Reading the great Russian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries can feel like being slapped in the face. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for one, repeatedly smacks his readers with astonishing prophecies of ideological terror and social insanity.

Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished student and the protagonist of Crime and Punishment (1866), divides human beings into two categories: the ordinary many and the extraordinary few, who have the right to “step over blood” in the pursuit of “the New Jerusalem.” Raskolnikov’s argument rationalizes his own violent crimes in a way that eerily anticipates the exponentially greater ones of the Soviet Union more than half a century later. Not for nothing was Dostoyevsky banned under the Soviets.

Over six Sunday sessions, fellows will closely study Dostoyevsky’s first great novel, written after his return from ten years of exile in Siberia.

Image: Mykola Yaroshenko, The Prisoner (1878)

Jacob Howland on reading in the modern world

Faculty

Jacob Howland

Jacob Howland is Chief Academic Officer and Director of the Intellectual Foundations Program at UATX. His research focuses on ancient Greek philosophy, history, epic, and tragedy; the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud; Kierkegaard; and literary and philosophical responses to the Holocaust and Soviet totalitarianism.

Preview the Syllabus by Week/Session

Other Courses You Might Be Interested In

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick

Explore the fundamental human question of the nature and existence of God with Melville's great American novel.

Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground

Reflect on the human consequence of modern thought with Doestovesky's 1864 novella.

Dostoevsky’s Demons

Study Dostoevsky's great novel on the nature, logic, and social origins of revolutionary politics.

Religion & Politics

Consider the proper role of religion in public life.

Vasily Grossman’s Life & Fate

Read the novel known as the Soviet War & Peace, and reflect on the nature of totalitarianism.

Russia: A Return to Rivalry

Examine U.S.-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War.