Проективный словарь гуманитарных наук

This book is the result of its author’s half-century of work in various fields of the humanities. I studied philology at Moscow State University and originally specialized in literary theory and aesthetics. In the 1980s, in connection with the formation of new literary and intellectual movements in the USSR, I began to consider the question of how the humanities, including philology, aesthetics, and poetics, might influence the development of literature itself and enable such emerging currents thereof as metarealism and conceptualism to define themselves. In the 1990s, I dealt with issues of postmodernism and the emergence of a new cultural formation coming to take its place (After the Future, 1995; Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture, with Alexander Genis and Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover, 1999). At the same time, I was drawn to the interdisciplinary approach involving the juxtaposition and interplay of different cultures, particularly Russian and American culture (Transcultural Experiments, 1999). My interests gradually migrated toward the field of philosophy, especially modality theory (Filosofiia vozmozhnogo [The Philosophy of the Possible], 2001), as well as modern theology, with a focus on researching the spiritual condition of a post-atheist society (Religiia posle ateizma [Religion After Atheism], 2013). In the 2000s, I began to be interested in linguistics and its transformative potential – how it can influence the development of language and broaden its lexical-morphological system (Dar slova. Proektivnyi leksikon russkogo iazyka [The Gift of the Word: A Projective Lexicon of the Russian Language], 2000-16). Finally, in the last fifteen years I have become increasingly concerned with the fate of the humanities as a whole and the potential for developing humanities-based practices and technologies capable of influencing the life of society. This is the subject of the books Znak probela. O budushchem gumanitarnykh nauk (Mapping Blank Spaces: On the Future of the Humanities, 2004), The Transformative Humanities: A Manifesto (2012), and Ot znaniia – k tvorchestvu. Kak gumanitarnye nauki mogut izmeniat’ mir(From Knowledge to Creativity: How the Humanities Can Change the World, 2016). This dictionary thus stands as a sort of synthesis of my previous works in various fields of the humanities.

This dictionary is doubly authorial: all its entries were written by a single author; and most of the concepts and terms featured in it belong to the same person. It was conceived not only as a reference aid, but also a form of advancing new ideas that affect various fields of the humanities. The dictionary as a whole is a sort of a performative utterance, which of course differs from a description or a statement of fact: the performative utterance accomplishes that which it communicates, by the very fact of its being uttered. Such statements as “I promise” or “agreed” themselves enact what they speak of (a promise or agreement). Thus does the predictionary aspire, by the very fact of communicating certain ideas, to enact them, to introduce them into the field of humanities theory and intellectual practice. A performative dictionary is an action in the sphere of language and culture.

The dictionary consists of fourteen sections in a specific thematic order. First, from general issues of the humanities to philosophy and such subdivisions thereof as ontology (being and the world), epistemology (thought and knowledge), and modality (potentiality and creativity). Then comes consideration of the central themes of humanities research: time and history, religion, the individual and ethics, culture and aesthetics, literature, text, and language. The final sections turn to those fields of human existence where the humanities intersect with the interests of other – biological, social, technological – disciplines: life and the body, society and politics, technology and information science.

Naturally, the genre of dictionary does not presuppose reading every section in precisely this sequence; the choice depends on the reader’s interests. For an overall orientation as to the dictionary’s subject matter, it is recommended that the reader first acquaint him/herself with section one, “The Humanities As a Whole” (especially the entry “The Humanities”). Within each section, terms are presented in alphabetical order.