I’ve started compiling reading lists on the two main areas of my current research: Gulag narratives and Dostoevsky. There are a couple of reasons for doing this. They will eventually, I hope, be decent resources for other people, but it’s also about keeping track of things for myself. They’re both very much in the initial […]
Varlam Shalamov on Literary Encyclopedia
Just a quick note to say that my article on Shalamov is now available on the Literary Encyclopedia, a rather good and steadily growing on-line resource. It’s subscription only, which is a real pity, because I think there are plenty of people outside universities who would find the site useful and interesting. Academics, particularly in […]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 28, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/11/28/varlam-shalamov-on-literary-encyclopedia/
Not thrilled
Although I’m probably an intellectual snob in some ways, I’m quite happy to admit I enjoy a good thriller, particularly during term time when I get so exhausted that my bedtime reading has to be fairly undemanding. And given my fascination with all things Russian, I like reading about Russia in my spare time as […]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 12, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/11/12/not-thrilled/
My work (3)
The articles and papers section (see list on the right), has a new addition, Shalamov’s symbolism, which I presented at a conference a couple of years ago. This is an on-going piece of work and ultimately it will form the basis of one of the chapters of my book on Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales. Anyway, it […]
Posted by Sarah Young on November 1, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/11/01/my-work-3/
Teaching Russian literature
One of the big dilemmas in teaching Russian literature at undergraduate level is the translation vs. original question. Clearly, most of us would like to see our students reading texts in the original, because there are always losses in translation, and because reading in the original helps develop language skills, but it presents various problems. […]
Posted by Sarah Young on October 25, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/10/25/teaching-russian-literature/
Russian history under threat, again
I was planning to write about something entirely different today, but the arrest of Mikhail Suprun, a historian from Arkhangelsk who is researching Germans sent to the Gulag in the Stalin era, is worrying news which deserves comment. This is the most recent in a series of attacks on academic freedom and integrity relating to […]
Posted by Sarah Young on October 18, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/10/18/russian-history-under-threat-again/
Gulag art
While I am usually pleased by events which raise the public profile of the Gulag, I am distinctly less comfortable with its use for anti-Russian/anti-Soviet propaganda by neoconservative American think-tanks who have failed to notice that the Cold War ended twenty years ago, as in the case of the Heritage Foundation’s current exhibition of Nikolai […]
Posted by Sarah Young on October 3, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/10/03/gulag-art/
Gulag Museums
Although my own work focuses on textual and genre analysis and of Russian narratives of imprisonment and exile, that field obviously doesn’t exist in a vacuum. From the point of view of understanding both the workings of the system and some of the experiences of those caught up in it, in addition to all the […]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 22, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/09/22/gulag-museums/
My work (2)
I’ve added another piece of my research, this time a paper I delivered earlier this year as part a Gogol’ bicentenary panel at the BASEES annual conference. The paper was a bit of a departure from my current preoccupations, but the idea arose while I was teaching my final-year undergraduate course on Modern Russian Prose […]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 13, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/09/13/my-work-2/
Gulag: Note to writers and editors (2)
The incorrect use of ‘Gulag’ pales into insignificance when compared to the remarkable inappropriateness with which it is employed at times. When I recently received a Google News Alert directing me to an article titled What you need to know to survive the airlines’ gulag, I innocently imagined I had reached the nadir of Gulag […]
Posted by Sarah Young on September 9, 2009
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2009/09/09/gulag-note-to-writers-and-editors-2/