Search

THE SYSTEMIC ROLE OF A CLASSICAL UNIVERSITY “WITH HISTORY” IN THE COLLEGE TOWN DEVELOPMENT // Pedagogical Review. 2021. Issue 2 (36). P. 108-117

The purpose of the article is justification of the systemic role of a classical university “with history” in the development of a college town as a special sociocultural phenomenon and the preservation of its cultural identity. The methodological complex, applied in the paper, includes the theory of autopoietic social systems (N. Luhmann); the concept of a traditional university as an open and closed system (M. Lenartowicz); sociocultural (R. Park), cultural (N. Fedotova, T. Ilyina, I. Grevs, M. Kagan) and historical-cultural (K. Kerr) approaches; the concept of the region as a social system (D. Dokuchaev). The paper presents an analysis of the “college town” and “a city with a university” concepts. It formulates the authors’ definition of a college town, describes the key differences between a college town and a city with a university, and demonstrates the main college town characteristics. The article demonstrates that a college town is a complex sociocultural system with a dual status (open/closed), whose identity is based on a classical university “with a history” that provides the functioning of the town’s cultural codes. Understanding a classical university “with a history” as a college town’s system-forming element provides an opportunity to understand the essence of this town type and its specific characteristics. It can be further used as a theoretical justification for the strategy of regional development. The ideas presented in this paper can contribute to the search for an authentic identity for some territorial entities, which is still in a “latent state”.

Keywords: college town, classical university “with history”, cultural identity, autopoietic social systems

Socio-philosophical foundations of the special course “Anti-utopias as artistic projections of the digital society risks” for master’s students of classical universities // Pedagogical Review. 2025. Issue 3 (61). P. 7-18

The aim of the article is to explicate the socio-philosophical foundations of the special course “Anti-utopias as artistic projections of the digital society risks” for master’s students of classical universities. These socio-philosophical foundations include the concept of risk society and world risk society by U. Beck; the critical theory of digitalisation and communication by D. Berry and K. Fuchs; the concept of future prediction by J. Urry; the theory of the social construction of reality by P. Berger and T. Lukmann; the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy by R. Merton; the concept of the imaginary presented in the works of J.-P. Sartre and N.N. Suvorov, as well as critical discourse analysis (CDA) by N. Fairclough. The article provides the substantiation of the timeliness of the development and implementation of the special course in the programs of Master’s degree and specialized higher education of classical universities in the context of the Russian higher education system transformation and the risky nature of the modern digital society. The article presents the tasks and thematic plan of the special course. It describes the experience of its approbation in the National Research Tomsk State University within the framework of the Master’s program “Digital Brand Management” in the direction of training 42.04.01 “Advertising and Public Relations”. The results of the special course “Anti-utopias as artistic projections of the digital society risks” approbation demonstrated the interest of master’s students in exploring the potential of anti-utopian literature to identify and structure the risks of the digital society in order to develop further strategies for their prevention and prejudice.

Keywords: higher education, classical university, master’s student, risks of digital society, social forecasting, artistic anti-utopia, socio-philosophical foundations