Research & Expertise news at HSE University

On Monday, March 19, Jane Burbank, Professor of History and Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University, delivered a lecture entitled ‘Eurasian Sovereignty: The Case of Kazan’ at the Department of History and the Centre for Historical Research at HSE St. Petersburg.

Music is important to people in many different ways. It provides a way to engage with the world around us, whether through listening, interpersonal activity, performance, or individual introspection. Gabrielle Cornish, a musicologist and PhD candidate at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, has come to HSE on a research stay. She is looking at the role of music in the Soviet Union in the 1960-80s.

Per capita GDP can make a difference in a country’s performance in competitive computer gaming, according to a study conducted by researchers at HSE Perm. While a substantial amount of research focuses on traditional sports, few studies have so far examined eSports. Two HSE researchers examined a resource providing information on tournaments, winners and prizes – for country-level determinants of performance in competitive computer gaming. 

On March 15, HSE’s School of Cultural Studies welcomed Professor Ian Shapiro from Yale University to talk on two very hot topics: ‘Power and Domination in Political Theory’ and ‘Human Rights in the Contemporary World and Their Prospects’. The presentations were followed by a round table which gave participants further opportunity to engage with this internationally renowned expert in political science. Professor Shapiro’s latest book, Politics against Domination, is soon to be published for the first time in the Russian language.

The new institute is headed by Vasily Klucharev, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, who previously worked as Head of the School of Psychology. Vasily Klucharev told the HSE news team about what the School managed to achieve in four years, what the new institute will do and how attitudes towards psychology and neuroscience are changing.

Economic growth in developed countries has a dual effect. On one hand, people's living standards and consumer spending are on the rise, but on the other hand, this does not necessarily make people happy and may in fact erode subjective wellbeing and lead to economic crises. A new study co-authored by Francesco Sarracino, HSE LCSR Senior Associate Researcher, examines the reasons behind this phenomenon.

The ‘Green Spark’ installation by Elena Mitrofanova and Ivan Mitrofanov, project coordinators of the Shukhov Lab, and Paolo Bombelli from Cambridge University, has been selected from 68 projects to be exhibited as part of the Polytech Festival of Science, Art and Technology in May 2018. The festival, organized by the Polytechnic Museum, will take place in Moscow’s Gorky Park.

Since last September, Matthew Mangold has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Philology at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. After completing a PhD in Comparative Literature at Rutgers University in 2017, he joined HSE to conduct research on the intersection between Russian literature and the medical arts, in particular environmental medicine and psychology.