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Nightmare: From Literary Experiments to Cultural Project: 10
Author(s): Dina Khapaeva (Author), Rosie Tweddle (Translator)
- Publisher: Brill
- Publication Date: 13 Nov. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 274 pages
- ISBN-10: 9004222758
- ISBN-13: 9789004222755
Book Description
What is a nightmare as a psychological experience, a literary experiment and a cultural project? Why has experiencing a nightmare under the guise of reading a novel, watching a film or playing a video game become a persistent requirement of contemporary mass culture? By answering these questions, which have not been addressed by literary criticism and cultural studies, we can interpret anew the texts of classic authors. Charles Maturin, Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Howard Philips Lovecraft and Victor Pelevin carry out bold experiments on their heroes and readers as they seek to investigate the nature of nightmare in their works. This book examines their prose to reveal the unstudied features of the nightmare as a mental state and traces the mosaic of coincidences leading from literary experiments to today’s culture of nightmare consumption.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“A highly original feature of this study is its critical discussion of Mikhail Bakhtin’s reading of Dostoevskii.[…] This lucidly written and well-structured book will greatly appeal to academic specialists in literature, culture and linguistics.” – A.Y. Arkatova, in: The Slavonic and East European Review 92.4, pp. 743-744 [http: //www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.92.4.0743]
“Khapaeva’s analyses are insightful and often startlingly fresh–most strikingly in their compelling demonstration that the nightmare, taken quite literally, was an important structuring metaphor for many classics of Russian literature.” – Kevin Platt, University of Pennsylvania, President of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic Languages
“In this book, an eminent sociologist turns her eye inward, to the intersection of lived experience, creative fiction, and horror. How does a nightmare differ from a dream? … With the help of precise argumentation, Khapaeva shows us how Bakhtin, faced with a nightmare scenario, can often mislead us with his faith in “consciousness” and “construct.” She restores to the nightmare its horror, and to the writer his fullness of vision.” – Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
“Dina Khapaeva has contributed much to our understanding of these writers, especially Gogol, and Dostoevsky. The long section on the latter can be seen as the centerpiece of the book: her treatment of “The Double”, in particular, should inform Dostoevskian scholarship from now on; her scathing critique of Bakhtin, too, is bracing, and will invite debate.” – Ray Miller, Bowdoin College, in: Russian Journal of Communication, Vol. 4, Nos. 3/4, p.382
“Khapaeva’s analyses are insightful and often startlingly fresh–most strikingly in their compelling demonstration that the nightmare, taken quite literally, was an important structuring metaphor for many classics of Russian literature.” – Kevin Platt, University of Pennsylvania, President of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic Languages
“In this book, an eminent sociologist turns her eye inward, to the intersection of lived experience, creative fiction, and horror. How does a nightmare differ from a dream? … With the help of precise argumentation, Khapaeva shows us how Bakhtin, faced with a nightmare scenario, can often mislead us with his faith in “consciousness” and “construct.” She restores to the nightmare its horror, and to the writer his fullness of vision.” – Caryl Emerson, Princeton University
“Dina Khapaeva has contributed much to our understanding of these writers, especially Gogol, and Dostoevsky. The long section on the latter can be seen as the centerpiece of the book: her treatment of “The Double”, in particular, should inform Dostoevskian scholarship from now on; her scathing critique of Bakhtin, too, is bracing, and will invite debate.” – Ray Miller, Bowdoin College, in: Russian Journal of Communication, Vol. 4, Nos. 3/4, p.382
About the Author
Dina Khapaeva (Professor and Chair, School of Modern Languages, Georgia Institute of Technology), is the author of four monographs (including Nouveau portrait de la Russie: essais sur la société gothique, translated from Russian by Nina Kehayan, Eds. de l’Aube, 2012 forthcoming) and has published more than 50 articles concerning historical memory, intellectual history, the history of culture and literary criticism.
