Dear Faculty, Staff and Students-
We are very pleased to announce that Elif Batuman-Harvard alumna (Slavic '99), Stanford lecturer, and contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Harper's Magazine-will be at the Davis Center later this month to discuss her new book, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. The New York Times Book Review hails The Possessed as a book "...that's ostensibly about her favorite Russians but is actually about a million other things: grad school, literary theory, translation, biography, love affairs, the making of "King Kong," working for the Let's Go travel guidebook series, songs by the Smiths, even how to choose a nice watermelon in Uzbekistan. Crucially and fundamentally, it is also an examination of this question: How do we bring our lives closer to our favorite books?" To get at the answer to this interesting and compelling question, please attend Elif's book talk (details below). Please share this announcement with your (current and former) students and colleagues as it's sure to be of interest to many.
Friday, October 15
Book Talk
Co-sponsored by the Davis Center Outreach Program
"The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them"
Elif Batuman, Author; PhD in Comparative Literature, Stanford University; Harvard College '99
1737 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor, Room K354
4:00-6:00 p.m.
If you would like paper copies of the attached flyer for distribution or postering, please contact Cris Martin at clmartin(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:clmartin@fas.harvard.edu>.
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Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
T 617.495.4037
F 617.495.8319
http://www.daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu
Professor James R. Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University, will give a lecture entitled "Calm before the Storm: The Armenian Poet Misak Medzarents on the Threshold of the Genocide" on Wed., Oct. 13 at 6 p.m. at the Castle, 225 Bay State Rd., on the Boston University campus.
Russell's lecture is part of the Boston University Modern Armenian History and Literature Series and is organized by Prof. Simon Payaslian, the Charles K. and Elisabeth M. Kenosian Chair in Modern Armenian History and Literature, and co-sponsored by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
The lyric poet Misak Medzarents, who migrated to Constantinople from the interior Armenian heartland, is known for his lyrical idylls and elegies of nature and traditional rural life. Part of the reason for this focus was personal; part of it was an attempt to create in a period of stifling censorship; but part also, Russell argues, is a conscious project to construct a new kind of Armenian rooted in land and arms rather than deracinated urban life, trade, and money. Medzarents was also involved in creating a viable Armenian national language. Russell will attempt to relate this to parallel contemporary developments in the Russian Empire among the Jews: the forging of Zionism and the resurrection of Hebrew.
James R. Russell has been the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University since 1992. His books include Bosphorus Nights: The Complete Lyric Poems of Bedros Tourian, Armenian and Iranian Studies, The Book of Flowers, An Armenian Epic: The Heroes of Kasht, Zoroastrianism in Armenia, and Hovhannes Tlkurantsi and the Medieval Armenian Lyric Tradition.
Admission to the event is free and open to the public as space allows. A reception will follow the event. Parking is available at metered spaces along Bay State Rd., Commonwealth Ave., and in the Warren Towers Garage at 700 Commonwealth Ave.
More information about the lecture is available by contacting Prof. Payaslian at payas(a)bu.edu<mailto:payas@bu.edu> or NAASR at 617-489-1610 or hq(a)naasr.org<mailto:hq@naasr.org>.
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Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Harvard University
1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
T 617.495.4037
F 617.495.8319
http://www.daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu
