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SUMMARY:Darwin and Mechnikov in Tolstoy’s Literary Imagination - Profess
 or Anna Berman (McGill)
DTSTART:20150423T160000Z
DTEND:20150423T180000Z
UID:TALK59095@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mel Bach
DESCRIPTION:Leo Tolstoy was a notorious critic of science as it was practi
 ced in the late nineteenth century.  At the same time\, he was heavily inf
 luenced by newly appearing scientific theories.  This talk explores Tolsto
 y’s response to two of the most noted scientists of his day: the zoologi
 st\, Charles Darwin\, and the pathologist\, Ilya Mechnikov.  Tolstoy frequ
 ently criticized both men in his diaries\, letters\, and essays\, but thei
 r ideas helped shape his fictional works.  In Anna Karenina\, Tolstoy used
  his two main characters to represent an acceptance and a rejection of Dar
 winian theory and\, in so doing\, highlighted the dangers of regarding it 
 as scientific law.  In his final novel\, Resurrection\, rather than making
  the characters’ fates provide a judgment on scientific theory as he did
  in Anna Karenina\, Tolstoy coopted Mechnikov’s phagocytic theory for hi
 s own ends\, making it the metaphoric basis for his moral philosophy. This
  offered him a way of synthesizing science and religion through art.\n\nAn
 na A. Berman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages\, Li
 teratures\, and Cultures at McGill University (Montreal\, Canada).  Her pr
 imary area of research is the family in the nineteenth-century novel\, wit
 h a focus on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. She is interested in literary depicti
 ons of siblinghood\, kinship\, and forms of love that provide an alternati
 ve to the standard romantic love/marriage plot.  Her book\, Siblings in To
 lstoy: The Path to Universal Brotherhood\, will be published this fall by 
 Northwestern University Press.  Recently\, she has begun to research the l
 inks between nineteenth-century conceptions of the family and the scientif
 ic theories of Charles Darwin and Ilya Mechnikov. Berman also studies Russ
 ian opera\, with a particular interest in adaptations of literary texts.
LOCATION:Beves Room\, King’s College
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