Literature

Inessa Medzhibovskaya Launches “Tolstoy’s ON LIFE”

In this first book-length study of Tolstoy’s meditation on death, life, love, and happiness, Inessa Medzhibovskaya focuses on unknown documents and stories that illuminate...   Read More

Reading for Writers Featured on Medium

Stephanie Leone, Literary Studies Alum, wrote an exciting feature about our course Reading for Writers: the Contemporary Short Story that we wanted to share with...   Read More

Remembering Ann

Ann Snitow May 9, 1943-August 10, 2019 Ann Snitow, a founding faculty member of Lang College and the creator of the Gender Studies Program at...   Read More

The Sound of Biopolitics

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 AT 5:30 PM Orozco Room, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall 66 West 12th Street, Room A712, New York, NY 10011 In...   Read More

Read an interview with Jennifer Firestone

Assistant professor of literary studies Jennifer Firestone published Gates and Fields earlier this year. Read a compelling interview with her about it here.

The Epiphany Machine

Faculty member David Gerrard has published The Epiphany Machine, a book that has been called “hilarious” and “razor-sharp” by The Washington Post, a “wildly charming, morally...   Read More

Juan DeCastro steps up as chair of literature

The Department of Literary Studies welcomes Juan De Castro as co-chair, Literary Studies and Chair, Literature. Juan De Castro is the author of The Spaces...   Read More

Rachel Aydt’s new essay – The Pilgrims

Literary Studies Faculty member Rachel Aydt has published an essay called The Pilgrims in The White Review. Read her beautiful essay here.

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In this first book-length study of Tolstoy’s meditation on death, life, love, and happiness, Inessa Medzhibovskaya focuses on unknown documents and stories that illuminate the realities of Russian philosophical culture at the end of the long nineteenth century. Special attention is paid to Tolstoy’s involvement with the Moscow Psychological Society and its periodicals, to his friendship with its longtime Chairman Nikolai Grot, and to Tolstoy’s interactions with such outstanding figures of Russian thought as Nikolai Strakhov, Nikolai Fedorov, Lev Lopatin, and Vladimir Soloviev. What was Tolstoy’s relationship to Grot—the relation of a genius to a scribe, or a mentor to a disciple? What did it mean to be elected a distinguished member of the Moscow Psychological Society? Who were the other members? What was the nature of the critical exchanges around On Life between Tolstoy, his family and friends, and other Russian thinkers, scientists, and artists?  Bookending the volume is an extensive historical appendix. Here the reader will find documents published in English for the first time.

Inessa Medzhibovskaya teaches in the Departments of Liberal Studies here at  Eugene Lang College. Her previous books include Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His TimeTolstoy, On Life: A Critical EditionTolstoy and His Problems: View from the Twenty-First Century; and A Critical Guide to Tolstoy’s On Life.

The “Tolstoy’s ON LIFE” book launch party will take place on October 30th. For details, check the Upcoming Events section.

For more information about the book, go to: https://www.tolstoy-studies-journal.com/