The author considers the pointlessness of choosing between historical models of university. Instead, he proposes to find what is happening to knowledge today and whether this is relevant for higher education. Obviously, the internet and modern communication technologies affect the character of knowledge and attitudes towards it. The decline of the nation-state means a change of the principal partner and client of science. Now it is the individual customer who determines user-friendly content and form of knowledge. University bureaucracy does its best to satisfy his desires. It is this bureaucracy, not scholars-professors, who embody university now. Current trends in knowledge and university are similar in Russia and in the West (the Bologna reform as a realization of the managerial turn), despite the high degree of corruption and plagiarism in the former.

“Dangerous liaisons” of the left and right-conservative discourse have been discussed widely by different thinkers of the 20th century. Most sharply this issue rung in the context of long standing debates between the left esoteric Walter Benjamin and the conservative utopist Carl Schmitt. Based on the texts of Benjamin and Schmitt of the 20s and 30s focused on a range of issues such as sovereignty, state of emergency or violence and language, the author exposes the irreducibility of the positions of these two thinkers and their fundamental political, metaphysical and ethical alternativeness. The article critically analyses the approaches of famous modern day researchers to the theme referred to (Agamben), conditioned by their preconceived political, theological and metaphysical convictions.

The paper describes in a comparative perspective the dynamics and main phases of revolution from the point of view of economics. It analyses the dynamics of the revolutionary processes as well as the economic policy, which revolutionary governments are to proceed: inflationary financing, redistribution of property, monetary issue etc. The author argues that revolutions cause the expansion of transaction costs and the economic slowdown as a result. He demonstrates that the Russian transformation of the late 1980s—early 1990s generally actuates the same economic policy mechanisms as during the great revolutions of the past. However there is a specificity in it—this was the first full-scale revolution to take place under the circumstances of the crisis of in- dustrialism and the transfer to postindustrial society.

The article introduces into forms of political and social r tation specific to the recent Russian civil protests. The analysis is based on numerous interviews with protesters and observation of evolution of the movement. The data challenges the frequently referenced “crisis” of representation and bring to light a variety of coordination centers set in competition for a political mandate of the protest movement, as far as a vague will of a considerable part of protesters to be represented. Media coverage of the street rallies, including their global attribution to a “middle class,” is critically examined along with the protesters’ own statements and rallies agenda, in order to check the presence of an actual social or revolutionary representation. The article reveals a break with apparatus and hegemonic models of collective action in current mobilization which provides it with new (in the Russian context) forms of political subjectivity based on self‑empowerment and self‑trial.

The article examines the major political, social and cultural aspects of Russian protest movements in the late 2011—early 2012. Well-established concepts used within these movements as well as their social self-characterization are analyzed. The article considers the impact of the new media environment on the shape and political limitations of this phenomenon. It argues that the novelty of the protest phenomenon is the appearance of “new urban romance.”

The main thesis of the article is that revolution and corruption are structurally and genetically related to the process of state building (étatisation). Basing itself on Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas on the state, the article demonstrates that revolution and anti-corruption agitation are derived from a “normative pressure,” resulting from the generalization of the fiction of raison d’État. In the conclusion of the article this thesis is considered in the context of recent protest movements in the US and Russia which impose a demand on the “new norm.” The fact that the normative initiative shifted from from the governments to protest movements suggests that current models of political representation are undergoing a deep crisis.

The article judges biographical evidence of Socrates, describing some particularities of his visage and behavioral manner. On the basis of evidence by Aristophanes, Xenophontes, Plato and others the author comes to the conclusion that Socrates’ behavior and image are stylized to the Spartans character. “Le Mirage Spartiate” and Socrates’ biographical testimony are compared. The parallels drawn allow to discuss nonverbal determination of the philosophic temper as a subject of the History of Philosophy.

The paper discusses the realistic application of Plato’s Kallipolis, providing results of recent studies on Greek colonization and cultural poetics. The Republic is just one among other colonization projects proposed by Athenian intellectuals in 4th century BC . Participants of the dialogue are quite familiar with real colonization practices. Socrates gives concise and clear indications on the typical recolonisation scenario to implement. The notoriously enigmatic saying that the ideal polis is to be found “nowhere on earth,” should be examined in the context of legendary tales about the foundations of colonies.