Wonder Confronts Certainty

Wonder Confronts Certainty

Author: Gary Saul Morson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2023-05-09

Total Pages: 513

ISBN-13: 0674971809

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Gary Saul Morson brings to life the intense intellectual debates shaping two centuries of Russian writing. Dialogues of great writers with philosophical wanderers and blood-soaked radicals reveal a contest between unyielding dogmatism and open-minded wonder, rendering the Russian literary canon at once distinctive and universally human.


Book Synopsis Wonder Confronts Certainty by : Gary Saul Morson

Download or read book Wonder Confronts Certainty written by Gary Saul Morson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gary Saul Morson brings to life the intense intellectual debates shaping two centuries of Russian writing. Dialogues of great writers with philosophical wanderers and blood-soaked radicals reveal a contest between unyielding dogmatism and open-minded wonder, rendering the Russian literary canon at once distinctive and universally human.


Anna Karenina in Our Time

Anna Karenina in Our Time

Author: Gary Saul Morson

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780300100709

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In this invigorating new assessment of Anna Karenina, Gary Saul Morson overturns traditional interpretations of the classic novel and shows why readers have misunderstood Tolstoy's characters and intentions. Morson argues that Tolstoy's ideas are far more radical than has been thought: his masterpiece challenges deeply held conceptions of romantic love, the process of social reform, modernization, and the nature of good and evil. By investigating the ethical, philosophical, and social issues with which Tolstoy grappled, Morson finds in Anna Karenina powerful connections with the concerns of today. He proposes that Tolstoy's effort to see the world more wisely can deeply inform our own search for wisdom in the present day. The book offers brilliant analyses of Anna, Karenin, Dolly, Levin, and other characters, with a particularly subtle portrait of Anna's extremism and self-deception. Morson probes Tolstoy's important insights (evil is often the result of negligence; goodness derives from small, everyday deeds) and completes the volume with an irresistible, original list of One Hundred and Sixty-Three Tolstoyan Conclusions.


Book Synopsis Anna Karenina in Our Time by : Gary Saul Morson

Download or read book Anna Karenina in Our Time written by Gary Saul Morson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this invigorating new assessment of Anna Karenina, Gary Saul Morson overturns traditional interpretations of the classic novel and shows why readers have misunderstood Tolstoy's characters and intentions. Morson argues that Tolstoy's ideas are far more radical than has been thought: his masterpiece challenges deeply held conceptions of romantic love, the process of social reform, modernization, and the nature of good and evil. By investigating the ethical, philosophical, and social issues with which Tolstoy grappled, Morson finds in Anna Karenina powerful connections with the concerns of today. He proposes that Tolstoy's effort to see the world more wisely can deeply inform our own search for wisdom in the present day. The book offers brilliant analyses of Anna, Karenin, Dolly, Levin, and other characters, with a particularly subtle portrait of Anna's extremism and self-deception. Morson probes Tolstoy's important insights (evil is often the result of negligence; goodness derives from small, everyday deeds) and completes the volume with an irresistible, original list of One Hundred and Sixty-Three Tolstoyan Conclusions.


Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin

Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin

Author: William Mills Todd

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780674299450

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Todd describes the ideology of the educated westernized gentry, then charts the possibilities for literary life: first patronage, the salons, popular literature; then rapid emergence of an incipient literary profession. He explores the interactions of literature and society as writers "discovered" their own milieu and were discovered by it.


Book Synopsis Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin by : William Mills Todd

Download or read book Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin written by William Mills Todd and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Todd describes the ideology of the educated westernized gentry, then charts the possibilities for literary life: first patronage, the salons, popular literature; then rapid emergence of an incipient literary profession. He explores the interactions of literature and society as writers "discovered" their own milieu and were discovered by it.


Minds Wide Shut

Minds Wide Shut

Author: Gary Saul Morson

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-01-31

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0691214921

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A timely exploration of intellectual dogmatism in politics, economics, religion, and literature—and what can be done to fight it Polarization may be pushing democracy to the breaking point. But few have explored the larger, interconnected forces that have set the stage for this crisis: namely, a rise in styles of thought, across a range of fields, that literary scholar Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro call “fundamentalist.” In Minds Wide Shut, Morson and Schapiro examine how rigid adherence to ideological thinking has altered politics, economics, religion, and literature in ways that are mutually reinforcing and antithetical to the open-mindedness and readiness to compromise that animate democracy. In response, they propose alternatives that would again make serious dialogue possible. Fundamentalist thinking, Morson and Schapiro argue, is not limited to any one camp. It flourishes across the political spectrum, giving rise to dueling monologues of shouting and abuse between those who are certain that they can’t be wrong, that truth and justice are all on their side, and that there is nothing to learn from their opponents, who must be evil or deluded. But things don’t have to be this way. Drawing on thinkers and writers from across the humanities and social sciences, Morson and Schapiro show how we might begin to return to meaningful dialogue through case-based reasoning, objective analyses, lessons drawn from literature, and more. The result is a powerful invitation to leave behind simplification, rigidity, and extremism—and to move toward a future of greater open-mindedness, moderation, and, perhaps, even wisdom.


Book Synopsis Minds Wide Shut by : Gary Saul Morson

Download or read book Minds Wide Shut written by Gary Saul Morson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely exploration of intellectual dogmatism in politics, economics, religion, and literature—and what can be done to fight it Polarization may be pushing democracy to the breaking point. But few have explored the larger, interconnected forces that have set the stage for this crisis: namely, a rise in styles of thought, across a range of fields, that literary scholar Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro call “fundamentalist.” In Minds Wide Shut, Morson and Schapiro examine how rigid adherence to ideological thinking has altered politics, economics, religion, and literature in ways that are mutually reinforcing and antithetical to the open-mindedness and readiness to compromise that animate democracy. In response, they propose alternatives that would again make serious dialogue possible. Fundamentalist thinking, Morson and Schapiro argue, is not limited to any one camp. It flourishes across the political spectrum, giving rise to dueling monologues of shouting and abuse between those who are certain that they can’t be wrong, that truth and justice are all on their side, and that there is nothing to learn from their opponents, who must be evil or deluded. But things don’t have to be this way. Drawing on thinkers and writers from across the humanities and social sciences, Morson and Schapiro show how we might begin to return to meaningful dialogue through case-based reasoning, objective analyses, lessons drawn from literature, and more. The result is a powerful invitation to leave behind simplification, rigidity, and extremism—and to move toward a future of greater open-mindedness, moderation, and, perhaps, even wisdom.


Modernism and Revolution

Modernism and Revolution

Author: Victor Erlich

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9780674580701

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Now that the political rhetoric can end, Erlich (Russian literature, Yale U.) examines the impact of the 1917 revolution on Russian poetry, criticism, and artistic prose. He looks at the flirtations with modernism of the early 20th century and compares the futurists, formalists, novelists, and short-story writers of the first decade of the new social and political order. Assumes no knowledge of Russian. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Book Synopsis Modernism and Revolution by : Victor Erlich

Download or read book Modernism and Revolution written by Victor Erlich and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now that the political rhetoric can end, Erlich (Russian literature, Yale U.) examines the impact of the 1917 revolution on Russian poetry, criticism, and artistic prose. He looks at the flirtations with modernism of the early 20th century and compares the futurists, formalists, novelists, and short-story writers of the first decade of the new social and political order. Assumes no knowledge of Russian. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Mikhail Kuzmin

Mikhail Kuzmin

Author: John E. Malmstad

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 9780674530874

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Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936), Russia's first openly gay writer, stood at the epicenter of the turbulent cultural and social life of Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad for over three decades. A poet of the caliber of Aleksandr Blok, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelshtam, and Marina Tsvetaeva (and acknowledged as such by them and other contemporaries), Kuzmin was also a prose writer, playwright, critic, translator, and composer who was associated with every aspect of modernism's history in Russia, from Symbolism to the Leningrad avant-gardes of the 1920s. Only now is Kuzmin beginning to emerge from the "official obscurity" imposed by the Soviet regime to assume his place as one of Russia's greatest poets and one of this century's most characteristic and colorful creative figures. This biography, the first in any language to be based on full and uncensored access to the writer's private papers, including his notorious Diary, places Kuzmin in the context of his society and times and contributes to our discovery and appreciation of a fascinating period and of Russia's long suppressed gay history.


Book Synopsis Mikhail Kuzmin by : John E. Malmstad

Download or read book Mikhail Kuzmin written by John E. Malmstad and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936), Russia's first openly gay writer, stood at the epicenter of the turbulent cultural and social life of Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad for over three decades. A poet of the caliber of Aleksandr Blok, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelshtam, and Marina Tsvetaeva (and acknowledged as such by them and other contemporaries), Kuzmin was also a prose writer, playwright, critic, translator, and composer who was associated with every aspect of modernism's history in Russia, from Symbolism to the Leningrad avant-gardes of the 1920s. Only now is Kuzmin beginning to emerge from the "official obscurity" imposed by the Soviet regime to assume his place as one of Russia's greatest poets and one of this century's most characteristic and colorful creative figures. This biography, the first in any language to be based on full and uncensored access to the writer's private papers, including his notorious Diary, places Kuzmin in the context of his society and times and contributes to our discovery and appreciation of a fascinating period and of Russia's long suppressed gay history.


Tell Me a Story

Tell Me a Story

Author: Roger C. Schank

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780810113138

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In this study by an expert on learning and computers, the author argues that artificial intelligence must be based on real human intelligence.


Book Synopsis Tell Me a Story by : Roger C. Schank

Download or read book Tell Me a Story written by Roger C. Schank and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study by an expert on learning and computers, the author argues that artificial intelligence must be based on real human intelligence.


Thou Shalt Kill

Thou Shalt Kill

Author: Anna Geifman

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 0691221456

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Anna Geifman examines the explosion of terrorist activity that took place in the Russian empire from the years just prior to the turn of the century through 1917, a period when over 17,000 people were killed or wounded by revolutionary extremists. On the basis of new research, she argues that a multitude of assassination attempts, bombings, ideologically motivated robberies, and incidents of armed assault, kidnapping, extortion, and blackmail for party purposes played a primary role in the revolution of 1905 and early twentieth-century Russian political history in general.


Book Synopsis Thou Shalt Kill by : Anna Geifman

Download or read book Thou Shalt Kill written by Anna Geifman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anna Geifman examines the explosion of terrorist activity that took place in the Russian empire from the years just prior to the turn of the century through 1917, a period when over 17,000 people were killed or wounded by revolutionary extremists. On the basis of new research, she argues that a multitude of assassination attempts, bombings, ideologically motivated robberies, and incidents of armed assault, kidnapping, extortion, and blackmail for party purposes played a primary role in the revolution of 1905 and early twentieth-century Russian political history in general.


Eurasia Without Borders

Eurasia Without Borders

Author: Katerina Clark

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0674261100

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A long-awaited corrective to the controversial idea of world literature, from a major voice in the field. Katerina Clark charts interwar efforts by Soviet, European, and Asian leftist writers to create a Eurasian commons: a single cultural space that would overcome national, cultural, and linguistic differences in the name of an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, and later antifascist aesthetic. At the heart of this story stands the literary arm of the Communist International, or Comintern, anchored in Moscow but reaching Baku, Beijing, London, and parts in between. Its mission attracted diverse networks of writers who hailed from Turkey, Iran, India, and China, as well as the Soviet Union and Europe. Between 1919 and 1943, they sought to establish a new world literature to rival the capitalist republic of Western letters. Eurasia without Borders revises standard accounts of global twentieth-century literary movements. The Eurocentric discourse of world literature focuses on transatlantic interactions, largely omitting the international left and its Asian members. Meanwhile, postcolonial studies have overlooked the socialist-aligned world in favor of the clash between Western European imperialism and subaltern resistance. Clark provides the missing pieces, illuminating a distinctive literature that sought to fuse European and vernacular Asian traditions in the name of a post-imperialist culture. Socialist literary internationalism was not without serious problems, and at times it succumbed to an orientalist aesthetic that rivaled any coming from Europe. Its history is marked by both promise and tragedy. With clear-eyed honesty, Clark traces the limits, compromises, and achievements of an ambitious cultural collaboration whose resonances in later movements can no longer be ignored.


Book Synopsis Eurasia Without Borders by : Katerina Clark

Download or read book Eurasia Without Borders written by Katerina Clark and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A long-awaited corrective to the controversial idea of world literature, from a major voice in the field. Katerina Clark charts interwar efforts by Soviet, European, and Asian leftist writers to create a Eurasian commons: a single cultural space that would overcome national, cultural, and linguistic differences in the name of an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, and later antifascist aesthetic. At the heart of this story stands the literary arm of the Communist International, or Comintern, anchored in Moscow but reaching Baku, Beijing, London, and parts in between. Its mission attracted diverse networks of writers who hailed from Turkey, Iran, India, and China, as well as the Soviet Union and Europe. Between 1919 and 1943, they sought to establish a new world literature to rival the capitalist republic of Western letters. Eurasia without Borders revises standard accounts of global twentieth-century literary movements. The Eurocentric discourse of world literature focuses on transatlantic interactions, largely omitting the international left and its Asian members. Meanwhile, postcolonial studies have overlooked the socialist-aligned world in favor of the clash between Western European imperialism and subaltern resistance. Clark provides the missing pieces, illuminating a distinctive literature that sought to fuse European and vernacular Asian traditions in the name of a post-imperialist culture. Socialist literary internationalism was not without serious problems, and at times it succumbed to an orientalist aesthetic that rivaled any coming from Europe. Its history is marked by both promise and tragedy. With clear-eyed honesty, Clark traces the limits, compromises, and achievements of an ambitious cultural collaboration whose resonances in later movements can no longer be ignored.


The King of Time

The King of Time

Author: Велимир Хлебников

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780674505162

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Velimir Khlebnikov is one of the great Russian poets of the 20th century. Hailed by contemporaries and by later scholars as the creative genius behind the Russian Futurist movement, Khlebnikov is famous for his inaccessibility. Now, in a powerful American rendition, we are given access to his strange and beautiful world.


Book Synopsis The King of Time by : Велимир Хлебников

Download or read book The King of Time written by Велимир Хлебников and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Velimir Khlebnikov is one of the great Russian poets of the 20th century. Hailed by contemporaries and by later scholars as the creative genius behind the Russian Futurist movement, Khlebnikov is famous for his inaccessibility. Now, in a powerful American rendition, we are given access to his strange and beautiful world.