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We invite proposals for a special issue of Russian Literature dedicated to Digital Humanities and... more We invite proposals for a special issue of Russian Literature dedicated to Digital Humanities and Russian and East European studies. The intersection of the two fields uniquely situates us to interrogate the foundations of Digital Humanities theories and practices, even as we explore new research methods, pedagogical tools, and archival and resource-sharing possibilities. In the last quarter of a century, Russian and East European studies have seen many transformations in the ways we research, teach, and think about our areas of study. As approaches and critical frameworks have shifted and grown to incorporate new perspectives, so too have the objects of study—and their scope—changed and expanded. At the same time, we have witnessed the dramatic growth of Digital Humanities conferences, Digital Humanities panels at literature conventions, and an explosion of related publications across the humanities, attesting to the fact that more and more students, staff, and faculty are interested in both digital culture and computational tools. Even a brief overview of the evolving Digital Humanities canon shows a consistent, if often evocative, leaning on Russian Formalism and the theoretical movements that emerged in its wake, including Prague School structuralism, semiotics (the Tartu school), and discourse analysis (the Mikhail Bakhtin circle). While claiming legitimizing theoretical predecessors in the foundational figures of modern literary theory, contemporary scholars relive some of

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Chapters by Marijeta Bozovic

Despite-or perhaps, because of-the controversy that he inspired in the last decades of his life, ... more Despite-or perhaps, because of-the controversy that he inspired in the last decades of his life, Nabokov has been acknowledged as the 'first among Russian-born literati to attain the "interliterary stature of a world writer"' (Shapiro 2009: 101). 1 An unconventional but influential cultural ambassador, he re-imagined the international relevance of the Russian literary tradition as well as the stylistic and thematic possibilities of the late twentieth-century transnational novel. Russia's liminal position both inside and outside of European culture arguably proved an advantage; and Nabokov, a model for how other writers might break into and de-center the networks of cultural capital that shape and define literary canons. 2 1 While writers and critics use many terms to describe 'more than national' literary phenomena (interliterary, international, supranational, world literature, etc.), I follow John Burt Foster Jr. and the editors of this volume in my preference for 'transnational': 'If "inter" assumed orderly, almost diplomatic processes of give-and-take among well-defined units, 'trans' posits a more active, less regulated, even unpredictably creative surge of forces across borders that no longer seem as firmly established' (Foster 2013, 2). 2

The library of scholarship on Vladimir Nabokov still circles uncomfortably around his annotated t... more The library of scholarship on Vladimir Nabokov still circles uncomfortably around his annotated translation Eugene Onegin (1964) and late English-language novel Ada, or Ardor (1969). This article examines the AQ2 ¶ cultural "translation" that Nabokov attempts in his two most controversial monuments, annexing what he feared was a vanishing Russian tradition to the English-language novel. Nabokov aimed not only to enter, but to define an international literary canonagainst that of T.S. Eliot and the New Criticswith Russian literature as a central strain. Through a lifelong propaganda campaign, Nabokov conjured for many readers an alluring vision of a transnational Antiterra. The article argues that this emancipatory potential captured the imagination of such writers as J.M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk, Azar Nafisi and W.G. Sebaldall, in some sense, "Nabokov's children". It focuses on the centrality of translation to Nabokov's oeuvre in the light of recent scholarship on translation theory.

What can politically engaged aesthetic productions from the former Soviet Union tell us about soc... more What can politically engaged aesthetic productions from the former Soviet Union tell us about socialism? As recently as ten years ago, popular audiences and scholars alike might have answered this question by invoking the dissidents who fled the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Throughout the twentieth century, dissidents provided popular and critical “Western” discourses with vivid tales of both the treachery of leftist utopianism and the courage of individual resistance. Today, the outdated imperialist ideologies that undergird this approach have become readily apparent, while a vital strand of post-socialist leftism has surfaced once more across the former Second World.

The emerging Russian filmmakers I discuss in this article offer visions of radical politics and aesthetics that learn and diverge from the state socialism that shaped their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Russia offers a stage for intellectual and artistic upheavals exceptional both for the political traditions they juxtapose, and for the foregrounded awareness of the ambivalent legacies of these traditions. Tackling a range of contentious subjects from sexuality to police brutality, these films met with controversy in Russia while securing the reputation of their directors on the international festival circuit. I examine three recent films—Svetlana Baskova’s For Marx… (2012), Angelina Nikonova’s Twilight Portrait (2011), and Lyubov Lvova and Sergei Taramayev’s Winter Journey (2013)—all by female directors or co-directors, and all seeking to imagine and image social alterity after state socialism.

This paper explores the digital rhetoric triggered by a 'memory event' -the May 26, 2011 arrest o... more This paper explores the digital rhetoric triggered by a 'memory event' -the May 26, 2011 arrest of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić, a fugitive convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) for war crimes in Bosnia. Surveying the verbal and visual rhetoric used across online genres and platforms to describe Mladić after his arrest, the authors focus on the most oppositional and historically fraught viewpoints: a dominant anti-Mladić narrative and the fierce, if fringe, pro-Mladić narrative that emerged in response.

Мариета Божович БОЛЬШОЕ ПУТЕШЕСТВИЕ «ОБЛОМОВА»: РОМАН ГОНЧАРОВА В СВЕТЕ «ПРОСВЕТИТЕЛЬНОЙ ПОЕЗДКИ»... more Мариета Божович БОЛЬШОЕ ПУТЕШЕСТВИЕ «ОБЛОМОВА»: РОМАН ГОНЧАРОВА В СВЕТЕ «ПРОСВЕТИТЕЛЬНОЙ ПОЕЗДКИ» I. «УЧИТЬСЯ ХОЧЕТ, ВСЕ ВИДЕТЬ, ЗНАТЬ» Михей Тарантьев, комический злодей прославленного романа Гончарова, высказывает свои подозрения по поводу нравственного (и национального) характера Штольца следующим образом: «Хорош мальчик! Вдруг из отцовских сорока сделал тысяч триста капиталу, и в службе за надворного перевалился, и ученый... теперь вон еще путешествует! <...> Разве настоящий-то хороший русский человек станет все это делать? <…> Зачем он шатается по чужим землям?» В оправдание друга Обломов произносит заведомо неопределенную примирительную фразу: «Учиться хочет, все видеть, знать». Но эта формулировка только еще сильнее заводит Тарантьева: -Учиться! Мало еще учили его? Чему это? Врет он, не верь ему: он тебя в глаза обманывает, как малого ребенка. Разве большие учатся чему-нибудь? …Станет надворный советник учиться! Вот ты учился в школе, а разве теперь учишься? А он разве (он указал на Алексеева) учится? А родственник его учится? Кто из добрых людей учится? Что он там, в немецкой школе, что ли, сидит да уроки учит? Врет он! Я слышал, он какую-то машину поехал смотреть да заказывать: видно, тискито для русских денег! Я бы его в острог... (73) 1 В романе, считающемся, как известно, апофеозом лени, путешествие и учение оказываются метонимически связаны, совмещены, фактически взаимозаменяемы. Оба вида деятельности находятся на одном полюсе неоднократно проводимой критиками оси: стасис -движение. К примеру, в своем широко известном исследовании Мильтон Эре сводит структуру повествования «Обломова» к формуле «неподвижность-действие-неподвижность», причем переломным моментом считает роман Обломова и Ольги 2 . Штольц, олицетворение деятельности, всегда в пути и всегда что-нибудь изучает, тогда как единственным путешествием Обломова становится отъезд из родной Обломовки в столицу, а образование его прекращается на столь же раннем этапе 3 . Несоответствие между романтическими мечтами Обломова и окружающей его действительностью неоднократно подчеркивается отсылками к теме путешествия. Так, Обломов, утверждая, что он вовсе не бросил читать книги, указывает на одиноко лежащий на столе том. «Что такое? -спросил Штольц, посмотрев книгу. -"Путешествие в Африку". И страница, на которой ты остановился, заплесневела...» (193). Во время первого разговора с Ольгой, когда она несколько каверзно спрашивает о его литературных вкусах, Обломов уклончиво отвечает: «Я, точно, люблю больше путешествия...» (219). При этом детская дружба Штольца и Обломова связана именно совместной учебой и мечтаниями о путешествиях в дальние страны. Еще в Обломовке «Пословица "ученье свет, а неученых тьма" бродила уже по селам и деревням вместе с книгами, развозимыми букинистами» (163). И хотя ученье Обломова оказывается серьезно ограниченным рядом факторов (семья, потакающая ребенку во всем, не желает его «перегружать», а юный Штольц нередко доделывает за него уроки), какое-то зерно все же западает в его сознание. Поэтому уже в зрелом возрасте, пытаясь вернуть Обломова к жизни, Штольц призывает друга вспомнить все, что было так дорого им обоим в юные годы: -Помнишь, ты хотел после книг объехать чужие края, чтоб лучше знать и любить свой?.. -Да… да… -говорил Обломов, беспокойно следя за каждым словом Штольца, -помню, что я точно... кажется... Как же, -сказал он, вдруг вспомнив прошлое, -ведь мы, Андрей, сбирались сначала изъездить вдоль и поперек Европу, исходить Швейцарию пешком, обжечь ноги на Везувии, спуститься в Геркулан. С ума чуть не сошли! Сколько глупостей!.. -Глупостей! -с упреком повторил Штольц. -Не ты ли со слезами говорил, глядя на гравюры рафаэлевских мадонн, Корреджиевой ночи, на Аполлона Бельведерского: «Боже мой! Ужели никогда не удастся взглянуть на оригиналы и онеметь от ужаса, что ты стоишь перед произведением Микельанджело, Тициана и попираешь почву Рима? Ужели провести век и видеть эти мирты, кипарисы и померанцы в оранжереях, а не на их родине? Не подышать воздухом Италии, не упиться синевой неба!» И сколько великолепных фейерверков пускал ты из головы! Глупости! -Да, да, помню! -говорил Обломов, вдумываясь в прошлое. -Ты еще взял меня за руку и сказал: «Дадим обещание не умирать, не увидавши ничего этого...» -Помню, -продолжал Штольц, -как ты однажды принес мне перевод из Сея, с посвящением мне в именины; перевод цел у меня… Поанглийски начал учиться… и не доучился! А когда я сделал план поездки за границу, звал заглянуть в германские университеты, ты вскочил, обнял меня и подал торжественно руку: «Я твой, Андрей, с тобой всюду» -это все твои слова. Ты всегда был немножко актер. Что ж, Илья? Я два раза был за границей... (205-206).

Translation and the making of modern Russian literature, by Brian James Baer, Bloomsbury Academic... more Translation and the making of modern Russian literature, by Brian James Baer, Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, 224 pp., $29.95 (pbk ), ISBN 978-1628927986

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Marijeta ozovic MY M M R HIP ARCHIV CTION CHANN L A OUT DIT 6/3/2016 Russian Hardcore and the Ame... more Marijeta ozovic MY M M R HIP ARCHIV CTION CHANN L A OUT DIT 6/3/2016 Russian Hardcore and the American Henry -Los Angeles Review of Books https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/russian-hardcore-american-henry/ 2/9 TH FIR T-P R ON HOOT R pectacle that i Il a Nai huller' Hardcore Henry certainl come at a trange time. Amid U -U anction again t Ru ia, e calating international ten ion (Ukraine, ria, Armenia), and re urgent Cold War rhetoric on all ide , explode a Ru ian-American lm colla oration claiming to e the r t of it POV-tunt-camera kind. While " ou," a the epon mou c org Henr , com at the minion of an al ino Ru ian warlord in an attempt to re cue the prince (that i , " our" ex-kitten cienti t wife, a painfull em arra ing role executed here pop ugar Hale ennett), the vivid Mo cow ackdrop a ord the opportunit for a wild pa tiche of overlapping cliché and em raced appropriation . Ru ia, a tern urope, and the alkan have long een the preferred land cape for ultraviolence and pro titution in the We tern imagination (cf. lavoj Žižek). ometime "the We t" project it rutal fanta ie onto Ru ia; ometime a willing Ru ia gleefull eize on tho e fanta ie and run parkour with them. A thread are a Hardcore Henry' plot ma e, it mi e few of the requi ite Cold War-era anxietie . An e eminate, if unimagina l powerful, t rant eek to take over the world. Akan -who e name i uncomforta l clo e to Arkan, the real-life er ian paramilitar warlord indicted the UN for crime again t humanit during the o nian war -i a leached and unrecogniza le Danila Kozlov k , an otherwi e lovel Ru ian theater and lm actor with everal dozen lm to hi name. For ome rea on, he i an al ino with telekinetic power , ut no matter; he command inexhau ti le armie of Ru ian ghter , rainwa hed c org mercenarie , and the equall interchangea le odie of writhing white-wigged ex worker who a ord the u ual 0 Comments Los Angeles Review of Books Login 1

Film notes for the Aleksei Balabanov retrospective at Yale University, Spring 2015

Robbie Williams brags more than apologizes in an interview with The Sun that his newest music vid... more Robbie Williams brags more than apologizes in an interview with The Sun that his newest music video, " Party Like a Russian, " dropped two days ago on September 29, might offend all 147 million people in Russia. While a portion of his lyrics seem specifically targeted at Putin—or rather, at the clownish media Franken-Putin that has taken over our airwaves and social media feeds over the past three years—much of the puerile fun of the video rests on rank ethnic stereotyping and a painfully outdated worldview. It takes a certain kind of man with a certain reputation To alleviate the cash from a whole entire nation Take my loose change and build my own space station Williams, 42, must have been a teenager when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, but that doesn't prevent the most bizarre Cold War rhetoric from informing his visual and verbal fireworks on vivid display today. From the space wars-era space station mentioned above to lines like " I'm a modern Rasputin " and " There's revolution in the air, " his music video is shocking less for its painfully racializing gaze (which is, for some reason, smilingly tolerated by cosmopolitan elites when directed at Slavs in the twenty-first century) than for the sense that this should be the work and vision of a much older man.

To introduce the Joseph Brodsky: Digital Humanities Lab, I might first say a few words about Brod... more To introduce the Joseph Brodsky: Digital Humanities Lab, I might first say a few words about Brodsky and the Beinecke Archive's holdings. Brodsky (1940Brodsky ( -1996, the most famous dissident poet of the Soviet era, had a literary biography to die for. After arrests, internal exile, forced incarceration in mental asylums and a show trial with lines that could have come from a Tom Stoppard play, he was thrown out of the Soviet Union in 1972. By 1987, he had won the Nobel Prize and was translating and writing original prose and poetry in English. Had his heart not cut him short in 1996, he could very well still have been around today, teaching at the Five Colleges Consortium and weighing in on current events with opinions undoubtedly infuriating to both the left and right.

The aim of our workshop is to explore the intersection of Digital Humanities and Russian and East... more The aim of our workshop is to explore the intersection of Digital Humanities and Russian and East European studies in its many forms: research, pedagogy, dissemination, and archive. We invite all our participants and contributors to join us in considering a list of questions and topics of discussion, ranging from the familiar and unavoidable (labor, ethics, access, funding, training, institutional and interdisciplinary challenges) to the specific (theoretical continuities and disciplinary embeddedness). How do methodological changes reflect the pressures of the ever-expanding (anti)canons of World Literature? How might Digital Humanities paradoxically draw greater attention to the materiality of textual dissemination, and find continuity with practices of philology and textology? How might digital historiographies challenge our approaches to the making and distribution of archives? How do we negotiate the mediation between digitization and our study of material objects? What role is played by studies of new media, digital genres, social networks, and online remediations and dissemination? What kinds of computational research, pedagogy, and resource sharing might prove intellectually responsible, just, ethical, and sustainable? How to engage in and challenge Digital Humanities research and pedagogy without falling into reductive models, positivistic claims, and the obfuscation of ideology—with an eye to labor concerns and feminist interventions instead? And how might digital tools allow Russian and East European studies to reach more diverse publics, or to participate in broader public humanities discussions? Questions for the Panels on Digital Humanities and Russian and East European Studies: 1) REES has long been associated with governmental programs stemming from its history and origins in the Cold War. With the resource intensive nature of Digital Humanities projects, how can we resist being complicit in certain political agendas? 2) Digital Humanities projects demand a great deal in terms of resources, institutional support, training, time, etc.; often than more traditional forms of scholarship. How do we negotiate those requirements while at the same time making sure that our research and scholarship remains our own and is not subsumed or co-opted by these larger organizations and institutions?

A discernable boom in politically engaged, leftist art practices and critical theory is underway ... more A discernable boom in politically engaged, leftist art practices and critical theory is underway in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, as well as in post-socialist countries of the Global South. This boom defies all expectations, emerging after the depoliticizing "transition" to capitalism in the 1990s and the seemingly reactionary historical moment. Activists as well as art collectives; critics; poets; grassroots filmmakers; video, performance, and digital artists of all stripes are seeking alternative spaces for engaged aesthetic experimentation. In many cases, these aesthetic producers return to the emancipatory promises of earlier political and aesthetic experiments, reimagining them for the digital age.

Sarah Fritchey, curator, ArtSpace Gallery Overview:

DESCRIPTION: The Avant-Gardes and Émigrés Lab, a highly collaborative experimental seminar open t... more DESCRIPTION: The Avant-Gardes and Émigrés Lab, a highly collaborative experimental seminar open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates, has two primary objectives: to familiarize students with the work of some of the most influential Russian artists, writers, and thinkers of the twentieth century; and to introduce students to new ways of conducting and presenting research, using digital tools. The flow of persons, texts, and ideas from the Soviet Union influenced the dynamics of American culture during the Cold War, through institutions, academic practices, theoretical approaches and methodologies, and cultural forums—from the Yale Slavic department to the New Yorker. In this course, we will foreground the continuity of Russian Formalism, structuralism, semiotics, and discourse theory with Digital Humanities work today. We will explore the close relationship between avant-garde aesthetics and Formalist theory, and the dissemination and evolution of interpretive practices through emigration. Our guiding questions are: How have these networks shaped our own education, methods, tastes, and biases as scholars, as well as those of communities outside of academia? How do they shift over time? And how might all of the above be reimagined—indeed, how are they already being reshaped—in the digital age, given the technological, socioeconomic , and political present? The seminar will frequently meet in the Beinecke Library and in the DH Lab in Sterling Library, and will include guest lectures, training workshops, and invaluable contributions from Yale's CTL and DH Lab staff and Beinecke and Sterling librarians. All assignments for the course, including final written work, are designed to contribute to a course website that we will build together as our collective achievement from the seminar. REQUIREMENTS: Attendance and participation 20% Regular reading responses (Classesv2 /alternative platform) 20% Project proposals and progress presentations 20% Final research paper, online posting, and symposium presentation 40% • All students will be asked to post a short response, question, or intervention (1–2 paragraphs; other media welcome) based on the readings prior to each session. We will experiment with online platforms as part of our ongoing collaborative attempt to enhance and extend discussion beyond the classroom—and to think critically about media and technology even as we seek creative ways to use them in our academic work. • Halfway through the semester, students will identify research projects based on the course themes and materials. You will organize into research teams, and write and present project proposals and works-in-progress during the second half of the semester, en route to the final assignment. • Term papers will take the form of online texts and conference presentations at an end-of-term symposium. Alongside written analysis, students will practice presenting research and working with visual material, and will work collaboratively to create usable online tools for the ongoing research platform.

The Danube is all along the river of Europe. The Danube is an experiment that affects the whole w... more The Danube is all along the river of Europe. The Danube is an experiment that affects the whole world: what goes awry here can fail anywhere and everywhere; that which succeeds here gives us hope for other places. — Karl-Markus Gauß, " The Teachings of the Danube " (1995) DESCRIPTION: The Danube is Europe's second longest river: it flows through or borders ten countries, while its watershed covers four more. From Ancient Rome to the present, the Danube has served both as a connector and a contested terrain: from its beginnings in the German Black Forest to the Romanian and Ukrainian shores of the Black Sea, the Danube flows through a region that has emerged black and blue from imperial aspirations of domination, hostilities in the wake of the Cold War, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The southeastern portion of the river constitutes Europe's Other—the " Barbaropa " within the continent's geographic boundaries—and faces another super-political entity in the European Union. This seminar charts the physical, historical, and metaphoric uses of the great river. At a time of tenuous unification in Europe, Danube River studies seek to remap the region by focusing on the river's peoples, their cultural imaginaries and interactions, reading the river as a quintessential site of cross-cultural engagement. We will study the region's geography and history, and explore transnational cinema, artwork, and literary texts from various Danubian cultural traditions. Through a focus on works of creative and imaginative culture—primarily, on literature and film—our course foregrounds the aesthetic mediation of actual and possible communities, in search of utopian promise in the wake of and even amid historical atrocities. REQUIREMENTS: Attendance and participation (all students) 20% Regular reading responses (all students) 20% Two 5-page close-reading papers (undergraduates) 30% Final term paper (10-12 pages undergraduates) 30% • All students will be asked to post a short response, question, or intervention (1–2 paragraphs; other media welcome) based on the readings prior to each session. We will experiment with online platforms as part of our ongoing collaborative attempt to enhance and extend discussion beyond the classroom—and to think critically about media and technology even as we seek creative ways to use them in our academic work. • All undergraduate assignments for this *WR* course are designed to help you grow as a writer. The first two papers will focus on close readings and comparative analyses: you will be asked to dwell on details and interpret words or images in a creative, analytical, and informed fashion. We will meet individually to discuss each paper before you embark on the final paper—with a well-researched and clearly-argued original thesis. • Graduate students will develop and present a final research paper and conference-style presentation at term's end.

Description: Cary Wolf describes posthumanism as what " comes both before and after humanism: bef... more Description: Cary Wolf describes posthumanism as what " comes both before and after humanism: before in the sense that it names the embodiment and embeddedness of the human being in not just its biological but also its technological world, the prosthetic coevolution of the human animal with the technology of tools and external archival mechanisms (such as language and culture)…and all of which comes before that historically specific thing called 'the human' that Foucault's archeology excavates. But it comes after in the sense that posthumanism names a historical moment in which the decentering of the human by its imbrication in technical, medical, informatics, and economic networks is increasingly impossible to ignore, a historical development that points toward the necessity of new theoretical paradigms (but also thrusts them on us), a new mode of thought that comes after the cultural repressions and fantasies, the philosophical protocols and evasions, of humanism as a historically specific phenomenon " (What is Posthumanism? xv-xvi). This directed reading course will survey the critical theories that shaped, echo, or build on notions of the posthuman, focusing on the making/unmaking of the subject, subjectivisation and collectivization, the human and the machine, the human and the animal, trauma and affect theory. The majority of primary readings for the course will be theoretical, but discussions, the final two weeks of reading, and assignments will build towards application of such theoretical tools to post-Soviet cultural productions.

Two and a half decades after the fall of communism, Russian culture has shape-shifted once more, ... more Two and a half decades after the fall of communism, Russian culture has shape-shifted once more, both internally and in the eyes of the world. This WR seminar will trace a narrative from the chaos of the lawless "wild 1990s" through the solidification of power in Putin's Russia, to the rise of the protest culture that has dominated media attention in the last few years. The material discussed will include works by Pelevin, Sorokin, Limonov, Bykov, Kabakov, Prigov, Rubinshtein, Tolstaya, Akunin, Medvedev; films by Mikhalkov, Balabanov, Sokurov, Lotznitsa, Ginzburg; and performances by the art collectives Voina, Pussy Riot, Femen, Chto delat'? and others. The final part of the course will be devoted to the most contemporary materials coming from today's Russian protest culture. We will contextualize our post-Soviet materials through comparisons to historical avant-gardes and international traditions of protest culture: to this end, half of our courses will take place in the Yale Art Gallery or Beinecke Archive. Readings and discussion in English, with Russian originals available for interested students.

The Digital Brodsky Lab, a highly collaborative experimental seminar open to graduate students an... more The Digital Brodsky Lab, a highly collaborative experimental seminar open to graduate students and advanced undergraduates, has two primary objectives: to familiarize students with Joseph Brodsky's poetry and prose and the critical tradition around his oeuvre; and to introduce students to new ways of conducting and presenting research, using digital tools. We will make use of original materials from the Brodsky archive housed in the Beinecke to study draft variants, translations, as well as Brodsky's interactions with other writers and institutions. The seminar will meet in the Beinecke and will combine close readings of Brodsky's work with collaborative learning, facilitated by guest lectures, training workshops, and invaluable contributions from Yale's IT staff, Digital Humanities and Beinecke librarians. All assignments for the course, including final written work, will be published on a course website that we will build together as our collective achievement from the seminar.

In 1955, Vladimir Nabokov published Lolita for the first time in Paris, with an infamous press; i... more In 1955, Vladimir Nabokov published Lolita for the first time in Paris, with an infamous press; in 1958 he published it once more in New York. His life-and arguably the English-language and transnational novel-was never the same. By 1962, Nabokov had collaborated on the film with Stanley Kubrick; the term "lolita" had entered popular language; and by the middle of the decade, he was the most famous living writer in the world. This lecture course will begin with the novels (and films) that made Nabokov famous, then move back in time to trace the origins of the international literary legend in the young Russian émigré fleeing the Revolution. We end with a number of works of world literature inspired and haunted by Nabokov, from Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence, to W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants. We will speak of exile, memory and nostalgia; hybrid cultural identities and cosmopolitan elites; language, translation and multilingualism. All readings will be in English.

This graduate seminar explores generations of Russian poetic avant-gardes in their cultural, hist... more This graduate seminar explores generations of Russian poetic avant-gardes in their cultural, historical, and political contexts. We focus on poetry but draw on visual culture, music, performance, and political actions as we follow our iconoclasts across genres and media, into and outside of the institutions they critique. We read seminal and recent theories of the avant-garde (Frankfurt school; Bürger; Mann; Sell) and poetry and aesthetic productions of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. From the demiurgic ambitions of the historical avant-garde (Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Vvedensky) we move to its Soviet continuation and transformation (Kharms, Oberiu); nonconformist Soviet-era practices (Nekrasov, Roald Mandelstam); Conceptualism (Prigov, Rubinstein); and finally post-Soviet and contemporary leftist avant-gardes (Medvedev, Chukhrov). Our readings include the works of Tsvetaeva, recontextualized in an alternative tradition of Russian poetry, as well as poems published this very year. What do such interventions mean today? The artistic avant-garde has always stood as a metaphorical surrogate for political violence; but has the "avant-garde tradition" become a travesty of the ambitions that marked its historical beginnings? Our approach emphasizes language, form, and medium as well as theory, philosophy, and politics. Weekly practices involve close reading, research, theoretical reframing, and ongoing collaborative participation.

RUSS 689 RUSSIAN SYMBOLIST POETRY GRADUATE SEMINAR FALL 2013 THURS 2:30 -4:20 HGS 217B MARIJETA B... more RUSS 689 RUSSIAN SYMBOLIST POETRY GRADUATE SEMINAR FALL 2013 THURS 2:30 -4:20 HGS 217B MARIJETA BOZOVIC Мы для новой красоты Нарушаем все законы Преступаем все черты.

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