Seminar on the New Masculinity

On February 1, employees of the International Laboratory for Social Integration Research and students of the track "Sociology of the Public Sphere and Social Communications" took part in a seminar dedicated to discussing new understandings of masculinity, associated, among other things, with the term "caring", as well as with the concept of "affective capitalism" .

Do you want to help those in need without getting up from the couch, but at the same time know exactly who will benefit from your help, and what will happen next? Experience a lot of different emotions, look into the exotic life of the poor, surprise and shock: "how do people live like this"!? See how help can change their lives? Then you will surely enjoy watching the YouTube channel "Vasya in the Seine", and if you want more drive, then Home Invasion releases of the Finnish show The Dudesons.

These products of cultural entrepreneurship became the subject of discussion at the seminar, which was attended by students of the Master's program "Public Sphere", including MLISI research trainees Bulat Gilfanov, Olga Madfes, Daniil Parshchikov, with Dr. Charlie Walker, Associate Professor University of Southampton, UK. The discussion was moderated by Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova.

The reassertion of gender and social class in the age of the experience economy, the induction of moral emotion through video and audio editing, hybrid, borderline masculinity, character dynamics — these topics were discussed at length, with references to theoretical ideas, frame-by-frame analysis of scenes, and clustering of comments on episodes of the show.



One of the participants of the seminar, undergraduate Egor Novgorodov, shares his impressions: "In my opinion, it turned out to be a very interesting and productive seminar. Firstly, thanks to a rather non-trivial topic: among the subjects considered, there is a repeated appeal to the analysis of the elements of affective capitalism, this, in my opinion, is the richest area. Secondly, because of the intense discussion that followed the presentations. Most of all, I was impressed by the quality of feedback from Professor Walker, who, in just ten minutes, not only constructively commented on all the works, but also inspired me to further immerse myself and study the topics."

The key questions that the participants were looking for answers to at the seminar were: "Can the concept of caring masculinity be applied to this material?"; "How is the capitalization of feelings?"; "What are the negative consequences of the representation of the poor in these shows?".