CLASS DESCRIPTION

Dostoevsky once proclaimed: "Mankind can live without science, and even without bread. But it cannot live without beauty." But what is beauty for Dostoevsky? And why is it so hard for mankind in modernity to find it? This five-part summer series will read Dostoevsky's greatest novel, Brothers Karamazov, within the context of European modernity, Russian literature (namely, Tolstoy and Gogol) the development of the novel (especially, Flaubert), as well as ancient Byzantine and Russian spirituality (such as the Philokalia and Way of a Pilgrim). This course will also be the first test drive of my new book, The Little Way of Fr. Zosima (Word on Fire, 2025). Students do not need to have read Brothers Karamazov.

This course will be ideal for those interested in the novel as a literary phenomenon, in Dostoevsky, in the longevity of ancient Christianity, or in the intersection of religion and literature.

This course will meet each Wednesday in the month of July at 8:00 PM Eastern Time.