A Review of S. B. Adonyeva (ed.), Disaster Rituals: Anthropological Essays. St Petersburg: The Propp Center, 2020, 208 pp. (Primary Signs, or Pragmemes)

This collective monograph examines the disaster rituals of the Russian countryside, in particular the rituals performed during epidemics and epizootics, as well as during village fires. The authors use not only published sources, but also their own notes taken during expeditions into the territory of the Russian North-West. Chronologically, the studies cover the period from the mid-17th century to the present, but most attention is paid to data from the mid-19th century to the first third of the 20th century. The book attempts to develop a general theory of disaster rituals using the ideas of Emile Durkheim, Pitirim Sorokin, Victor Turner, and Mircea Eliade. The reviewer notes the value of the empirical material—which is being introduced to science for the first time—but expresses opposition to some of the authors’ observations. In particular, he criticizes the attempt to apply the methodological toolkit developed by Victor Turner in his description of the Isoma ritual of the African Ndembu people to this new material. With this approach, the rites of different peoples are not actually compared to each other, but are characterized together in such a way that the characteristics of one rite are ascribed to another. As a result of this paradoxical meta-description, Vologda rituals appear to resemble the African Isoma, although in fact they have little to nothing in common with it.

Creative laboratory of the author: functional bilingualism in the preparation of a written text

The report examines the peculiarities of bilingualism of the outstanding Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin (1898–1968) based on his archival working materials from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). The purpose of the study is to identify and explain the linguistic features of his scientific thinking in connection with the conditions of translinguism. Based on the material of Pitirim Sorokin’s working notes, the features of his work on the creation of the book “Contemporary Sociological Theories” (1928) are considered. Correspondences between the preparatory notes and the final text of the book are established. The specifics of translingual practices in the scientific activity of a scientist are revealed. Archival manuscripts and notes allow you to trace not only the process of changing the language and switching codes. The use of a mixed meta-language by Pitirim Sorokin in the work on the preparatory materials of the book has been established. At the same time, a functional distribution of language codes is revealed. Russian language is a working tool of scientific thinking, planning and management of research activities.

Pitirim Sorokin and COVID-19

In 1942, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, a survivor of the post-WorldWar I pandemic, published "Man and Society in Calamity," a comparative study of the human response (including political responses) to four recurrent mass-death events. One was "pestilence." Sorokin reached many general conclusions. In Fall of 2020, the author of this paper (Wilkinson) held a seminar whose students attempted to re-evaluate Sorokin's conclusions, based upon their own experiences, observations, and mutual dialogue. In general, the seminar found that Sorokin's conclusions were mostly still applicable, but that his social theory of pestilence needed drastic changes as concerned (a) the gendered, class-based, ethnic and national distribution of pestilence and its consequences of pestilence, (b) the much-changed capacity (from 1942) for the scientific and technological response to pestilence, and (c) the much changed capacity (again, since 1942) for international-organizational response to pestilence. With these updates, Sorokin's theory of the human social response to pestilence can serve as guidance both for study and for policy in regard not only to the current pandemic, but for epidemics and pandemics yet to come.

Searching for a Soul

The crisis for Christianity in the interwar years was intensified by the crisis in Western civilizations. Universities were to serve the needs of industrial society but also wanted to find meaning in the humanities and the best of the Western heritage. But critics like Carl Becker raised the question of whether humans could find meaning. Ruth Benedict was one who critiqued Western culture for its racism. John Dewey believed Americans could find a secular “common faith.” Chicago’s President Robert Maynard Hutchins presented in The Higher Education in America the most scathing critique. Humane education was undermined by dehumanizing scientific models and by business interests. These issues were sharply debated during the war years. Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and some religious thinkers such as Pitirim Sorokin and Jacques Maritain argued for higher law either from either religion or metaphysics. John Dewey, Sidney Hook, and others argued for more pragmatic secular approaches.

PITIRIM SOROKIN AS A NONCONFORMIST

Цель статьи: рассмотреть позицию П. Сорокина как нонконформиста в социологии. Методы: компаративистский, исторический, биографический. Результаты: выявлены основные вехи проявления нонконформистских позиций ученого в жизни и в науке. Выводы: Нонконформизм ученого стал двигателем научного поиска П.А. Сорокина. Purpose of the article: to consider the position of P. Sorokin as a nonconformist in sociology. Methods: comparative, historical, biographical. Results: the main milestones in the manifestation of the scientist's non-conformist positions in life and in science were revealed. Conclusions: The scientist's nonconformism became the engine of P.A. Sorokin.

Pitirim Sorokin: Dynamics of social and cultural changes

The paper gives a review and a critical overview of the theoretical approach to the dynamics of cultural and social changes of renowned sociologist Pitirim Sorokin. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the description of the most relevant theoretical contributions contained in Sorokin's most important book Social and Cultural Dynamics. In the second part of the paper, there is a critical overview by the author of this text of Sorokin's sociocultural dynamics theory, as well as of other authors who have studied Sorokin's approach. The conclusion of this paper is that Sorokin's approach is a very significant theoretical contribution to sociology, but also that his theory does not dedicate sufficient attention to external factors as the causes of sociocultural dynamics.