I am a social theorist and cultural sociologist, currently serving as Co-Director of the Modernity Seminar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. I am also a Professor at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” in Moscow, currently on extended leave.
Over the course of my career, I have explored the cultural structuring of social life through its inherent affective dimension—a perspective that has guided my engagement with a wide range of social phenomena. This line of inquiry has been anchored in a deep engagement with Durkheimian theory of the sacred, which I have modified to emphasize the ambiguity of the sacred and its analytical relevance for understanding modernity. More broadly, this perspective has informed my research across diverse domains, including body and self, fiction and mystery, temporality, education and inequality, and technology.
My recent theoretical contributions include a sociological theory of cathexis, opening a program for studying the “energetic” architectures of action environments; a comprehensive theory of mystery, demonstrating how mystery operates as an overlooked yet constitutive structure of modern life; and a sociological rethinking of narrative, highlighting its capacity to structure time and shape life trajectories. These projects have laid the groundwork for my current research agenda: a sociology of enchantment, which identifies sources of enchantment as endogenous to contemporary life rather than as residuals of pre-modern orders. This project will guide my work in the coming years.