Based on a video lecture. Video lecture: YouTube Friedrich Nietzsche. How much is contained in that name. He stood out sharply from other nineteenth-century thinkers: in the radicalism of his views and in his literary talent equally. He remains, to this day, a deeply contradictory figure. In the twentieth century everyone wrote about him. Some demonised him, others heroised him. Some considered him a prophet, a messiah, a genius who had revalued all values and opened the path to a great future. Others considered him simply a mentally ill person. As usual, the truth is somewhere in between: in a certain period of his life Nietzsche did become genuinely ill in psychological terms. ...

Based on a video lecture. Video lecture: YouTube This is the first lecture in a series on the history of atheism and freethought in world culture. The topic has interested me for several years, and I have the relevant background: an MA in the history of religion from St. Petersburg State University. The series will not follow a strict chronology — it is an account of what I have learned, in the order I find most compelling. ...

Based on a video lecture from 2020. Atheism is a fascinating phenomenon from a sociological standpoint. It is the rejection of religion — and while in some countries this carries no particular stigma, in many others it remains a loaded word. Few people will voluntarily call themselves atheists, even if that is effectively what they are. Here I want to talk about the difficulties of counting atheists, primarily in the United States, and to work through one scientific paper with an interesting methodological finding. ...