This paper by Caryl Emerson was presented at the Northwestern University Research Initiative in Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought Conference celebrating Gary Saul Morson in April 2024. The title of this talk is built off a bad piece of word-play. Donna Orwin and Sandy Goldberg opened the conference on Saul’s latest, Wonder Confronts Certainty. Now I
This paper was part of the opening roundtable celebrating Mikhail Epstein at the Inaugural Conference of the Northwestern University Research Initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy and Religious Thought which took place at the Northwestern University, April 2023. The roundtable included Alyssa deBlasio, Randall A. Poole, Victoria Juharyan, and the author of this paper,
The following article, written by Caryl Emerson, was first published in Christian History issue 146 and is republished here with the permission of the author. “When cruelty is the norm, love is an act of rebellion.” This thesis, applied to Christ’s response to the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov (1880), belongs to Dostoevsky scholar
The following are two statements from members of the Northwestern University Research Initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy and Religious Thought regarding the influence of the war in Ukraine on reading and discussing Russian Literature. The first is an open letter from Susan McReynolds, Co-Director of the Initiative and Associate Professor and Chair of
Below is the video footage from the roundtable discussion at the international symposium, “Russian Literature and Philosophy: Religion, Nationalism and Dissidence,” which took place at the Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil, November 2022. The roundtable included Caryl Emerson, Gary Saul Morson, and Paul Contino. The footage is hosted by RELIGANDO Ciência da Religião