Literary Theorist Viktor Shklovsky (1893–1984) and the Arts Policies of the Soviet Union

FAIN: FT-260311-18

Anne Elizabeth Dwyer
Pomona College (Claremont, CA 91711-4434)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the Russian literary theorist Victor Shklovsky (1893-1984).

Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984) is known as the father of Russian formalism, an intellectual movement associated with the beginnings of modern literary theory. Shklovsky wrote his main theoretical texts in the 1910s and early 1920s; formalism as such ended by the mid 1920s. But Shklovsky kept on writing and publishing prolifically. That he “accommodated himself” to the Soviet regime is a truism. But what insights might this very accommodation give us into larger cultural processes? Arts of Accommodation delves into the specific textual strategies that Shklovsky employed to become—and stay—a Soviet cultural worker who still espoused certain key tenets of his original theory, chief among them ostranenie (defamilarization). Shklovsky’s later work adds up to a latent post-formalist cultural theory, in which ideological and institutional constraints are recast as formal ones, directing attention to the mechanisms of accommodation as a structural phenomenon of Soviet culture.

Associated Products

Why I Teach 'Lolita' (Article)
Title: Why I Teach 'Lolita'
Author: Anne Dwyer
Abstract: Anne Dwyer's students questioned the idea of reading the novel, even in a course on Nabokov. Here is her explanation of why the work should be taught. I’ve taught an undergraduate seminar on Vladimir Nabokov since 2008. In each iteration I’ve addressed the challenges of reading Lolita -- a novel whose plot (the fabula, to speak in Russian formalist terms) is about the abduction and ongoing sexual abuse of a child, but whose structures and devices (the siuzhet) point everywhere else. In 2016, students debated whether I should have included a “trigger warning” on the syllabus. This year I added a few words asking students to inform themselves about the plot of Lolita and to consider what it means that Nabokov treats “a range of human experience in a highly artful, and even artificial, way.”
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/05/14/teaching-lolita-still-appropriate-opinion
Format: Other
Publisher: Inside Higher Ed

Jeg tror jeg ga studentene sjokk (Article)
Title: Jeg tror jeg ga studentene sjokk
Author: Anne Dwyer
Abstract: Hun ville undervise i Lolita. Studentene protesterte. – Det var en total frakobling mellom min måte å lese på og deres, sier Anne E. Dwyer, førsteamanuensis i litteratur.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://morgenbladet.no/boker/2018/09/jeg-tror-jeg-ga-studentene-sjokk
Format: Other
Publisher: Norwegian Weekly

---