In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Acknowledgments ix This book Wrst emerged as a dissertation under the kindly and hyperactive direction of Caryl Emerson, who did for me only what she continues to do for most of her Ph.D. students—which is to say, far more than can be optimistically expected even from the best of mentors. As a comparative literature student at Princeton, my work also beneWted—intellectually, materially, or morally—from the company and attention of Bob Gibbs, Olga Hasty, Leora Batnitzky, Jacob Meskin, Christine Hayes, Stanley Corngold, Thomas Trezise, Bob Fagles, Clarence Brown, Sandie Bermann, Judy Lewin, Gabriella Safran, Inessa Medzhibovskaya (later a colleague at the New School), Peter Gordon, Eileen Reeves, Claudia Brodsky, Thomas Pavel, April Alliston, the late Earl Miner, Elaine Showalter, Robert Fagles, Robert Wuthnow and the Center for the Study of Religion, Carol Szymanski, and Charlotte Zanidakis. Beyond Princeton, I have been blessed with many thoughtful interlocutors and venues for my work. I am grateful to such readers as Harriet Murav, Bob Mandel, Gwen Walker, Harry Keyishian, Gary Rosenshield, Irene Masing-Delic and Kurt Schultz of the Russian Review, Jeff Perl of Common Knowledge, Brian Horowitz, Nancy Ruttenberg, Jim Rice, Sam Moyn, Janneke van de Stadt, Sasha Senderovich, Peter Atterton, Adam Newton, Sandor Goodheart, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Dale and Lorna Peterson, Stanley Rabinowitz, the Amherst Center for Russian Culture, and the Saul Z. Cohen Fund for Russian Jewish Culture. My colleagues and students at Eugene Lang College/The New School for Liberal Arts have been great sources of encouragement and inspiration . I should thank Jonathan Veitch and Eliza Nichols—princes among academic administrators—for many things, the least of which was offering me an early sabbatical to complete my revisions. My departmental co-chairs Neil Gordon and Noah Isenberg supported me in every way as this book journeyed into print. Mark Larrimore, Tony Anemone, Julia Foulkes, Terri Gordon, and Virginia Jackson are only a few of the fellow teacher-scholars Acknowledgments x at the New School who have moved my thinking about ethics and aesthetics over the years—as have such students as Jin Chang, Emma Jones, Frances Wood, Arthur Metcalf, Cole Larsen, Tracy Golden, Rebekah Smith, Jessica Glickman, Grace de la Aguilera, Liz Hynes, Emilija Guobyte, and many others. Carolyn Vega, my research assistant, deserves special praise for digging up elusive sources and cleaning up my citations. I am grateful to Mike Levine, Saul Morson, Anne Gendler, Paul Fermin, and the anonymous readers at Northwestern University Press for welcoming this book with great alacrity and intellectual sympathy. Thanks, always, to my mother, and to Ronnie Perelis, Sagi KWr, Jules Chametzky, and Anne Halley (z’l). Most of all I thank my wife (and colleague), Rose Réjouis, who helped me with countless versions of this project over Wfteen years and whose love sustains me. I dedicate this book to her and to our son, Elia. V.V. Brooklyn, 2008 x ...

Share