices formerly recognized at Smonly College to build the Russia of the future. The program will provide multi-level educational and research opportunities to equip the next generation of students and faculty with the tools to rebuild and promote a different trajectory for Russia that holds the country responsible as part of the global community.
About Smolny College
Smolny College was a long-term collaboration between St. Petersburg State University and Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. After its founding in 1997, it became both the largest liberal arts program in Russia and the most robust Russian-American partnership in the higher education sphere. In the summer of 2021, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation declared that Bard College is an undesirable organization, the first college or university to be so named. This began the dismantling of Smolny, which has since undergone the loss of faculty and curricular changes that have rejected the very idea of liberal arts and sciences education.
The Gagarin Center for the Study of Civil Society and Human Rights (Gagarin Center at Bard College) allows Russian scholars forced to leave Russia as a result of the war on Ukraine, and risks of political persecution, continue to pursue research and educational activities focused on contemporary social, economic, and human rights issues in Russia. Previously, the Gagarin Center, supported by the Gagarin Trust, was a core component of Smolny College. The Center and its fellows offered courses, prepared research on vital issues, offered public programming, and served as a venue for the critical exchange of ideas.