Ekaterina Melnikova and Zinaida Vasilyeva (eds.), Academia across the borders

 Ekaterina Melnikova and Zinaida Vasilyeva (eds.), Academia across the borders. Fürstenberg/Havel: Kulturstiftung Sibirien 2024.

Open access: https://dh-north.org/publikationen/academia-across-the-borders/de

This book documents the voices of scholars working in, with, or about Russia in the context of historical collapse. The brief answers, commentaries, and essays collected here were written in response to the four questions asking how academic lives and practices have changed in the aftermath of 24 February, 2022.

The original project, which was born in Russia at the end of 2022 and intended to be published in Russia and in the Russian language, was never realised. One year later, we are publishing this collection in Germany in the English language. These are no longer snapshots of the current situation, but historical documents that record structural disruptions, ethical and political uncertainties, and individual emotional and analytical reflections from a year ago.

Academia is always both an active subject and a passive object under transformation in any continuing political, social, and economic processes; with this publication we hope to contribute to our understanding of diverse implications of the war and shifts in academic landscapes and public discursive regimes. The book includes 25 responses by young and well-established scholars and two introductions, written by the editors in early 2023 and 2024 respectively.