Mental, Physical, and Artistic Journeys in Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel unites three distinct new approaches to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Stephen Blackwell paper explores how Tolstoy presents characters’ efforts (willed or spontaneous) to feel the inner life of another person. Timothy Langen looks into the “stochastically confounding” world of the novel, with an eye toward tensions between swarm and pattern, and their artistic exploitation. Charles Byrd notices a thematic engagement with Antoine-Jean Gros's painting Napoleon Visits the Plague-Stricken at Jaffa in the scene of Nikolai Rostov’s visit to a field hospital overwhelmed with typhus patients.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 19th Century

Chair

• Dana Dragunoiu, Carleton U (Canada)

Papers

• Peripeties of Empathy in War and Peace - Stephen Blackwell, U of Tennessee

• Napoleon at Jaffa and Nikolai Rostov's Hospital Visit in War and Peace - Charles Byrd, U of Georgia

• Random Walks in War and Peace - Timothy Langen, U of Missouri

Discussant

• Tatyana Gershkovich, Carnegie Mellon U