RUSS 367 - Dostoevsky and Gogol

Dostoevsky has had a major impact on writers and thinkers from Nietzsche to Coetzee. He himself paid tribute to Gogol’s fantastic imagination. Course readings will range from the absurdist ravings of Gogol’s madmen to the existential dilemmas of Dostoevsky’s murderers. Discussions will cover the haunted and haunting city of Petersburg, saints, prostitutes, and infernal women, holy fools and Russian Orthodoxy, as well as critical views ranging from Russian Formalists to Freud to Bakhtin’s ideas of dialogical speech. Students will explore major 19th century philosophical and cultural currents and a variety of literary movements and genres, and we will also see how our authors have been represented in other media, such as film and painting. From Gogol’s Ukrainian and Petersburg tales and Dead Souls, the readings move to Dostoevsky’s early humorous works, his major novels, and the course concludes with The Brothers Karamazov. In English. Alternate years. (4 Credits)