Jeanne (Zhanna) Kormina

Jeanne (Zhanna) Kormina

Director

Biography

Jeanne (Zhanna) Kormina is an anthropologist specialising in the anthropology of religion and post-Soviet transformations. She graduated from the Department of History at Ural State University and completed her doctoral training at the Department of Anthropology at the European University at St Petersburg. She defended her candidate dissertation (PhD equivalent) in 2000. Since 2003, she has taught at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg. In 2022–2024, she was a research professor at the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, École Pratique des Hautes Études (PSL), Paris. She has held research fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, the City University of New York, and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Kormina is the author of two monographs, the co-editor of two volumes, and of several special journal issues published in Russian and English.

Publications

Publications

Books

  • 2019 Pilgrims. Ethnographies of Orthodox Nomadism (in Russian). Moscow: Higher School of Economics. Awarded by HSE as the best academic book of the year published in Russian, 2021
  • 2005 Rituals of Departure to the Military Service in Late Imperial Russia (in Russian). Moscow: NLO

Edited volumes

  • 2015 (with A. Panchenko and S. Shtyrkov) Invention of Religion in Post-Soviet Russia (in Russian). St. Petersburg: European University.
  • 2006 (with A. Panchenko and S. Shtyrkov) Dreams of the Mother of God: Studies in Anthropology of Religion (in Russian). St. Petersburg: European University.

Special journal issues

  • 2024 (with Detelina Tocheva). Marking Space. The Russian Orthodox Politics of Self-Assertion. Archives de sciences sociales des religions 206.
  • 2023 (with Tsypylma Darieva). Religious Activism in post-Socialist Space. Religion, State and Society 51.
  • 2022 (with Sergei Shtyrkov and Ekaterina Khonineva). Religious Infrastructures and Religious Materiality. Antropologicheskii forum 55 (in Russian)
  • 2020 (with Angie Heo) In memoriam of Sonja Luehrmann. History and Anthropology 61 (2)
  • 2019 (with Angie Heo) Religious and Borders in (Post)Cold-War Peripheries. Special issue. The Journal of Religion 99 (1)
  • 2017 (with Alexander Panchenko and Sergei Shtyrkov) Religion, Anthropology and “The Anthropology of Religion”. Forum (in Russian). Antropoloigichesky Forum 34: 11-124 and 35: 11-128. In English: Forum for Anthropology and Culture 2017. 13: 11-137

Translations

  • 2014 (with Asya Karaseva) E. Eriksen. What is Anthropology? London: Pluto Press, 2004. Moscow: Higher School of Economics.
  • Awards: the winner of the 7th “University Book” competition in nomination “The Best Translated Textbook” (2015)

Journal articles (peer-reviewed, selected)

  • 2026  The Soviet State and Its (Non)human Others. Kritika 27 (2): 403-414.
  • 2026 (with Stefania Palmisano, Marco Castagnetto Alessio, Tuomas Martikainen) Migrations and Religious Secularization. Intersecting Dynamics in Contemporary Western Europe. Journal of Religion in Europe https://doi.org/10.1163/18748929-bja10147
  • 2025 Popular Theopolitics and the Last Russian Tsar’s Intangible Remains. Comparative Studies in Society and History 67 (2): 303-329 https://resolve.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/popular-theopolitics-and-the-last-russian-tsars-intangible-remains/BE34B7BDE7B0CCFE743D3A5B245C9031
  • 2024 The One Who Understands: St. Xenia the Blessed, Small Miracles, and Therapeutic Turn in Russian Orthodox Christianity. Ortodoxia 64: 9-32 https://journal.fi/ortodoksia/article/view/143860
  • 2024 (with Detelina Tocheva). Introduction. Marking Space: the Russian Orthodox Politics of Self-Assertion. Archives de sciences sociales des religions 206: 9-22 https://journals.openedition.org/assr/75441
  • 2024 Connecting Earth and Heaven: Tsar processions of the cross, spiritual infrastructure and the Orthodox Christian citizenship. Archives de sciences sociales des religions 206: 99-122.
  • 2023 Fervent Christians: Orthodox activists in Russia as publics and counterpublics. Religion, State and Society 51: 11-29.
  • 2022 The Tsar’s road: invisible infrastructure and pious labour in contemporary Russian Orthodox Christianity. Antropologicheskii forum 55: 167–194 (in Russian).
  • 2022 (with Ekaterina Khonineva and Sergei Shtyrkov). Martha’s ladle: an anthropology of religious infrastructure (in Russian). Antropologicheskii forum 55: 9–27 (in Russian).
  • 2021 “The Church Should Know Its Place”: The Passions and the Interests of Urban Struggle in post-atheist Russia. History and Anthropology 32(5): 574-595.
  • winner of the Association for the Study of Eastern Christian History and Culture’s 2024 Best Article Prize
  • 2020 (with Vlad Naumescu) A New ‘Great Schism’? Theopolitics of Communion and Canonical Territory in the Orthodox Church. Anthropology Today 36(1): 7-11.
  • 2019 (with Angie Heo) Religious and Borders in (Post)Cold-War Peripheries. Introduction to Special Issue ed. by J. Kormina and A. Heo. The Journal of Religion 99(1): 1-17.
  • 2018 (with Sonja Luehrmann) The Social Nature of Prayer in a Church of the Unchurched: Russian Orthodox Christianity From Its Edges. Journal of the American Anthropology of Religion 86(2): 393-424.
  • 2018 “The Emperor Surveyed the City”: Surrealist Socialism and the Politics of Memory (in Russian). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 152: 34-57.
  • 2017 (with A. Panchenko and S. Shtyrkov) Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion”: Theories, Methods and Field Experiences. Introduction to special issue of the journal, ed. by J. Kormina, A. Panchenko, S. Shtyrkov. Antropologicheskii forum 35: 139-166. In English: Forum for Anthropology and Culture 2017. 13: 138-160 (in Russian).
  • 2015 Killer Yeast: Gastronomic Conspiracy Theories And The Culture Of Mistrust In Modern Russia (in Russian) Antropologicheskii forum 27: 142-175. In English: Forum for Anthropology and Culture 2016. 12: 201-229.
  • 2014 (with Sergey Shtyrkov) A Female Elder and the Death: Some Notes on the Margins of Contemporary Hagiography (in Russian). Gosudarstvo, religiia i tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom 1(32): 107-130 (in Russian).
  • 2013 Russian Saint Under Construction: Portraits and Icons of Starets Nikolay. Archives de sciences sociales des religions 162: 95-119.
  • 2013 La langue des pèlerins orthodoxes: “l’énergie sacrale d’un lieu chargĂ© de prière”, Slavica Occitania 36: 201-218 (in French).
  • 2013 “Hygiene of the Heart”: Discipline and Faith of the Born-Again Charismatic Christians (in Russian), Antropologicheskii forum 18: 300-320 (in Russian).
  • 2012 Nomadic Orthodoxy: On New Forms of Religious Life in Contemporary Russia (in Russian), Ab Imperio 2: 195-227 (in Russian).
  • 2012 Political Leaders as Characters of Saints’ Vitae: How Saint Matrona Blessed Iosif Stalin (in Russian), Antropologicheskii forum 12: 1-28 (in Russian).
  • 2008 Executive Committees and Religious Communities: Religious Life of Pskov Region in the first post-war years, Neprikosnovenny zapas 3 (in Russian)
  • 2005 (with Sergey Shtyrkov) Niemand und nichts ist vergessen. Die Okkupation in mĂĽndlichen Zeugnissen. Osteuropa 4-6: 444-461 (in German).
  • 2005 Pilgrims, priest, and local religion in contemporary Russia: contested religious discourses. Folklore 28: 25-40.
  • 2005 Heros and Traitors. Symptoms of Collective Trauma in the Folk Songs of the Great Patriotic War. Ab Imperio 1: 311-346 (in Russian).
  • 2004 A Military Oath: On Historical Transformations of One Performative Act (in Russian). Neprikosnovenny zapas 33 (in Russian).

Peer-reviewed chapters in edited volumes

Projects
  • 2019-2022 Pilgrimage in Post-Secular World: Infrastructure and Religious Experiences. Head of the project. Supported by Russian Foundation on Basic Research
  • 2019-2021 Marking Space Religiously: Cases of Russia and France. Co-director (with Detelina Tocheva) of the project. Supported by the Russian Foundation on Basic Research and the Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme