Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
RUTR 335: 19th Century Russian Literature RUSS 552: The Rise of the Russia Novel
Q: What educational path led you to U.Va.?
A: I went to Harvard as an undergraduate, and majored in Slavic languages and literature. I stayed on there for graduate school, and this was the first job I got out of school. That was in '77, so it's been 26 years.
Q: Academically, what do you do
outside of lecture?
A: I do a lot of writing and a lot of conferences, and I give papers at conferences. The person I've worked the most on is Vladimir Nabokov. He was a Russian and American writer. He wrote 37 novels in Russian and then came to America and wrote six more in English. The latest book I did was The Devil in 19th Century Literature. Sort of a fun topic.
Q: What's your favorite Charlottesville restaurant?
A: Maybe the C&O, or Duner's, out on Ivy. Or Escafe. I don't want to offend anybody. There are a lot of good restaurants now. When I first came here there weren't very many restaurants in Charlottesville, especially not ethnic restaurants, and I do like to eat different kinds of ethnic food.
Q: What other hobbies do you enjoy?
A: One of my hobbies is traveling, all over the place.I was in Russia last summer, and I'll go back next summer. I'm going to be teaching a class at the Nabokov museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. After that I'm going to go to Slovenia. I use Paris as my base of operations, because Paris is one of my favorite cities. I have a favorite hotel where they sort of know me.
Q: Looking at the playbills in your office, are you into theater?
A: One of the things I do a lot of in Charlottesville is working with some of the arts organizations, like Second Street Art Gallery and the Live Arts Theater. These playbills are various productions of works of Russian literature. Some of them are plays, like "Three Sisters," but others are novels that people have turned into plays, and they're wonderful. Last time I went up to see "The Seagull" in Central Park. It was a big production, with a lot of famous actors and actresses. Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, John Goodman. That was very interesting. Meryl Streep was just unbelievably good.
Q: If you could meet any figure from Russian literature, fictional or historical, who would you choose?
A: I have two in mind. One is Nabokov, who's written all of these things, but I never met him. Technically I could have, because he died in '77, but I didn't get interested in his work until after he was gone. Dostoevsky I think would be a very interesting person to meet, too, a very neurotic individual.
-- Interview by Katie Sullivan
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