Malygina, I. (2026) The Epistemological Status of Culturology and the Evolution of the Culturological Paradigm of Education in Contemporary Russia – Международный журнал исследований культуры

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Irina V. MALYGINA
Moscow State Linguistic University
38 Ostozhenka st., Moscow, 119034 Russian Federation
Head of the Department of World Culture of the Institute of Humanities and Applied Sciences
Doctor of Science (Philosophy)
Professor
e-mail: irinamalygina@yandex.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-2145-7953

Malygina, I. (2026) The Epistemological Status of Culturology and the Evolution of the Culturological Paradigm of Education in Contemporary Russia

Abstract: The article offers a theoretical reflection on the epistemological status of culturology within the contemporary Russian system of social sciences and humanities, and substantiates its paradigmatic potential in the context of forming the mandatory disciplinary "core" of higher education. The exclusion of culturology from the list of standard university disciplines, while a sharp social demand for a coherent worldview among graduates persists, raises the problem of finding an integrative explanatory model capable of providing an adequate understanding of current sociocultural dynamics. The study unfolds within the coordinates of two fundamental vectors: the centrifugal trend (the rhizomatic collapse of traditional ontological pillars, digital "nomadism," and the atomization of personality) and the centripetal trend (the demand for the value-based consolidation of society and the search for a semantic "point of assembly" for the subject). Drawing on the polar discursive strategies of V.M. Mezhuev and A.A. Pelipenko, the author argues that the disciplinary openness and transdisciplinarity of culturology's subject matter are not a methodological defect, but its key heuristic advantage in post-non-classical science. The article analyzes the evolution of the culturological educational paradigm shifting from the adaptive-choice model to its value-oriented version 2.0. The author substantiates the concept that any new interdisciplinary modules introduced into the modern educational "core" (such as the course "Culture of Personality and Society") must realize the fundamental epistemological capabilities of culturology. The mission of the culturological educational paradigm 2.0 is seen in opening up disciplinary boundaries and overcoming the narrow "plot effect" ("effekt delyanok") within the educational process, as well as in translating humanitarian knowledge into the plane of existentially significant, personal value experience of a student facing the crises of digital reality. In this perspective, culturology is understood not merely as a particular academic discipline, but as a comprehensive meta-paradigm of cognition and the semantic assembly of the subject of culture.

Key words: culturology, epistemological status, socio-humanitarian core, anthropological crisis, V. M. Mezhuev’s concept, A. A. Pelipenko’s theory, A. Ya. Flier’s concept, agency, centrifugal tendencies, centripetal tendencies, culturological paradigm of ed-ucation 2.0, culture of the individual and society, as-sembly of meaning, interdisciplinary synthesis, verti-cal axis of values.

References:

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For Citation:

Malygina, I. (2026) The Epistemological Status of Culturology and the Evolution of the Culturological Paradigm of Education in Contemporary Russia. International Journal of Cultural Research, 1 (62). 17–30. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2026_1_17

DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2026_1_17