Leading Russian legal theorist is 80 years old. For the anniversary of V.M. Syrykh

Dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the famous legal scholar Vladimir Mikhailovich Syrykh, the author of over 40 monographs, textbooks, teaching aids, many hundreds of scientific articles and other materials. The scientists contribution to legal science is analyzed. We focus on the methodology of the theory of law, method structure, content of the materialist theory of law, etc. The exceptional contribution of the scientist to preparation and publication of the Encyclopedic Dictionary Legal Science and Legal Ideology of Russia is distinguished. The ideas and assessments of the author's recent historical and legal monographs on the Soviet regime, the Red Terror, and Stalinist repressions are illustrated.

Entangled Yoga Bodies

In this article, we draw upon the work of leading new materialist Karen Barad to explore the possibilities for knowing women's yoga bodies differently. Engaging insights gathered from an embodied ethnography on contemporary Yoga in dialogue with Barad's concept of entanglement, we contemplate the complexity of a lived experience in a Yoga body. Engaging the voices and movement experiences of 19 committed women yoga practitioners, we explain ‘Yogic union’ as states of absorption facilitating an awareness of an existence that is complex, interconnected and involving both human and non-human materiality. Specifically, we work within and between the embodied experiences of the researcher and her participants, feminist new materialist theory, and creative writing to present Yoga bodies as phenomena that are always entangled.

Embodied Practice and Materialist Phenomenology

This chapter critically examines the Materialist-Phenomenological Method for studying religion and the work of the sociologist of religion Manuel A. Vásquez. This method focuses on the study of embodied religious practices, visual cultures, vernacular idioms, and particular locales as these are studied according to historical and often ethnographic methods of analysis. The chapter interrogates Vásquez’s work More than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion, which proffers a “somatocentric” theory that aims to escape the legacy of Cartesian dualism. The chapter raises questions about Vásquez’s philosophical anthropology and shows how he repeats and reinforces the firewall separating the study of religion from reasons for studying it. In More than Belief, the chapter shows, one encounters the fact-value dualism that underwrites the ascetic ideal in religious studies, one so thoroughgoing that it prevents Vásquez from grasping the need to provide philosophical reasons to justify his theory.

The Lively Intra-Actions of Athleisure: A Baradian Analysis of Fit Femininity

Since the early 2000s, athleisure (clothing designed for physical activity) has been gaining popularity as both a functional and fashionable clothing trend, particularly among women. Thus far, scholars have explored the gendered nature of athleisure and the neoliberal, postfeminist, and healthism discourses present within this fitness clothing phenomenon. However, the research has yet to account for the materiality of athleisure and its impacts upon women's experiences of fitness and the construction of idealized female bodies. In this article, we use new materialist theory, specifically Karen Barad's agential realism, to explore the material-discursive dimensions of athleisure. Drawing upon a diffractive analysis of interviews conducted with 22 women in Aotearoa New Zealand, in conjunction with social media analyses, we explore two lively intra-actions of women's athleisure-clad moving bodies – the ‘muffin top’ and the ‘big booty’ – to reveal what athleisure does to/with women's bodies. We highlight how these athleisure-body intra-actions work to create boundaries around acceptable femininity and give rise to particular constructions and meanings of women's bodies.

Embodied Knowledge of/with the place. Review of the book: Placemaking, A New Materialist Theory of Pedagogy (Page, Tara, 2020)

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The potential for new materialist justice via Nordic feminist perspectives of law

The Nordic feminist perspectives in law have traditionally been relatively successful in advocating, and effectuating, a feminist perspective of justice both within law and the society. However, Nordic feminist perspectives of law have at least to some degree, at this stage been limited to questions of equality between men and women and to the production of justice within the boundaries of the nation-state. In this article, I take the challenge upon myself of elaborating the notion of justice advanced by new materialist theory as a means to infuse the Nordic feminist perspective in, and on, law. This is pursued by reading new materialist theory and Nordic feminist perspectives of law against each other. In sum, the reading suggests that a focus on new materialist justice could be used to infuse Nordic feminist legal perspectives on justice by both shifting the understanding of law, and justice, as well as its contextual focus.

‘Oohing and ahhing’: The power of thin(g)king in art education research

In this article, we seek to explore what new materialist theory and post-intentional phenomenology bring to art education research. Materiality is contextualized politically and historically, and then applied to an emerging research methodology which attempts to centre the material world as a key participant in an art education dissertation research project. The research site, a creative reuse store, serves as both context and participant as the authors explore the powerful collective agency of materiality in processes of art making. Portions of findings from the project are presented here and a new theory of thin(g)king is discussed.