RUSS 37 Western Thought and the Russian Dialogic Imagination
This course is a study of the relationship between Western philosophy and Russian literature, specifically the many ways in which abstract philosophical ideas get ‘translated’ into literary works. Russia does not have world famous philosophers. We have Solovyev, Rozanov, and Berdyaev, but very few of our colleagues at philosophy departments in the United States would recognize them and fewer still would have anything to say about them. Yet, most Russian writers were avid readers of philosophy and are often considered philosophers in their own right.