Funny Dostoevsky: New Perspectives on the Dostoevskian Light Side

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Tapping into the emergence of scholarly comedy studies since the 2000s, this collection brings new perspectives to bear on the Dostoevskian light side. Funny Dostoevksy demonstrates how and why Dostoevsky is one of the most humorous 19th-century authors, even as he plumbs the depths of the human psyche and the darkest facets of European modernity. The authors go beyond the more traditional categories of humor, such as satire, parody, and the carnivalesque, to apply unique lenses to their readings of Dostoevsky. These include cinematic slapstick and the body in Crime and Punishment, the affective turn and hilarious (and deadly) impatience in Demons, and ontological jokes in Notes from Underground and The Idiot. The authors (coincidentally) all women, including some of the most established scholars in the field alongside up-and-comers address gender and the marginalization of comedy, culminating in a chapter on Dostoevsky's "funny and furious" women, and explore the intersections of gender and humor in literary and culture studies. Funny Dostoevksy applies some of the latest findings on humor and laughter to his writing, while comparative chapters bring Dostoevsky's humor into conjunction with other popular works, such as Chaplins Modern Times and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. Written with a verve and wit that Dostoevsky would appreciate, this boldly original volume illuminates how humor and comedy in his works operate as vehicles of deconstruction, pleasure, play, and transcendence.

Author Bio

Lynn Ellen Patyk is Associate Professor of Russian at Dartmouth College, USA. Her first book, Written in Blood: Revolutionary Terrorism and Russian Literary Culture, 18611881 (a Choice Outstanding Title for 2018) traced Russian literary culture's contribution to the emergence of revolutionary terrorism. Her second book, Dostoevsky's Provocateurs (forthcoming, 2023) argues that provocation is Dostoevsky's creative and communicative macrostrategy. She currently serves as associate editor of The Russian Review and has published articles and reviews on Dostoevsky, revolutionary terrorism, war, and provocation in The Russian Review, Slavic Review, Slavonic and East European Review, The American Historical Review, and the L.A. Review of Books. Irina Erman is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of German and Russian Studies at The College of Charleston, USA. She has published articles on Dostoevsky, 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature and contemporary literature in The Russian Review, The Journal of Popular Culture, and the Russian Literature journal. Her chapter on Gogol and Dostoevsky is forthcoming in The Routledge Companion to Absurdist Literature. Her article on A. K. Tolstoy won the inaugural Levin Article Prize for best article published in The Russian Review in 2020.