Reading: Dostoevsky, “Dream of a Ridiculous Man” (1877) So we come to the end of this lecture series, and a slightly different focus than previously, as theoretical works take a back seat, and we look instead at Russian literature and culture to explore the utopian theme. There are clearly strong utopian aspects to the work [...]
All posts tagged Herzen
Russian thought lecture 10: Utopias in Russian culture: of palaces and panopticons
Posted by Sarah Young on March 12, 2013
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2013/03/12/russian-thought-lecture-10-utopias-in-russian-culture-of-palaces-and-panopticons/
Russian thought lecture 4: Nihilism and the birth of Russian radicalism: from science to art
Readings: Nikolai Chernyshevsky, extracts from “The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy” (1860); Dmitry Pisarev, “The Realists” (1864) and “The Thinking Proletariat” (1865) We’re now moving away from the debate that arose initially out of Chaadaev’s “First Philosophical Letter” and dominated Russian intellectual life in the 1830s and 1840s. In the next generation a different set of [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 28, 2012
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/11/28/russian-thought-lecture-4-nihilism-and-the-birth-of-russian-radicalism-from-science-to-art/
Russian thought lecture 3: The Westernizers and concepts of the self: from reconciliation to action
Readings: Vissarion Belinsky, “Society and the Individual” (1839) extracts from “Letters to Botkin” (1840-1841) and “Letter to Gogol” (1847); Alexander Herzen, extracts from “Dilettantism in Science” (1843) “From the Other Shore” (1848-9) and “Robert Owen” (1861). Having examined the Slavophiles and the development of the idea of communality as a specifically Russian phenomenon, we now [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 8, 2012
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/11/08/russian-thought-lecture-3-the-westernizers-and-concepts-of-the-self-from-reconciliation-to-action/
Russian thought lecture 2: the Slavophiles and Russian communality
Readings: Aleksei Khomiakov, “On Humboldt” (1849) and “On the Church” (1855); Ivan Kireevskii, “A Reply to A. S. Khomiakov” (1839) and “On the Nature of European Culture and its Relation to the Culture of Russia” (1852); Konstantin Aksakov, “Memorandum to Alexander II on the Internal State of Russia” (1855) The Slavophiles were a group of [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on October 24, 2012
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/10/24/russian-thought-lecture-2-the-slavophiles-and-russian-communality/
Lectures on Russian Thought: Introduction
Over the next two terms I will be publishing fortnightly lectures from my undergraduate course on Russian thought. I’ve been teaching the course for a few years solely as seminars, but am changing it this year to lectures and seminars. I’ve decided to do so because for many of the students this is an entirely [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on October 8, 2012
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/10/08/lectures-on-russian-thought-introduction/
The Free Russian Press in London
When I wrote a post on Herzen in London, my focus was primarily on the man himself, rather than his publishing activities. But much of the discussion generated by the post recently has focused on the Free Russian Press (Вольная русская типография), leading me to conduct some further research, supported significantly by the contributions of three readers: [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 6, 2012
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/04/06/the-free-russian-press-in-london/
In Herzen’s footsteps: a visit to Ventnor
You never quite know where your research is going to take you, but I have to admit I didn’t expect it to be to the Isle of Wight. That, however, is where I ended up a couple of months ago as a result of my Russians in London post on Alexander Herzen, after I was [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 10, 2011
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2011/11/10/in-herzens-footsteps-a-visit-to-ventnor/
E. H. Carr on women
I’ve been re-reading parts of E. H. Carr’s The Romantic Exiles (1933) in preparation for a couple of forthcoming posts on Alexander Herzen, and it’s left an unpleasant taste that I have to address before I can even get onto Herzen. Clearly I’m far from being the first person to take issue with Carr – Norman [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 25, 2011
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2011/09/25/e-h-carr-on-women/
Russians in London: Turgenev
In the history of Russians in London, Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) in many ways acts as a transitional figure, because although most of his visits were quite short (except during the Franco-Prussian war, when he decamped to England for a year), they were frequent, and span a much longer period than those of his contemporaries. He [...]
Posted by Sarah Young on December 26, 2010
http://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/12/26/russians-in-london-turgenev/