Robin Feuer Miller, professor of Humanities and Russian Literature at Brandeis University, led a lively discussion at the Jordan Center on Friday of her new book Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and the Small of this World.
Faculty from the region in attendance at the round-table discussion work-shopped with Miller, hashing out possible frameworks and style points for the upcoming book. Miller has written extensively on both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but is looking for a way to break free of the constraints of academic writing with this new work, while finding a way to confront the “big questions,” that are so indicative of the work by these authors, from a new angle. Ideally, Miller said, she’d like the book to have greater accessibility so as to reach an audience beyond academia.
The new book will focus on “the Small of this World,” or minor characters, animals, children, even insects that appear in the work of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Because, Miller explains, “for these two writers the small of this world loom large.”
However the meaning of what exactly makes a “minor character” became a matter of debate. Though Miller has yet to delineate a conclusive definition of “minor character” for the purposes of this book, discussion participants brought up a number of possible definitions. Minor characters, for example, could included those who appear briefly and may very well be central to a particular scene, but if taken out of the work would not significantly alter the plot. These characters often disappear without consequence and are “forgotten about.”
Miller seemed enthusiastic about the ideas offered up by the round-table discussion participants and appears to be very much on her way to having a productive year of sabbatical.
Photograph Credit: Nicole Disser
Photograph from left to right: NYU Department of Russian & Slavic Studies Chair Anne Lounsbery; Professor of the Humanities and Slavic languages at Columbia University, Cathy Popkin; guest speaker Robin Feuer Miller; Emma Lieber of Rutgers University; and Ilya Kliger, Professor of Russian and Slavic studies at NYU.
