Department of Aesthetics
Acting Head of Department – Helen Petrovsky, Ph.D.
Main research areas:
Aesthetics in the modern world.
The history of aesthetic thought.
Religious aesthetics in Russia.
Staff:
Helen Petrovsky, Ph.D., Acting Head of Department
Oleg Aronson, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow
Konstantin Dolgov, D.Sc., Major Research Fellow, Honored Scholar
Anatoly Lipov, Ph.D., Research Fellow
Alexander Bliskavitsky, Senior Department Assistant
Research Team POSTNONCLASSICAL AESTHETICS
Victor Bychkov, D.Sc., Professor, Major Research Fellow, Head of Team
Nadezhda Mankovskaya, D.Sc., Major Research Fellow
Nikolai Kormin, D.Sc., Leading Research Fellow
Publications:
Collected Essays:
The Artistic and Aesthetic Culture of Ancient Russia. M.: Ladomir, 1996 (project author, gen. ed. V. Bychkov).
KorneviSHCHe. Book of Non-Classical Aesthetics. M.: IPhRAS, 1998 (project author V. Bychkov).
KorneviSHCHe 0B. Book of Non-Classical Aesthetics. M.: IPhRAS, 1998 (project author V. Bychkov).
KorneviSHCHe 0A. Book of Non-Classical Aesthetics. M.: IPhRAS, 1999 (project author V. Bychkov).
KorneviSHCHe 2000. Book of Non-Classical Aesthetics. M.: IPhRAS, 2000 (project author V. Bychkov).
Guidelines... Gen. ed. T.B. Lyubimova. M.: IPhRAS, 2001.
Aesthetics at the Turn of Cultural Traditions. M.: IPhRAS, 2002 (gen. ed. N. Mankovskaya).
Lexicon of Non-Classics. 20th Century Artistic and Aesthetic Culture. M.: ROSSPEN, 2003 (project author, gen. ed. V. Bychkov).
Aesthetics: Yesterday. Today. Always. Gen. ed. V. Bychkov, N. Mankovskaya. M.: IPhRAS, 2005.
Books:
Bychkov V.V. 2000 Years of Christian Culture Sub Specie Aesthetica. St Petersburg; M.: Universitetskaya Kniga, 1999.
Vol. 1. Early Christianity. Byzantium. – 575 p.
Vol. 2. The Slavic World. Ancient Russia. Modern Russia. – 527 p. (bibliography of the author’s works: pp. 1970–1999).
Bychkov V. Byzantine aisthetike. Theoretika problemata. Metaphraze K.P. Charalampides. Athena: Ekdoseis E. Tzaphepe, 1999. – 207 p. (in Greek).
Bychkov V. A Brief History of Byzantine Aesthetics. Sofia: Tavor, 2000. – 414 p. (in Bulgarian).
Bychkov V. 2000 Jahre Philosophie der Kunst im christlichen Osten:
Alte Kirche, Byzanz, Russland. Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 2001. – 447 S. (in German).
Bychkov V.V. Aesthetics. M.: Gardariki, 2002, 2004, 2005. – 556 p.
Bychkov V.V. Aesthetics. A Brief Course. M.: Proekt, 2003. – 384 p.
Bychkov V.V. Aesthetics. 2nd ed., revised and enlarged. M.: Gardariki, 2006. – 573 p.
Bychkov V.V., Mankovskaya N.B., Ivanov V.V. Trialogue. Living Aesthetics and the Contemporary Philosophy of Art. M.: Progress-Traditsiya, 2012. – 840 p., ill.
Mankovskaya N.B. The Aesthetics of Postmodernism. St Petersburg: Aletheia, 2000. – 348 p.
Mankovskaya N.B. The Aesthetics of Russian Postmodernism. M.: VGIK, 2000. – 39 p.
Kormin N.A. Vladimir Solovyov’s Philosophical Aesthetics. Part 1: Holy Harmony. M.: IPhRAS, 2001. – 187 p.
Kormin N.A. Vladimir Solovyov’s Philosophical Aesthetics. Part 2: Ontological Assumptions. M.: IPhRAS, 2004. – 214 p.
Kormin N.A. Metaphysical Symbolism. Part One. M.: Akademia Publishing House, 2011. – 160 p.
Aronson O., Petrovsky H. Beyond Imagination. Contemporary Philosophy and Contemporary Art. Lectures. Nizhny Novgorod: NCCA, 2009. – 230 p.
Dolgov K.M. From Kierkegaard to Camus. Philosophy, Aesthetics, Culture. 2nd enlarged ed. M.: Kanon, 2011. – 462 p.
Dolgov K.M. The Intellectual Culture of China. A Critical Analysis and Brief Expose of the Encyclopedia. 2nd enlarged ed. M.: Nauchnaya Kniga, 2011. – 122 p.
Petrovsky H. Theory of the Image. M.: RGGU Press, 2010. – 284 p.
Projects and Book Annotations:
Lexicon of Non-Classics. Project authored and headed by Victor Bychkov (1998–2002).
This is an encyclopedic analytical and informational study of the greatest transitional period in the history of culture – that of 20th century artistic and aesthetic culture – from classical Culture to fundamentally different aesthetic consciousness and art processes of the 21st century technogenic and computer civilization, or non-classical aesthetics. The project is implemented in the form of an open hypertext made of articles correlating with each other and other intertextual phenomena. It reveals the specific nature, main tendencies, directions, the conceptual system used to describe them, as well as the leading figures of 20th century artistic and aesthetic culture in the context of the major paradigms of the European classical tradition. The former is seen as the logically illogical fulfillment of the latter. The study focuses precisely on innovative, non-classical, post-classical phenomena and personalities that define more than a century-long movement in cultural space from the avant-garde through modernism to postmodernism, taking place primarily in the fields of aesthetic consciousness and the visual arts, but also in literature and music from Symbolism and Impressionism to the art projects of the late 20th century. The study has been published as an encyclopedic dictionary (see Department bibliography). Its entries written in accessible form and aimed at the widest reading public cater to the latest achievements in the humanities and contain a detailed bibliography. The book concludes with an Index and Summary.
Kornevishche (Rhizome). Non-Classical Aesthetics. Project authored and headed by Victor Bychkov (1996–2000).
This is an experimental research project aimed at a comprehensive study of the current state of aesthetics and artistic practice in their most advanced, contemporary forms. It provides an analysis of the most significant phenomena of aesthetic experience at different levels (“sections”) on the basis of various analytical discourses, including the cutting-edge ones (V. Bychkov’s notion of post-adequacies). The project has resulted in the publication of four volumes of research materials (see Department bibliography).
Aesthetics at the Turn of Cultural Traditions. Project authored and headed by Nadezhda Mankovskaya (2001–2004).
The project focuses on the burning problem of the transformation of artistic and aesthetic paradigms in the 20th and 21st centuries, the specific character of the transition from classics to non-classics in terms of both theory and artistic practice. The book discusses the self-reflexivity of non-classical aesthetics connected with the transformation of its subject matter, conceptual apparatus and methods for the study of artistic culture. Issues of the transition from modernism to post- and post-postmodernism, from structuralism to post-structuralism, from art to art practices are discussed in this perspective. The authors expand on the specific features of the new paradigm in film, photography, the Internet, music, literature and painting. They explore the problematic of aesthetic center and periphery (marginality in aesthetics and art). The research project has led to the publication of a book with the same title and several articles in scientific journals.
Religious Aesthetics in Russia. Project headed by Victor Bychkov (2003–2006).
The project examines a trend in Russian aesthetics of the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries that remains virtually unexplored by Russian and foreign scholars alike, i.e., a system of aesthetic ideas of Russian religious thinkers and writers that can presently be defined as theurgic aesthetics. The researchers focus on the aesthetic and cultural views of V. Solovyov, V. Rozanov, D. Merezhkovsky, N. Berdyaev, P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, N. Lossky, S. Frank, B. Vysheslavtsev, I. Ilyin, N. Arsenyev, etc. The study has been presented in a series of articles, the first parts of N.A. Kormin’s book on Vladimir Solovyov’s aesthetics (see Department bibliography), as well as talks at different conferences and seminars.
Oleg Aronson, Helen Petrovsky. Beyond Imagination. Contemporary Philosophy and Contemporary Art. Lectures. Nizhny Novgorod: NCCA, 2009. – 230 p.
The book is a transcript of eight public lectures delivered in Nizhny Novgorod at the initiative of the local branch of the National Center for Contemporary Arts. It may serve as an introduction to both contemporary philosophy and contemporary art. The lecturers display different strategies in their treatment of the subject matter. Helen Petrovsky deals with an artist and a theorist whose work may be seen as mutually complementary in terms of the problems it poses. She analyzes A. Gursky and F. Jameson, Ch. Marker and R. Barthes, J. Wall and J. Derrida, S. Calle and W. Benjamin. Oleg Aronson unites art and philosophy by singling out a logic common to both. He treats such problems as politics of the image, destruction and deconstruction, the ethical dimension of art. Philosophy is thus not only a tool for the understanding of art but also a means for its creation.
Helen Petrovsky. Theory of the Image. M.: RGGU Press, 2010. – 284 p.
The book is an examination of the main approaches to the problem of the visible and the invisible in the works of leading contemporary philosophers and cultural studies scholars, such as M. Merleau-Ponty, J.-L. Marion, M.-J. Mondzain, J.-L. Nancy, J. Derrida, R. Barthes, R. Krauss and V. Flusser. The author aims not only to present the views of these theorists in an innovative perspective (that of the insufficiency of “reading” the visual as a set of signs), but also to map out the object of a new discipline, namely, visual studies. The publication is addressed to graduate and post-graduate students, university professors, as well as to a broader audience interested in the problems of contemporary visual culture.
The book was awarded the 2011 Andrei Bely Prize (theory category).
Department Periodicals:
Collection of Essays Aesthetics: Yesterday. Today. Always (since 2005).
Displays from the Russian State Library exhibition “V.V. Bychkov. 40 Years of Scholarly Activity” (March 12-31, 2009).
Contacts:
Address: Moscow 119992, 14/1 Volkhonka St., Room 521
Tel.: (495) 697-58-55
E-mail: aesthetica@iph.ras.ru
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