Bøker av Mikhail Epstein

MIKHAIL EPSTEIN "RUSSIAN SPIRITUALITY AND THE SECULARIZATION OF CULTURE". "Mikhail Esptein is a preeminent authority on Russian spirituality, and this fine book shows why. With his characteristic erudition Epstein brings the reader to the origins of Russian intellectual tradition, showing how it continues to inform some of the most heated debates in modern Russia. According to the author, this culture occupies a unique position on the intersection of Western and Eastern spirituality, and the tension between these powerful crosscurrents creates a space for the kind of religious, artistic, and intellectual creativity we have come to associate with Russia. Epstein treats these complex, fascinating subjects with the admirable clear-headedness and discernment that make the book valuable to experts and common readers alike". - Dmitri SHALIN, Professor of Sociology at University of Nevada, director of the Center for Democratic Culture, coordinator of Justice & Democracy Forum series.

Explores the major paradoxes of Russian literature as a manifestation of both tragic and ironic contradictions of human nature and national character. Russian literature, from Pushkin and Gogol to Chekhov, Nabokov and to postmodernist writers, is studied as a holistic text that plays on the reversal of such opposites as being and nothingness, reality and simulation, and rationality and absurdity.

Distinguished scholar offers a re-assessment of the role of the humanities and advocates their constructive potential for the society and intellectual culture of the future.