Beyond Carnival: Funny Dostoevsky Conference
Join the Dartmouth Russian Department for a virtual conference to celebrate Fyodor Dostoevsky’s bicentennial and comedic genius. Find out which is Dostoevsky’s funniest novel according to our panelists (you will be amazed!) An international gathering of Dostoevsky scholars and researchers will present on various aspects of Dostoevsky’s comic vision, including parody as a means of mockery but also restoration, physical and slapstick comedy, funny women, explosive and offensive humor, and more!
Additional questions may be addressed to Lynn Patyk Lynn.E.Patyk@dartmouth.edu or Irina Erman ermanim@cofc.edu
Panel Schedule
Friday May 14, 2021
10:00am-10:10am
Lynn Ellen Patyk and Irina Erman: Opening Remarks
10:10am-11:30am
Panel 1: New Readings of The Devils
Michael Katz, “Stepan Verkhovensky’s Dangerous Poem in Dostoevsky’s Devils”
Susanne Fusso, “Restorative Parody from Devils to Hamilton: How Dostoevsky Pioneered a Key Postmodern Strategy”
Discussant: Yuri Corrigan, Boston University
11:45am-1:05pm
Panel 2: Physical Comedy
Fiona Bell, “Marx Brothers, Meet the Brothers Karamazov!”: The Physical Comedy of Dostoevsky’s Protagonists”
Léandre Lucas, "Comic polyphony in Dostoevsky’s Uncle Dream"
Discussant: Monika Greenleaf, Stanford University
2:00pm-3:20pm
Panel 3: Philosophy of Laughter
Alina Wyman, “Having the Last Laugh: Ontological Jokes and Dostoevsky’s Comedic Genius”
Melissa Frazier, “Sensations of Laughter”
Discussant: Irina Erman, College of Charleston
3:35pm-4:55pm
Panel 4: Beyond Bakhtin
Ben Hooyman, “Unburdening Dostoevskian Laughter: A Critical Analysis of Bakhtinian Grotesque”
Denis Zhernokleyev, “Lebedev’s Laughter: Bakhtin’s Carnival in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot”
Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
Saturday May 15, 2021
10:00am-11:20am
Panel 5: Translating Dostoevsky’s Humor
Tatyana Kowalewska, “Funny Dostoevsky in Translation: How Funny Is He?”
Anastasia Belousova, Paula Ruiz, “Dostoevsky’s comic and skaz techniques through the prism of translation: ‘A Nasty Story’, ‘The Crocodile’ and ‘Bobok’ translated into Spanish by Alejandro Ariel González”
Discussant: Elizabeth Geballe, Indiana University
11:35am-12:55pm
Panel 6: Subversive Laughter
Arpi Movsesian, “Send in the (Holy) Fool: Dostoevsky’s Laughing Women Performing Resistance”
Chloe Papadopoulos, “Too dragged out, can’t understand a thing”: The Impatience of Youth in Demons
Kate Holland, University of Toronto
1:45pm-3:05pm
Panel 7: Performance
Gabriella Safran, “Dostoevsky’s Ritual Insults”
Irina Erman, “Shooting Blanks: Vaudeville Humor in Crime and Punishment”
Discussant Lynn Patyk, Dartmouth College