The 19th century was the time of geopolitics, the 20th — the time of geoeconomics, and now begins the epoch of geoculture. Meanings, values, future projects, religious beliefs of different civilizations largely determine the future waiting for us. In cultural studies, it makes us to move from description and classification to modeling and prognostication. The article offers one of the basic mathematical models of cultural studies, based on the notions of culture and self-organization universals. This model can be the basis for predicting cultural dynamics and building state cultural policy. It can become a problematic field for interdisciplinary research as well. There could participate culturologists, philosophers, natural scientists, and specialists in mathematical modeling. For many years, culturologists, economists, and politicians have been discussing the following issue: “How is it possible to measure culture, to evaluate the results of cultural policies and spent money?” The constructed model and developed approach are closely connected with the theory of selforganization or synergetics. In this theory, the key concept is the order parameters. They are so-called leading variables, to which other characteristics of the system under study are added, over time. This article suggests to consider as such parameters the culture, vision of the future, and a large project of a particular civilization. This allows us not to be dealing with means — the money invested, number of libraries, number of films or the audience — but with the result, the fact that people want to preserve and develop the meanings and values of their, not of other civilization. What means to use for that becomes a question of practical politics and specific social and cultural technologies. 

The article presents the experience of formation and development of an innovative concept of popular culture exploration, in its specific mental, social, cultural and aesthetic qualities. This experience is defined by the concept “Russian discourse”. The author formulates the interdisciplinary methodological grounds, among which there is a special place given to discursive practices and which are necessary to form the scientific cluster. The cluster includes the codes (text, context, archetype, myth, image, game, borders, education, etc.), fields (art, politics, religious life, education, urban daily) and levels (popular culture and society, popular culture and personality) of the Russian popular culture. The article describes the empirical material, identified in the Russian popular culture and containing the movies and performances, literary works, community and cultural events, events of everyday life. It also describes the features of the pilot socio-cultural study (the survey, conducted in Russian cities Yaroslavl, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Ulyanovsk, Novosibirsk, Vologda, complemented by interviews with leading figures of Russian culture — heads of art universities, theatre groups, artists, scientists). The article defi nes the perspectives of popular culture studying in Russia, in relation to large-scale strata of the realities of life, understood in the globalization and authentic contexts. A new horizon, with expanding Russian discourse of popular culture, is demonstrated. It is, firstly, the techniques, images, and actions formed outside of Russia and assigned by Russian culture; secondly — the phenomena, artifacts, actions and people that are actually native Russian and presented to the world as such. 

The article characterizes the mechanism of language practices as a manifestation of the symbolization ability in the context of the culturological generalizations by L. White, who considered culture as a self-sufficient phenomenon defining the human development. This question is relevant because of the need to identify the ultimate determinants of culture, which ensure sustainability of its development. The author analyzes the specificity of the symbolical expression of language practices in the theory of L. White and carries out the approach to defining culture as an extrasomatic phenomenon. In this context, the language is considered as a requirement for culture existing, and its active character, manifested in articulated speech — as a method for discovering new meanings providing culture development. The ideas of language statements efficiency are updated in these considerations. The article identifies the capabilities of the language symbol, in its cumulative and progressive development, to form thoughts, which corresponds to the reasoning of L. White on evolutionary dynamics of culture. In this vein, the view of L. White on the language practices in establishing cultural continuum is determined by their focusing on the progressive targeted evolutionary development in its material embodiment, which is reflected in the specific abilities of symbolization, forming human behavior. 

Studying the Russian World as a socio-cultural community has been for a long time in the focus of scientists from different fields of science, of politicians and religious leaders. At the present time, it is connected with intensification of the globalization processes, accompanied by worsening of the geopolitical situation in the world and characterized, among other things, by the desire of individual cultures’ representatives to preserve their identity and originality under the growing influence of other cultures. For Russia, this period is determined by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which resulted in necessity to create new principles of civilizational interaction with the global community. However, today there is a lack of full description of the history and development, as well as the essence of this phenomenon, which would contribute to its adequate understanding and, consequently, more effective work on the formation of its image in the international space. This article aims to define the role and place of the Russian World in the history of Russian and global community, generalize and systematize the approaches to studying this phenomenon, in order to improve the relevance of the cultural policy content concerning the formation of the Russian World’s image and translation of its values. 

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The article traces the obvious infl uence of socialist realism on the development of Sots-Art; but above all, it analyzes the possibility of another image of SotsArt, its going beyond the limits of ideological depiction. The author examines the image through the relationship of “space” and “plane”, which she introduces as an aesthetic feature lying in the history of art and in visual text. The author reviews the historical and artistic situation that determined the emergence of Sots-Art. Socialist realism had prepared a platform for the ideological manifesto of Sots-Art. Not renouncing the socialist realist tradition of depicting, Sots-Art opened it again, aiming to defi ne the visual form of postmodernism that would use the Soviet ideologemes. Basing on the “plane” and “space” analysis of visual texts or pictures, the article examines the construction features of the fi gurative Sots-Art language. Sots-Art uses the socialist realism’s plane, its familiar image and expressed ideology, and converts it into a landscape, which means the possibility of space. Thus, Sots-Art determines the degree of perception of painting, highlights its shaped status. 

The object of this research is the spectator’s role in the system of screen culture: in cinema, television, video art and computer games, especially those designed for the virtual reality. Special attention is paid to the differences in unspoken rules and conventions in such spaces as cinema-halls and contemporary art galleries, because of the way such differences affect the spectators’ behaviour and perception, as well as the degree of their activeness in the communication process. The field of virtual reality is perceived as the newest medium, the aesthetic value of which is still to be clarified.

The novelty of the research is in problematisation of the spectator’s figure in the post-classic screen culture. While the role of cinemagoer is analyzed in a large number of cultural and psychoanalytic works depicting the communicative mechanics of cinema, the role of video and new media art spectator has not been explored yet. The author concludes that the video and modern screen arts call for a significant activeness of the viewer, who plays the role of critically thinking subject and due to this becomes the co-author of the artwork. However, the “hot” media of mass culture are designed for the passive audience and can change the situation.

The findings of this study can be used in analytical work, as well as in educational practice to give lectures and seminars on the courses of history and theory of contemporary art, cultural studies, media theory.

Specifi c features of the Renaissance poetics have been studied insufficiently yet, especially the influence on them of the emblematic culture. The emblematic type of thinking was typical for that period, which is evidenced by the fact that both books of emblems and images from them were widely spread. The article offers an analysis of the 71st sonnet from “Amoretti” cycle by Edmund Spenser, where description of an embroidery pattern is combined with its allegorical interpretation, which permits to consider the entire sonnet as a kind of emblem. In contrast to the already existing religious interpretation of The Spider and the Bee emblem, which represented them as an unrighteous man and a true Christian, Spenser gives his own interpretation and associates The Spider and the Bee with lovers. The poet catches his beloved in his love net; and thus he reverses the common Petrarchan topos of the golden hair of the lady who caught her beloved in her net. The free image interpretation is a part of the emblematic thinking, which can give not just one but several interpretations to any object. Therefore, Spenser creates a sonnet referring to both the scholarly (emblems) and the household (embroidery) knowledge of the reader, thus showing his love of compound poetical images. 

Based on the analysis of various Russian and foreign museum exhibitions, the article examines the experience of using humour in the museum space. The author evaluates the potential of using humour to enhance the quality of museum work, considers specifi c examples of the conceptual use of humour in museum exhibitions, and provides working schemes for museum designers and planners. The transition of museums from the educational and didactic model to the leisure and hedonistic one and their constant efforts to attract new visitors require all new instruments, one of which is humour. Today there are many museums and para-museums that work specifi cally with the topic of laughter and humour, however, in conventional museums, humour is still extremely rare. The global and Russian experience shows the prospects and multifunctional use of humour in the museum space. In the near future, a museum’s main strategic challen ges will require the active using of humour not only in daily activities of the museum, but also in its exposition. Taking into account the cumulative socio-cultural effect of humour, it can become a trigger for global changes in the life of the museum. 

The article is devoted to the understanding, in historical retrospect, of the concept of “new simplicity” and the study of the causes of its emergence in the composers’ works of the 20th — beginning of the 21st century. The article identifi es in music four types of “simplicity”, according to what formed its basis and served as a reference point for the composers in that period. The author focuses on the notions of “simplicity” as a simplifi cation of writing within the academic music tradition; “simplicity” that emerged on the basis of minimalist thinking; “simplicity” as “austerity” in the works of “sacred minimalists”; “simplicity” as rejection of new resources and appealing to the previously created material. The author suggests that, by refusing “novelty” in favor of “familiar” elements, composers become freed, to some extent, from the pressure to invent a new material. Thus, within the framework of “new simplicity”, the subject of musical utterance is represented by the echoes of what the others have already said, which declare not so much individuality as detachment from it. 

E.T.A. Hoffmann was a favorite writer of Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, but Hoffmann’s works have never become the subject of a special study as Dobuzhinsky’s lite - rary sources of creativity yet. This determines the relevance of this article. Impressions from reading masterpieces of liter ature played an important role in the works of Russian artists of the late 19th — early 20th century.

The scientifi c novelty of this article lies in the fact that it is the fi rst undertaken experience in analyzing the impact of the works of Hoffmann on the art of Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. The author used a complex method that combined the source analysis of the artist’s memoirs, the traditional formal analysis of his works, and the analysis of the texts of Hoffmann’s novels and short stories. The method allowed to expand and deepen the existing notions of the art of Dobuzhinsky, which had been created just on the basis of traditional formal analysis of his works.

The article reveals that the experience of reading Hoffmann’s novel “The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr”, as well as his short stories “The Golden Pot” and “The Corner Window”, infl uenced the fi gurative decision and choice of artistic sources (primarily, Japanese prints of the 18th—19th centuries) for a number of Dobuzhinsky’s artworks: illustrations to the works of Alexei Remizov and Mikhail Kuzmin, views of Saint Petersburg, views of some streets of Saint Petersburg. 

This article reviews the main stages of the establishment of cultural studies of education as a separate field of science. Its appearance was caused by two factors. Firstly, it was requested by the education system itself, which was looking for a new theoretical and methodological basis for studying culture, at the end of the 1980s. Secondly, there was a radical change in the format of culture, due to which the traditional methodology of pedagogy, social studies of education, and philosophy of education became no longer sufficient for a holistic study of the phenomenon of education, and for designing various educational models. As a result, two major research are as were formed: the development of cultural approach to the selection of content for different educational programs, organization of its logic, and methods for its studying, and the studies of education as a cultural phenomenon — a gene of the culture genesis. The established scientific and methodological base of cultural studies of education provides a fresh look not only at the problems faced by the modern system of education, but also at the works of outstanding teachers and thinkers of the past. In conclusion, there is a short bibliographical list of works that give the most complete picture of the problem field of cultural studies of education and the results obtained in this area over the past 20 years. 

The article examines the form of book and the book culture of the Modern Period. The author de- fi nes that the form of book is in direct correlation to the techno logy and artistic image of the book, and the book culture is considered as a combination of different forms of books in their interaction. The author reconstructs the Modern Period book culture on the basis of main book techniques — manuscript, engraving, printing. These techniques define the existence of three basic forms of the Modern Period book — hand-written book, engraved book, printed book. According to the author’s opinion, each of the forms is determined by specific social needs and demands of the historical period. In addition to the three basic forms, the book culture of the Modern Period includes some hybrid book forms, which appeared as a result of the interaction between different book techniques — e.g. “engraved and hand-written”, “engraved and printed”, etc. Their occurrence is caused by the needs of society and the technical capabilities of that time. The ratio of the book techniques in a certain historical period depends on the level of development of the book distribution system.

According to this approach, the history of books is considered as a consecutive change of book culture types, which happens due to the emergence of new techniques of the book. The emergence of new book techniques gradually destabilizes the stable (traditional) type of book culture — because of the appearance of new book forms in its interior — and thus contributes to the emergence of a new type of book culture and a new period in the development and history of books. Such a model of book development is shown for the first time in this article. 

June 15, 2017 is the 150th anniversary of birth of the famous Russian poet-symbolist, writer, translator, essayist, literary theoretician and critic Konstantin Dmitryevich Balmont (1867—1942). A half of his creative career passed in emigration. There were created many of his important works, now acknowledged classics of Russian literature. This article explores the history of K.D. Balmont’s foreign publications in Russian, through the analysis of the materials from the electronic database “Books in Russian Published Abroad, 1927—1991”, developed by the Research Department of Bibliography of the Russian State Library. The article comprises Balmont’s works published as individual author’s editions in different countries of the world. The scientifi c novelty of the article lies in the fact that for fi rst time there is paid direct attention to a detailed bibliographical review of the foreign Russian-language publications of Balmont’s works. The main results of the research are of theoretical and practical importance, as they were selected, described in Russian, the history of their emergence was examined. It will help literary researchers and active readers better navigate in the foreign Russianlanguage literature related to this subject. 

The article focuses on two approaches to the racial problem presented in Harper Lee’s novels “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Go Set a Watchman”. The topicality of this problem can be accounted for by the manifestations of racism in the modern society as well as by the fact that the novel “Go Set a Watchman”, written in 1957 and published only in 2015, refl ects the worldview characteristic of the present days. In the two books, the difference of approaches to the theme under consideration is partly due to the choice of the style of narration. In the classic novel, a small girl is the narrator. In the recently published book, the reader faces an omniscient narrator. Besides, the depicted historical background also in- fl uences the development of the described theme. Whereas the scene in the classic novel is laid in the 1930s, and the plot is concentrated on a specifi c, but single case of racial confl ict, the setting of “Go Set a Watchman” is the 1950s, when there were dramatic changes in the system of interracial relationship.

Both books are focused on the problem of racism and attach the main importance to the conscience of a person. Nevertheless, “Go Set a Watchman” poses questions that are more complicated and, to a certain extent, helps to understand why this problem does not lose its topicality. 

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The article suggests an option for practical implementation of the idea, developed by the author, that context should be considered as a clue for the theoretical artistic research within a specific direction. From the chosen perspective, the author reviews a difficult historical stage of the Russian artistic culture. The system-forming factors that create the context of an era are revealed. The article discloses the interaction, during the process of art development, of the social and historical determinants, on the one hand, and the immanent evolution patterns of the art as a whole and its certain types, on the other hand. The author shows the masters’ response to the outward realities of social life. A particular attention is paid to the analysis of the most important aesthetic and stylistic trends, common to all kinds of art, that determined the artistic panorama of that period. The article interprets the question of traditions development and the keen search for new ideas in the sphere of content, form, and expressive means. The emphasis is put on the names of the artists who symbolize that period, generating the creative content of the era.