Nineteenth-Century Study Group
Russian 19th Century Studies: The State of the Art
Monday, 19 December 2011, 12pm-5pm
Leeds University Business School Seminar Room 1.32
The BASEES 19th-century Study Group has in recent years seen a marked diminishment in participation by research-active scholars currently employed in British universities. As convenors of the Study Group, we are concerned to understand why this is happening and to breathe new life into the Group by making changes to its remit and activities. These changes should reflect the needs and interests of the academic community that the Study Group is supposed to serve. To this end, in place of the annual symposium, we are convening a workshop at which colleagues who consider themselves to have a stake in 19th-century Russian studies, from whatever disciplinary perspective, will have the opportunity to shape the future direction of the Study Group.
The question of the function of the 19th-century Study Group is tightly bound up with the broader question as to the state of 19th-century Russian studies more generally, both in the UK and worldwide. We propose to devote the first half of the workshop to an exploration of the state of the art. We are interested in pursuing such questions as:
• What is the present extent and nature of research into 19th-century Russia?
• How far is this pursued within narrow disciplinary boundaries?
• What questions are being asked about the 19th century?
• Which fields are in decline, and which are growing?
• With what challenges are 19th-century Russian studies presented by current Government policy on research in the arts and humanities?
• How do you see your own research fitting into the broader picture?
We propose to organise mini-panels on the state of 19th-century Russian studies from the perspective of a range of disciplines. Suggested discipline groupings are: Art History; Cultural History; Cultural Studies; History; Intellectual History/Philosophy; Literature; Performing Arts; Political Science; Religious Studies/Theology; Social Studies; Visual Arts. We invite you to offer a short 5-minute presentation from the point of view of your discipline and your research. Presentations will lead to a general discussion. Since we are anxious to attract scholars from as wide a range of disciplines as possible to this workshop, please do not hesitate to offer a presentation on a discipline not mentioned above. You are of course welcome to attend the workshop without offering a presentation.
After a break for refreshments, there will follow a round-table discussion focussed on the future of the BASEES 19th-century Study Group and its ongoing remit, including suggestions for future conferences, activities and publications.
We would also particularly welcome the participation of postgraduates working in the 19th century, not least because they are the future of the field. Please circulate this invitation as widely as you can.
The workshop is free of charge to attend, and includes a complimentary buffet lunch at 12pm, with the first session starting at 1pm.
Please register your interest in attending and/or presenting a position paper by writing to Ruth Coates or Sarah Hudspith by 31 October 2011.
BACKGROUND
The Nineteenth-Century Study Group was revived in 1996 and is currently being run by Ruth Coates and Sarah Hudspith.
The Study Group meets annually, normally in the second week of July, for a one-day conference in Bristol. The conference programme is usually centred around a topic, such as "The Society Tale" (1996), "The Gothic" (1997), the "Fin de Siecle" (1998), "Pushkin" (1999), or "Reports from Foreign Parts: Russian Writers Abroad" (2000), "Tolstoy" (2001), and "Russian Lyric Poetry" (2002). In 2003 a symposium was held, which included papers on Graphic Satire and Aesthetic Vision in Russia, 1855-1870 (Carol Adlam), Lermontov's Poetics of Monotony (Robin Aizlewood), Apollon Maikov and the Cult of the Leader (Richard Peace), and Madness and Narrative Disintegration in Dostoevskii's Dvoinik (Claire Whitehead). The proceedings of the "Society Tale" and "Gothic" conferences have been published by Rodopi (see below).
The 2004 symposium was held in Bristol on 6 July, and the programme included papers by Robert Reid (Gogol: Stoic inferences), Richard Freeborn (Belinskii’s 'Letter to Gogol'), Joe Andrew (Tolstoy’s 'Family Happiness'), Charles Ellis ("War and Peace") and Margaret Tejerizo (women’s autobiography writing.
The 2005 symposium was held in Bristol on 5 July. The programme included papers by Richard Peace (on Denis Davydov); Derek Offord (Alexander Herzen and the House of Rothschild ); Robert Reid (Habitus in Dostoevskii’s House of the Dead); Neil Cornwell (Dostoevskii and the Absurd); Sarah Hudspith (Tolstoi’s Resurrection).
The 2007 symposium was held in Bristol on 3 July. The programme included papers by Neil Cornwell (Zosima triangle: Dostoevsky, Manzoni and Odoevsky); Robert Reid (Syllogism and Enthymeme in Tolstoi’s ‘The Death of Ivan Il’ich’); Derek Offord (narod in classical Russian thought); Ruth Coates (Russian religious renaissance); Charles Ellis (attitudes to science in the pre-Revolutionary intelligentsia)
In 2009 the 19th-century Study Group, supported by the Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts (BIRTHA), held the Vekhi Centenary Conference 1909-2009 from 7-9 July 2009, in Wills Hall, University of Bristol, organised by Dr Robin Aizlewood, SSEES-UCL and Dr Ruth Coates, University of Bristol. The Vekhi symposium is a landmark publication in the history of Russian thought and a central text for the study of liberalism in Russia. Many of its contributors (Berdiaev, Bulgakov, Frank, Gershenzon, Struve) are towering intellectual figures of the Silver Age, a period whose intellectual culture, long repressed, has received renewed and intense attention in the post-Soviet period. Speakers included Philip Boobbyer, Ivan Esaulov, Aleksandr Etkind, Catherine Evtuhov, Stuart Finkel, Gary Hamburg, Frances Nethercott, Randall Poole, Christopher Read, Bernice Rosenthal, Jutta Scherrer, Elena Takho-Godi, James West, and Evert van der Zweerde.
PUBLICATIONS
THE SOCIETY TALE IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE: From Odoevski to Tolstoi. Edited by Neil Cornwell.
Amsterdam/Atlanta, 1998. ISBN 90-420-0329-4
This collection of essays is the first book to appear on the society tale in nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Written by a team of British and American scholars, the volume is based on a symposium on the society tale held at the University of Bristol in 1996. The essays examine the development of the society tale in Russian fiction from its beginnings in the 1820s until its subsumption into the realist novel later in the century. The contributions presented vary in approach from the text- or author-based study to the generic or the sociological. Power, gender and discourse theory all feature strongly, and the volume should be of considerable interest to students and scholars of nineteenth-century Russian literature. There are essays covering Pushkin, Lermontov, Odoevsky, and Tolstoi, as well as more minor writers, and more general and theoretical approaches.
E-mail orders to: Editions Rodopi
THE GOTHIC-FANTASTIC IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE . Edited by Neil Cornwell.
Amsterdam/Atlanta, 1999. ISBN 90-420-0615-3
This collection of essays is based on the proceedings of the conference on "Nineteenth-century Russian Gothic-Fantastic" held at the University of Bristol in July 1997.
E-mail orders to: Editions Rodopi