About the LETTERA.ORG project

The project LETTERRA.ORG is a Russian-based international platform, a basis for common intellectual research within the field of contemporary life. These are the works of those authors (writers, artists, intellectuals) that rather make the field of the modern life more transparent for us. That illuminate historical, ethical, religious, economic and artistic zones of our questioning . Also the very ways, the formats, the methods of working with the contemporary life that the project suggests both for on- and off-line activity grow out of the very possibilities and limitations that contemporary life poses before us.

The OFF-UNIVERSITY project is joint project of the “Logos Publishers” (Moscow) and “Falanster Bookstore” (Moscow)

Both the publishing house and the bookstore are well-known within the field of the intellectual life in Moscow. The off-university project was initiated in response to the crises of the symbolic aspect of the university, the commercialization of education, the appearance of numerous translations undigested by culture, the crises of the book culture and the lack of time on behalf of the readers. We suggested the platform of the intellectual book-store and the publishing house’s to attract the audience (those who buy books) and the lecturers (those who can speak about books and write them) to join together in the effort of recreating a symbolic (not just educational) space of the university. We asked those lecturers from academia whose work represents an intellectual challenge in itself to choose a personally important book on classical or contemporary philosophy. What this or that book and its line of thought can tell us within our “here and now” be it Plato, Aristotle, Chesterton or Thomas of Aquinas, or Heidegger or Alain Badiou? The statements of the lecturers were to combine a deeply personal approach to the theme, and the high criteria of academia. We also invited artists, journalists and critics whose work is imbedded in certain philosophical modes to join in and to introduce that mode through their experience as readers. The general topic for each and every lecture was “Philosophy as the critic of ideology”.

There were 4 sessions held already. Each session containing a cycle of 8-10 days. Every evening, non-stop. All 40 lectures of the first 3 sessions were recorded on video and laid out with the detailed commentaries on the site WWW.OFF-UNIVERSITY.ORG. The 4-th session will be laid out by January. The site will contain not only the recording of more than 50 lectures of the best Moscow intellectuals but their video statements, discussions and round tables, that will be held along the lines of the ideas of OFF-UNIVERISTY and as a part of the activities of LETTERRA. ORG.

The conference DICTIONARY OF WAR presented on this site is the second part of the LETTERRA.ORG project

It is connected with the questions of a common intellectual stage for different professionals speaking within their field of action. Using the frame of contemporary art, the sharp timing and gathering of people round the common topic of WAR the project aimed at creating a range of links and of unexpected intersections between the disciplines and the personae, thus creating a complex common experience of human action and attitudes within the non-human condition.

LETTRE INTERNATIONAL Russian edition is the third part of LETTERRA.ORG

It is a Russian internet version of an international project Lettre International uniting six national editions including Germany, Denmark, Spain etc. It is based on the famous archive of the German edition of Lettre International . For twenty years this edition gathered the texts of the leading authors – philosophers, intellectuals, writers, journalists and poets- from all over the world – including China, Latin America, USA, India etc. Some of the Russian authors were also presented in this edition (M.Ryklin, O, Sedakova, S. Alexievitch) participated in the German edition. LETTERRA.ORG aims at introducing more Russian intellectuals and authors to the international scene and at creating grounds for the perception of the best international authors within the Russian context.