Febris Erotica: Lovesickness in the Russian Literary Imagination

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments I W O U L D L I K E T O T H A N K A L L T H E P E O P L E W H O , I N D I F F E R E N T W A Y S , H A V E enriched and supported this project at its various stages. Ilya Vinitsky’s fascinating work on melancholy inspired my own inquiry into a related medicalcultural notion. I am grateful to my Columbia University advisers Irina Reyfman, Cathy Popkin, and Robert Belknap for their help with an early version of this work. My colleagues at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign —Harriet Murav, Lilya Kaganovsky, Michael Finke, Mark Steinberg , John Randolph, and many others—created a wonderful atmosphere of collegial support and vibrant intellectual exchange. I would also like to thank my graduate assistants, Margaret Akselrod and Sonja Wandelt, for their conscientious work. My friend and colleague Lyudmila Parts was invariably positive and supportive at the moments of doubt and self-destructive criticism. I wish to express my appreciation to Jacqueline Ettinger, the acquisitions editor of the University of Washington Press, who was enthusiastic about this project from day one and whose punctuality, friendliness, and professionalism made the whole process far more pleasurable than what it could have been. My thanks also go to Richard Gray, the series editor for Literary Conjugations, for his unfailing support of this work. Both editors offered their helpful comments on the manuscript, as did two anonymous reviewers for the Press. Their suggestions certainly made this work a better book. I would also like to thank Mary Ribesky, the assistant managing editor, and the copy editor, Jane Lichty. X V I I I am thankful to the Harriman Institute of Columbia University for deciding to include this book in its Studies of the Harriman Institute series and specifically to Ronald Meyer for his assistance throughout the process. Irene Delic’s insightful and detailed report on the manuscript for the series helped me both highlight the book’s strengths and address its weaknesses. My research and writing for this project have benefited from generous institutional support. The Harriman Institute funded an early stage of the research for this book. The Campus Research Board and the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made the completion of this study possible by providing both research support and the critical release from teaching duties for two semesters. The Research Board also provided publication support. A portion of chapter 1 was published as “Nerves, Brain, or Heart? The Physiology of Emotions and the Mind-Body Problem in Russian Sentimentalism ” in Russian Review 65, no. 1 ( January 2006): 1–14. A shorter version of chapter 3 appeared as “Febris Erotica: Aleksandr Herzen’s Post-Romantic Physiology” in Slavic Review 65, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 502–22, and is reprinted in the book with the permission of the publisher, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my family: my daughters, Nika and Lana, for helping me keep everything in perspective, and, above all, my husband and colleague, David Cooper, who not only meticulously edited and proofread numerous versions of this manuscript with uncharacteristic patience but also has provided continual intellectual and emotional support throughout my academic career. This book is dedicated to my parents as a sign of my appreciation of their love, support, and sacrifice. XVIII / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...