RUSS 367: DOSTOEVSKY AND GOGOL

CRITICS: ORAL PRESENTATIONS

 

 

Each of you will make an oral presentations on a critical article on Gogol or Dostoevsky. The possible articles are listed below, but there might still be changes as students add & drop. I've selected some classics and some of the best recent criticism and some appropriate dates in our schedule. I have distributed them using the alphabetical class list--feel free to switch topics with class mates (you negotiate!), but let me know so I can update our schedule. The texts are placed on Reserve in the Library (mostly hard copy), as indicated for each article below. The rest of the class should also read all the materials we've selected for presentation and bring copies to class.
HOW? Presenters:
  • Read the article & think about it
  • highlight the important points made
  • Prepare a ca. 10 minute oral presentation to the class where you: mention the most important points as clearly and concisely as you can and
  • add your own critical commentary (strenghts/weaknesses) and
  • use the board, visual aids, costume, musical accompaniment, PowerPoint, or whatever else you might think up to provoke thinking, facilitate understanding and learning
  • lead the class discussion and respond to questions posed and points made by the class.

 

Class:

  • reads the article ahead of time
  • listens
  • takes notes
  • asks questions and participates in discussion
  • writes down
  • hands in 3 major points grasped from each presentation
WHO?

WHAT?

WHEN?
(tentative dates)

#1
Jill Ackerman


 Putney, Christopher, "Gogol's Theology of Privation and the Devil in 'Ivan Fedorovic Spon'ka and His Auntie'," in Gogol: Exploring Absence, ed. Sven Spieker, Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 1999, pp.73-84 (RES) February 4

#2
Nicholas Aciero

 Gasparov, Boris, "Alienation and Negation: Gogol's View of Ukraine," in Gogol: Exploring Absence, ed. Sven Spieker, Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 1999, pp.113-23 (RES) February 13
#3
Corbin Cavallero


Tschizewskij, Dmitrij, "The Composition of Gogol's 'Overcoat'," in Gogol's 'Overcoat': An Anthology of Critical Essays, ed. Elizabeth Trahan, Ann Arbor, Ardis, 1982, pp. 37-60 (RES) February 18

#4
Lindsay Daniels

 Eikhenbaum, Boris, "How Gogol's 'Overcoat' is Made," in Gogol's 'Overcoat': An Anthology of Critical Essays, ed. Elizabeth Trahan, Ann Arbor, Ardis, 1982, pp. 21-36 (RES) February 18


 

 Holquist, Michael, "The Tyranny of Difference: Gogol and the Sacred," in Gogol: Exploring Absence, ed. Sven Spieker, Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 1999, pp.125-37 (RES) Suggested reading for 2/25
#5
Brian Dunlap


 Epshtein, Mikhail N., "The Irony of Style: The Demonic Element in Gogol's Concept of Russia," in Gogol: Exploring Absence, ed. Sven Spieker, Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 1999, pp.55-71 (RES) March 2

 

 

 Leatherbarrow, W. J., "Dostoevskii and Literature: Works in the 1840s" in Leatherbarrow, W. L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevsky, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 47-65; (RES) Suggested reading for 3/9


Belknap, Robert, "Dostoevskii and Psychology," in Leatherbarrow, W. L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevsky, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 131-47 (RES) Suggested reading for 3/13

#6
Grace Erny

 Bakhtin, M.M., "[Discourse in Dostoevsky]" in Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Notes From Underground, tr. Michael Katz, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, pp. 146-56 (RES) March 30




Weisberg, Richard H. "The Formalistic Model: Notes from Underground. Against 'Existentialism': Part I of the Tale, " Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Notes From Underground, tr. Michael Katz, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, pp. 190-202 (RES)

 Suggested reading for 4/1





Christa, Boris, "Dostoevskii and Money," in Leatherbarrow, W. L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevsky, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.93-110 (RES) Suggested reading for 4/6
#7
Jordyn Gomberg

 Johnson, Brian R., "Castration and the Sexuality of epilepsy in Dostoevsky's The Idiot," paper by Macalester Russian alumnus, now PhD student at the University of Wisconsin. (RES; E-RES)

April 17

 



Jones, Malcom V., "Dostoevskii and Religion," in Leatherbarrow, W. L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevsky, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.148-74 (RES) Suggested reading for 5/4

Last updated: 1/7-09
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