Discovering Sexuality in Dostoevsky

Acknowledgments

ix Many teachers, colleagues, and friends have contributed to my work on Dostoevsky over the years. It was my great good fortune to have the opportunity of studying with Robert Louis Jackson at Yale University in the 1970s, and our collegial connection has continued unbroken since then. The reader of this book will note my indebtedness to him on every page. Jackson has been an important inspiration not only in his lifelong study and profound illumination of Dostoevsky’s works but in the clarity and beauty of his writing. This book is intended as a tribute to his example and encouragement. Gary Saul Morson was never formally my teacher, but I have been learning from him for decades, both through his writing and through an ongoing fruitful dialogue. He has helped me at many stages of my own career with acts of collegial generosity that are impossible to acknowledge adequately in a few words. My departmental colleagues at Wesleyan University have provided a stimulating intellectual atmosphere and steadfast friendship. Both Priscilla Meyer and DufWeld White are experienced and insightful students of Dostoevsky ’s works and have provided much useful guidance and critical response . Irina and Yuz Aleshkovsky have been prized consultants on linguistic issues, as has Sergei Bunaev. My students at Wesleyan have always been among my most important sources of encouragement and perceptive feedback . I would like to thank in particular Thomas Ferguson, Noel Lawrence, Ginger Lazarus, Bonnie Loshbaugh, David Mane, Beau Martin, David Montero, Sarah Montgomery, Elizabeth Papazian, Rita Rozenblium, Jessica Sharzer, Rebecca F. Smith, John Voekel, Josh Walker, and Matvei Yankelevich . The administration of Wesleyan University has provided generous sabbatical time and Wnancial support for scholarship. I would like to thank in particular Vice President for Academic Affairs Judith C. Brown; Dean of the Arts and Humanities Elizabeth L. Milroy; former Vice President for Academic Affairs Richard W. Boyd; and former Deans of the Arts and Humanities Carla Antonaccio and Diana Sorensen. Acknowledgments H. Stern of the Yale Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures has taught me a great deal about literary technique, writing, and argumentation and has offered much emotional support. Robert T. Conn, my colleague in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and Latin American Studies Program, helped me develop the topic for this book and has been an astute and helpful reader and tireless interlocutor all along. Special thanks are due to my dear friends and colleagues Susan Amert, Olga Hasty, Alexander Lehrman, and Nancy Pollak. Other colleagues and friends who have contributed in various ways to the writing of this book are Julia Bell, Sergei Bocharov, Catherine Ciepiela, Caryl Emerson, Carol Flath, Bruce Masters, Robin Feuer Miller, Stephanie Sandler, Gail Stern, Andrew Wachtel, and all the participants in the 1999 conference “Focus on The Brothers Karamazov” at Yale, organized by Robert Louis Jackson. June Pachuta Farris provided helpful advice on bibliography. Susan Betz, Rachel Delaney, and Anne Gendler of Northwestern University Press have been a pleasure to work with. Paul Mendelson provided expert editing of the entire manuscript. I am deeply grateful for his care and sensitivity. Yury Vladimirovich Mann has offered help and support in many ways, particularly by arranging for me to meet with Liia Mikhailovna Rozenblium at the Institute for World Literature in Moscow. On visits to Moscow, I enjoyed the hospitality and good advice of Olga Monina, Sergei Semyonov, Aleksandra Semyonova, and Misha Trubetskoi. I am most grateful to the staff at Wesleyan’s Olin Memorial Library, particularly Collection Development Librarian Edwin Jay Allen; Reference Librarians Kendall Hobbs and Edmund Rubacha; Documents Librarian Erhard F. Konerding; and Interlibrary Loan staff Kathleen B. Stefanowicz and Katherine R. Wolfe. Thanks are also due to the staffs of Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library and the Russian State (Lenin) Library in Moscow. Family members have kept me going with their lively interest in the progress of my work and their thought-provoking questions about it. For this I thank my brother, James D. Fusso; his partner, Richard Barry; and my late mother-in-law, Jennie D. Siry. H. Stern was instrumental in helping me to develop the ideas presented in chapter 3. I would also like to thank Ayşe Agiş, Ian Duncan, Irene Masing-Delic, Gary Saul Morson, Liia Mikhailovna Rozenblium, Kurt Schultz, and two anonymous readers for the Russian Review for their indispensable help in the research and writing of this chapter. Thanks also to the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon, and...