Gary Saul Morson

Gary Saul Morson (born 1948[1]) is an American literary critic and Slavist. He is particularly known for his scholarly work on the great Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Morson is Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University. He was Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania for many years prior to leaving for Illinois.

Gary Saul Morson
Born1948
New York City
NationalityAmerican
Alma materB.S., Ph.D., Yale University
Known forTeaching the largest Slavic language class offered in the USA
Scientific career
FieldsLiterary criticism
InstitutionsNorthwestern University

Academic career

Gary Saul Morson was born in New York City and attended the Bronx High School of Science. After the high school, Gary Morson was accepted to Yale University. Initially, Morson was interested in physics. However, he ended up graduating with a degree in Russian. “What I liked about physics is that it asked the ultimate questions. I loved how when you look at the world, all this amazing complexity had these very simple rules behind it. Now I believe the opposite — the argument of my favorite writer, Tolstoy, is that the world doesn’t fit any system, because human psychology is so infinitely complex,” Morson says. Morson spent a year at Oxford on a Henry Fellowship. At Oxford, he became friends with Bill Clinton. “A great deal of my pitiful income from those years went to Clinton’s campaign for attorney general of Arkansas,” Morson says. After studying at Oxford, Morson completed his Ph.D. degree at Yale University.

In 1974 he started teaching at the University of Pennsylvania where he later became Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Since 1986 he has been teaching at Northwestern University.[2] His course Introduction to Russian Literature attracts around 500 students – the largest Slavic language class offered in America. Together with Morton Schapiro, President of Northwestern University, he teaches a course called “Economics and the Humanities: Understanding Choice in the Past, Present and Future.”

Morson is the editor of a scholarly book series titled Studies in Russian Literature and Theory (SRLT) published by Northwestern University Press, which is described as "reflecting trends within the field of Slavic studies over the years . . . providing perspectives on Russian literature from all periods and genres, as well as its place in the broader culture."[3]

Personal life

Gary Saul Morson lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife Jane. The couple has a daughter named Emily and a son named Alexander.

Selected works

His critique of literalist translation methods appeared in Commentary in 2010.[4]

  • 1981 – The Boundaries of Genre: Dostoevsky's Diary of a Writer and the Traditions of Literary Utopia (University of Texas Press) ISBN 0-292-70732-0.
  • 1986 – Bakhtin, Essays and Dialogues on His Work (University of Chicago Press) ISBN 0-226-54132-0.
  • 1986 – Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian Case Studies (Stanford University Press) ISBN 0-8047-1302-2.
  • 1987 – Hidden in Plain View: Narrative and Creative Potentials in War and Peace (Stanford University Press) ISBN 0-8047-1387-1.
  • 1989 – Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges (Northwestern University Press) ISBN 0-8101-0809-7.
  • 1990 – Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics (with Caryl Emerson, Stanford University Press) ISBN 0-8047-1821-0.
  • 1994 – Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time (Yale University Press) ISBN 0-300-05882-9.
  • 1995 – Freedom and Responsibility in Russian Literature: Essays in Honor of Robert Louis Jackson (Northwestern University Press) ISBN 0-8101-1146-2.
  • 2000 – And Quiet Flows the Vodka, or When Pushkin Comes to Shove (Northwestern University Press) ISBN 0-8101-1788-6.
  • 2007 – Anna Karenina in Our Time: Seeing More Wisely (Yale University Press) ISBN 978-0-300-10070-9.
  • 2011 – The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture (Yale University Press) ISBN 978-0-300-16747-4.
  • 2012 – The Long and Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel (Stanford University Press) ISBN 978-0-8047-8051-3.
  • 2013 – Prosaics and Other Provocations: Empathy, Open Time, and the Novel (Academic Studies Press) ISBN 978-1-61811-161-6.
  • 2015 – The Fabulous Future? America and the World in 2040 (with Morton Schapiro, Northwestern University Press) ISBN 978-0-8101-3196-5.
  • 2017 – Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn From the Humanities (with Morton Schapiro, Princeton University Press) ISBN 978-0-691-17668-0.

Under the name Alicia Chudo
  • And Quiet Flows the Vodka, or When Pushkin Comes to Shove: The Curmudgeon's Guide to Russian Literature and Culture. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8101-1788-6, ISBN 978-0-8101-1788-4

See also

References
  1. Gary Saul Morson, Literature and History: Theoretical Problems and Russian Case Studies (Stanford University Press, 1986: ISBN 0-8047-1302-2), copyright page.
  2. Blackwell, Elizabeth. "Russian Lit-Live". Northwestern Magazine Summer 2011. Northwestern University.
  3. Morson, Gary Saul. "Studies in Russian Literature and Theory". nupress.northwestern.edu. Northwestern University. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  4. Gary Saul Morson. "The Pevearsion of Russian Literature". Commentary, July 1, 2010.
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