Dostoevsky: Narrative Performance and Literary Theory

This course is an in-depth engagement with a range of Dostoevsky's genres: early works (epistolary novella Poor Folk and experimental Double), major novels (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot), less-read shorter works ('A Faint Heart,' 'Bobok', and 'The Meek One'), and genre-bending House of the Dead and Diary of a Writer. We will apply recent theory of autobiography, performance, repetition and narrative gaps, to Dostoevsky's transformations of genre, philosophical and dramatic discourse, and narrative performance. For graduate students. Slavic students will read primary texts in Russian, other participants in translation. Course conducted in English. Undergraduates with advanced linguistic and critical competence may apply.