Posts Tagged ‘Russian Literature’
A Father’s Love Knows No Bars
With Father’s Day around the corner, I’ve been thinking about a kind of love familiar to millions of men around the globe—including the nearly eight hundred thousand incarcerated men in America with children on the outside. I am reminded of the power of that bond as I listen to Kory, a 21-year-old Black man with…
Read MoreMost “Great” Russian Writers Were Men. Here’s How We Need To Change That Today
Russian Writers In History I’ll never forget the uncomfortable conversation I had years ago with my good friend, writer, and philosopher Marietta McCarty. She was sharing with me her struggles to get men in her field to take seriously the notion that women could be philosophers, too. Surely I was more enlightened than that? she…
Read More5 Dostoyevsky Works You Want To Learn More About
In my latest book, The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky, I tell the story of Dostoyevsky’s second wife, Anna, who was indispensable in helping the great author overcome a long list of personal, business, and literary struggles. It was with her help that he was able…
Read More6 Short, Accessible Books to Get You Started in Russian Literature
An Introduction to Russian Literature People who haven’t read much Russian literature probably have at least one preconceived notion of the genre — that they can expect a long book. And that’s understandable, considering that the works most often referenced as masterpieces in the field are indeed intimidatingly long. Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s…
Read MoreHow Did Anna Dostoyevsky Become A Brave Russian Publishing Pioneer?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of the giants of world literature, a writer whose work is still widely read, enjoyed, and debated, more than 140 years after his death. But even he admitted that he wasn’t much of a businessman—and he lived much of his adult life as if trying to prove the point. Thankfully, he…
Read MoreWhy Teachers Must Bring Humanity to The Classroom
The Metamorphosis in the Classroom The Metamorphosis happens sometime between the moment when John Smith exits his car in the college parking lot, treks across the beautiful grassy campus, enters the building where he’s about to engage in something called Teaching, and finally, steps foot into the Classroom where said Teaching will take place. The…
Read MoreTo Teach is To Love: Dostoevsky’s Message to Educators in Our Troubled Times
Alyosha, the youngest of the Karamazov brothers, has just lived through the heartrending tragedy of his father’s brutal murder followed by his brother Dmitry’s wrongful conviction of the crime. His heart now reeling a few days after the grueling trial, Alyosha, twenty-three, goes to the funeral of the schoolboy, Ilyusha Snegiryov, and there meets a…
Read MoreCrime and Enlightenment: Important Lessons Teens Teach Me About Life
The Inmate, the Student, and Tolstoy The gate closes behind me with an iron thud. I walk down the hallway, enter the classroom, and take my seat, flanked by the prison guard on my right, and on my left the chaplain and library administrators. Fifteen pairs of male eyes—wary, curious, bemused, intense—look at me…
Read MoreTen Russian Novels You Need To Read To Be a Better Human
As President Trump and Vladimir Put get chummy amid political turmoil at home, serious accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and a general sense of social malaise in both countries, Americans and Russians alike have a lot to think about these days. Both nations would do well to get beyond their ideological differences…
Read MoreChanging How Juvenile Offenders See Themselves—One Book at a Time
Duane is an eloquent 19-year-old who enjoys discussing world history and Russian literature. He has taught himself to count in multiple foreign languages and hopes to be an ambassador someday. This is not your typical teen — or youth inmate. He immersed himself in liberal arts while serving a sentence at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional…
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