Svetlana Erpyleva
Svetlana Erpyleva is a sociologist, a researcher with Public Sociology Laboratory, Centre for Independent Social Research (Russia), and a post-doctoral researcher at the Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen. She received her PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on protest movements and collective action, political involvement, political socialization, youth and children's political participation and cognition in Russia and abroad.
Svetlana's articles have been published in American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Journal of Youth Studies, Current Sociology, Qualitative Psychology, the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Childhood, a number of Russian academic journals, and Russian and international media. She is also a co-author of the collective monograph Politics of Apoliticals (2015, in Russian) and a co-editor of the analytical report The War Near and Far (2023, lmverlag). Svetlana took part in PS Lab projects on political mobilizations in Russia and Ukraine and the war in the Donbas region. Currently, she coordinates a large-scale research project on how Russians perceive the current war in Ukraine.
Selected Publications
Articles
Erpyleva, S (2023). "Too immature for politics?" Political agency in the eyes of Russian adolescent protesters, 2011–20. Childhood (open access)
Erpyleva, S. (2023). Protest event, political culture, and the power of biography: the post-protest local activism in Russia. American Journal of Cultural Sociology (open access).
Alyukov, M., & Erpyleva, S. (2022). Collective cognitive tasks as a method for studying political reasoning. Qualitative Psychology, 9(1), 27-44.
Erpyleva, S. (2021). Active citizens under Eighteen: minors in political protests. Journal of Youth Studies, 24(9), 1215-1233.
Erpyleva, S. (2021). Are Children Born Social Actors? Forum for Anthropology and Culture, 16, 39-47.
Zhuravlev, O., Savelyeva, N., & Erpyleva, S. (2020). The cultural pragmatics of an event: the politicization of local activism in Russia. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 33, 163-180.
Erpyleva, S. (2018). Freedom's children in protest movements: Private and public in the socialization of young Russian and Ukrainian activists. Current Sociology, 66(1), 20-37.
Media
Erpyleva, S., Kappinen, S. (May 3, 2023). Accepting the inevitable. POSLE.
Erpyleva, S., & Zhuravlev, O. (2023). Nicht Befürworter:innen und nicht Gegner:innen: Wie verändert sich bei der Bevölkerung in Russland mit der Zeit die Wahrnehmung des Krieges in der Ukraine? Russland-Analysen 434.
Erpyleva, S. (March 14, 2023). 'Once we've started, we can't stop': how Russians' attitudes to the war in Ukraine are changing. Re: Russia.
Erpyleva, S. (April 16, 2022) Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine? OpenDemocracy.
Erpyleva, S. & Zhuravlev, O. (June 3, 2021). What's new about Russia's new protests? OpenDemocracy.
Erpyleva, S. (2018). The Politicization of Russian Youth. New Eastern Europe, 1, 7-13.
Erpyleva, S (2023). "Too immature for politics?" Political agency in the eyes of Russian adolescent protesters, 2011–20. Childhood (open access)
Erpyleva, S. (2023). Protest event, political culture, and the power of biography: the post-protest local activism in Russia. American Journal of Cultural Sociology (open access).
Alyukov, M., & Erpyleva, S. (2022). Collective cognitive tasks as a method for studying political reasoning. Qualitative Psychology, 9(1), 27-44.
Erpyleva, S. (2021). Active citizens under Eighteen: minors in political protests. Journal of Youth Studies, 24(9), 1215-1233.
Erpyleva, S. (2021). Are Children Born Social Actors? Forum for Anthropology and Culture, 16, 39-47.
Zhuravlev, O., Savelyeva, N., & Erpyleva, S. (2020). The cultural pragmatics of an event: the politicization of local activism in Russia. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 33, 163-180.
Erpyleva, S. (2018). Freedom's children in protest movements: Private and public in the socialization of young Russian and Ukrainian activists. Current Sociology, 66(1), 20-37.
Media
Erpyleva, S., Kappinen, S. (May 3, 2023). Accepting the inevitable. POSLE.
Erpyleva, S., & Zhuravlev, O. (2023). Nicht Befürworter:innen und nicht Gegner:innen: Wie verändert sich bei der Bevölkerung in Russland mit der Zeit die Wahrnehmung des Krieges in der Ukraine? Russland-Analysen 434.
Erpyleva, S. (March 14, 2023). 'Once we've started, we can't stop': how Russians' attitudes to the war in Ukraine are changing. Re: Russia.
Erpyleva, S. (April 16, 2022) Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine? OpenDemocracy.
Erpyleva, S. & Zhuravlev, O. (June 3, 2021). What's new about Russia's new protests? OpenDemocracy.
Erpyleva, S. (2018). The Politicization of Russian Youth. New Eastern Europe, 1, 7-13.
Teaching Experience
Today, we typically see childhood and politics as incompatible. Childhood is associated with innocence, while politics is considered to be something "dirty." Furthermore, children are portrayed as not yet fully developed and so dependent on others, while participation in contemporary political systems is cast as requiring the cognitive abilities to express "independent" opinions. Our cultural beliefs are embedded in our legal systems: the right to vote (as well as many other rights) is granted to people only after they turn a certain age. However, with more and more minors starting to participate in protest politics across the world, our cultural beliefs about the incompatibility of childhood and political experience, as well as the way we measure political maturity have been put into question. This course turns to literature in sociology, social history, political science, political theory, etc. in order to problematize our conventional view about the incompatibility of childhood and politics. Politics is understood broadly in this course and refers not only to minors' conventional and protest political participation, but also to their access to the public sphere in general and their ability to be political subjects and not the objects of adult care. This course teaches students to question ideas that seem to be "natural" through the analysis of historical, cultural, and social circumstances of these ideas' development. Moreover, the course demonstrates how different disciplines may approach the same object or phenomenon.
Mowgli, the main character of the famous Kipling's book the Jungle Book, was discarded by his parents and subsequently brought up by a pack of wolves in the forest. However, he learned how to speak (at least animal language), how to understand, and how to empathize—in other words, he became a human. Unfortunately, such a nice story is only a myth. Social science tells us that only a human, or more precisely, a human society is able to turn a crying and screaming baby into a (wo)man. How does this happen? How do we learn to speak, to think, and to understand others including ourselves? How as strangers do we develop similar perceptions of what is good and what is bad? Why are the things which are "natural" for some people strange to other people brought up and educated in different countries or in different times? Why do we cooperate with each other and create groups, families, schools, states, and sometimes even unite with each other to change these groups—namely, to do politics? What does it mean that "society" made us who we are? And what is this "society"? This course proposes to answer these and other questions. It is devoted to studying the process of making an individual a part of society, which sociologists typically call "socialization.". In the first part of the course we consider different ways of explaining this process by diverse social scientists from the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, and psychology. The second part of the course looks specifically at education and pedagogy. We ask, for example: Does education always presuppose coercion and suppression or is "free" education possible? Why does education always include aspects of discipline? Is discipline something progressive or it is an "necessary evil"?
This course covers the main methods of conducting qualitative research, such as interview, observation, experiment, content analysis, and others. Is it possible to conduct scientific research just talking to or observing people? Is an experiment in social science possible? Why do contemporary social scientists not always trust only statistics and polls? What is the difference between a qualitative sociologist and a quantitative sociologist? And the most importantly, how does one organize qualitative social research? We also consider the problems researchers usually face when organizing their fieldwork: how to find informants, how to empathize while preserving the emotional distance necessary for analysis, how to work in dangerous fields, whether it is appropriate to hide the real goals of research from participants, and so forth. The course is fieldwork oriented. The course reading list is aimed at helping students design their own research and practice particular methods. However, the main emphasis is on doing empirical research. Each student will choose a topic for his/her research and develop it during the course. Each week students are required to practice a particular method of collecting and analyzing data. Most in-class meetings will be organized around discussing individual students' empirical work. For the final written assignment, the student will write a short research paper based on the empirical data they collected.
This course is a survey of the tradition of European political and philosophical thought from Plato to Foucault. It includes a variety of classical works from Greek and Roman antiquity, the Middle Ages, early Modernity, the Enlightenment, and the 20th century. It aims to give students a sense of the historical contingency of ideas, as well as the common concerns that have animated thinkers in different times and places.
This course aims at introducing undergraduate students to various types of writing, such as creative and academic writing and teaches students how to engage with texts through analysis and interpretation. It covers the principles of traditional rhetoric, the structure of academic argument, and new writing models designed to develop one's creativity. The course helps students acquire and begin to develop the writing and thinking skills essential in both professional and everyday life. In addition, WTAI aims at familiarizing students with different types of academic and creative discourses and genres: philosophical essays, scientific articles, prose, poetry, criticism, etc.
This course is an introduction to the conventions of Academic Writing. Topics covered include grammar and academic style, the writing and revision process, conventions of citation, learning to dissect arguments and read critically, and the mechanics of writing an expository essay. Students participate in various in-class writing activities and compose a polished, expository essay for a final assignment which incorporates all the aspects of the writing process covered. The course is composed of a mixture of small lectures, group work, and writing workshops where students work directly with peers and the instructor to improve their writing.
