The Faculty of Humanities was created on December 1, 2014. It trains instructors and researchers in the field of language and literature, as well as specialists in philosophy, history, and modern culture.
The main goal of the faculty is to teach students how to understand and analyse various cultural processes, employ current research strategies, and effectively put their knowledge into practice.
The faculty’s staff are leading Russian academics and practitioners from various cultural fields, as well as invited foreign specialists. Students receive a modern education in the humanities, as well as thorough language preparation, which allows them to find extensive professional opportunities upon graduation. Students are given the opportunity to conduct research and gain practical experience at major private and public establishments.
Our strengths:
1. Interdisciplinary approach
We study the humanities alongside other academic fields so that students can apply their skills in various areas.
2. International cooperation
We maintain active international ties, which allows students to undertake internships and study abroad, as well as broaden their outlook and cultural experiences.
3. Research
We encourage and support student participation in research projects. This gives them an opportunity to apply their knowledge in practice and make a contribution to the development of the humanities.
Our graduates pursue careers in public and commercial organisations and various types of mass media. They also implement their own media, cultural, social, and educational projects.
Publications
-
Book
Problem Solving in Philosophy. How to Do Philosophy in the Age of Ultra-Intelligent AI
This open access book provides a method for philosophical problem solving, offering philosophers the tools to stay ahead of machine intelligence. Louis Vervoort argues that, with ultra-intelligent AI knocking at the door, philosophy can no longer rely solely on its ancient methodological toolkit. The proposed method is essentially the same as used in natural science, theoretical physics in particular, and aims at solving problems through theory-synthesis. The author shows by first case studies that current AI can already assist us in this task – a trend that will surely strengthen in the near future. After explaining the method in detail, the book proceeds by proposing unified solutions to classic problems of (analytic) philosophy, such as Gettier’s problem, the problem of induction, of causation, of the interpretation of probability, of free will. The author argues that these solutions maximise a quantitative measure of solidity, and that philosophy can now reach standards of certainty that are comparable to those of natural science. The book is written for professional philosophers, but avoids jargon, so it should also be accessible to laypeople and scientists.
Springer, 2026.
-
Article
Holocaust “Sites of Memory” in the Urban Landscape of Moscow Created in the 1990s
The present study answers the question of how Moscow's monuments and museums - "Sites of Memory" of the Holocaust – were conceived, negotiated, and materially realized in the 1990s, and analyzes how these memorials construct and sustain a post‑Soviet memory of Jews murdered by the Nazis. The theoretical framework encompasses conceptual apparatus from memory studies, urban studies, and the ethics of Holocaust representation. Sources include archival documents from the collections of the Central State Archive of Moscow, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Archive of the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities “Vaad,” and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, as well as periodicals, sources of personal origin, and Internet resources. In conclusion, it shows how memory of the Holocaust in Russia has been appropriated by the “Politics of History” based on the narrative of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War. Evidently, this has led to the emergence of a specifically Russian Holocaust memory in which the mass murder of Jews is marginalized and not understood as genocide. As a result, the memory of the victims of the Holocaust is verbalized but plays a subsidiary role in comparison with the sufferings of the Soviet people from 1941-1945
East European Jewish Affairs. 2026.
-
Book chapter
Ancient Greek Polis: From Homoarchy to Heterarchy and Back Again
The chapter considers the historical development of the Ancient Greek city-state (polis) viewed through the categories of homoarchy and heterarchy basic for the present monography. The author traces its formation on the base of the homoarchical society of the Dark Ages, the peculiarities of its heterarchical structure, the background of its crise in the 4th century B.C.
In bk.: Principles and Forms of Sociocultural Organization: Historical Contexts of Interaction. L.; NY: Anthem Press, 2026. Ch. 2. P. 33-52.
-
Working paper
You shall know a piece by the company it keeps. Chess plays as a data for word2vec models
In this paper, I apply linguistic methods of analysis to non-linguistic data, chess plays, metaphorically equating one with the other and seeking analogies. Chess game notations are also a kind of text, and one can consider the records of moves or positions of pieces as words and statements in a certain language. In this article I show how word embeddings (word2vec) can work on chess game texts instead of natural language texts. I don't see how this representation of chess data can be used productively. It's unlikely that these vector models will help engines or people choose the best move. But in a purely academic sense, it's clear that such methods of information representation capture something important about the very nature of the game, which doesn't necessarily lead to a win.arxiv.org. Computer Science. Cornell University, 2024