Fall 2024

Fong 110

Monday

6 pm - 8 pm

CompLit 153/SLAVIC 154: Nabokov

Justin Weir

This course on the major fiction of Vladimir Nabokov begins with his major Russian novels in English translation, including The DefenseLaughter in the Dark (Camera Obscura), Invitation to a Beheading, and Despair, and concludes with classic English works, SpeakMemoryLolita, and Pnin. Topics in the course include emigration and cross-cultural translation, literary modernism, metafiction, nostalgia and stories of childhood, as well as the literary representations of tyranny, violence, and abuse. We will pay additional attention to Nabokov’s interest in film and film aesthetics, and we will consider four screen versions of his novels (Luzhin’s Defense, Laughter in the Dark, Despair, and Lolita).

In Person