Spring 2011

Seminar on One Writer: Vladimir Nabokov

Listed in: Russian, as RUSS-25

Faculty

Dale E. Peterson (Section 01)

Description

An attentive reading of works spanning Nabokov’s entire career, both as a Russian and English (or “Amero-Russian”) author, including autobiographical and critical writings, as well as his fiction and poetry. Special attention will be given to Nabokov’s lifelong meditation on the elusiveness of experienced time and on writing’s role as a supplement to loss and absence. Students will be encouraged to compare Nabokov’s many dramatizations of “invented worlds” and to consider them along with other Russian and Western texts, fictional and philosophical, that explore the mind’s defenses against exile and separation. All readings in English translation, with special assignments for those able to read Russian. Two meetings per week.

Limited to 20 students. Not open to first-year students. Spring semester.  Professor Peterson.

Offerings

2022-23: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2008, Spring 2011, Fall 2013, Spring 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, January 2022, Spring 2022