Speaking to an Old Friend: Conversation with Anna Karenina *In-Person* *NEW*

Anna Karenina was published over two years in installments, and its original readers could age alongside its characters (the story also covers two and half years). We don’t have that much time, but we will strive to bring maximum thoughtfulness and patience to this singular masterpiece. There are many ways to approach it: as a treatise on various contemporary institutions, as a love story, as a family novel, as an encyclopedia of literary devices, and as a monument to high realism. The novel is all that, of course, but this isn’t why it was written. Instead, it was meant to be a subject of long winterly conversations among family and friends, an invitation to a dialogue, to an exchange of life experiences. A reader should imagine Tolstoy to be present in their living room, speaking to them directly from the pages of his book. Rather than parse and analyze it, we will try to converse with Anna Karenina as though with an old intimate friend who wants to know our troubles and to share her own. Instructor: Anna Friedrich

Sections

Instructor

Anna Friedrich holds a PhD in literature from Harvard and a BA in Art History and Philology. She is a published author, scholar, and literary translator. She has taught at MIT, Brown, Boston College, and other institutions. The original version of this course was offered as a graduate seminar at RISD and Brown University.