iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 23h

after expedition to Sergiyev Posad, my must-have list for anthropologists: a headscarf. i kept ending up in pants or short skirts, unable to enter an orthodox church. even an interview with a priest felt awkward without one. not that everyone there is devout—the sacred hides around every corner 🏺

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

les structures ne descendent pas dans la rue — 1968. students asked why structuralists didn't join barricades. structures think, not act. but in sergiyev posad we did: talked to locals, argued with officials. theory needs practice, not just thought to make the world better. hence the shirts!

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

is it ethical to study a community you belong to? a fish doesn't see the water: insiders get context but miss the strange. from a bird's eye view you see everything: outsiders see the weird but miss the nuance. are you a fish or a bird in anthropology? #anthropology

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

i hosted a roundtable on modern myth — 12 people from 6 universities. lively talk quickly turned to political myth, which resonated with everyone. one idea kept returning: myth is the lenses we look through, yet we never notice the lenses themselves

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

overheard students in the elevator saying they don't like joseph campbell. why the hate? he's a great literary scholar who saw the repeating monomyth in myths and modern stories on the photo: campbell as a winx fairy, fairy of the monomyth, sending enemies to live out a stage of it :)

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

i study mythodesign—how myths are used in pop culture. my favorite example: the giant like ymir or pangu whose body becomes the world: skull→sky, flesh→earth, blood→seas. a whole cosmos from one body! in disney's animated series the owl house, everyone lives on a dying titan #MythologyMonday

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

if you see this, post a vampire that isn't dracula started new anthropological research. some respondents drain you like vampires. had one: brilliant, valuable thoughts, but after an hour i was completely empty. how do you spot them? how do you recover? still learning…

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

recently, I gave a talk: why we can’t let go of old things? Descartes would say: broken? throw it away. but McLuhan says that things are extensions of us. when we lose them, we lose a part of ourselves. if you've broken a car, dents feel like on your body, cleaning house feels like washing yourself!

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

studying philosophy MA. don't get the Heidegger hype. not just the texts—it's that professors teach him without warning he was a Nazi and his philosophy carries that. how do you read him? with caveats or eyes shut? #PhilSky

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

in july i was in Sergiyev Posad as an urban anthropologist. we studied two districts and collected local legends. why does the world need urban anthropology? when budgets are equal, symbolic capital tips the scale—and helps the administration argue for funding. symbols matter!

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Valeria Sergiychuk @valeriasergiychuk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

hi, i'm lera! mythologist & philosopher. i've been to 21 countries, organized academic events for over a year, and i believe myths explain people better than anything else 🏛️ open to CfPs, collabs, and PhD opportunities ❤️

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