Author Description

Argues That The Gloomy Mood Associated With Degeneration Theory, Biodeterminism, Freudian Psychoanalysis, And Apocalypticism In Europe Had Appeared In Works By Turgenev, Dostoevsky, And Tolstoy Well Before The End Of The 19th Century. Introduction: The Fin-de-siècle Mood In Russian Literature / Ani Kokobobo And Katherine Bowers -- Anxieties Of Disintegration. The Russian Rougon-macquart: Degeneration And Biological Determinism In The Golovlev Family / Kate Holland; The Hiding Places Of The Self In Dostoevsky's Adolescent / Yuri Corrigan; A Childhood's Garden Of Despair: Dostoevsky And A Boy At Christ's Christmas Party / Robin Feuer Miller; The Railway And The Elemental Force: Slavophilism, Pan-slavism, And Apocalyptic Anxieties In Anna Karenina / Alexander Burry And S. Ceilidh Orr -- Destabilizing Gender And Sexuality. Mister Russian Beast: Civilization's Discontents In Turgenev / Emma Lieber; Masculine Degeneration In Dostoevsky's Demons / Connor Doak; The Burden Of Superfluity: Reconsidering Female Heroism In Chekhov's The Seagull / Jenny Kaminer -- Generic Experimentation And Hybridity. The Fall Of The House: Gothic Narrative And The Decline Of The Russian Family / Katherine Bowers; Corpses Of Desire And Convention: Tolstoy's And Artsybashev's Grotesque Realism / Ani Kokobobo; The Little Man In The Overcoat: Gogol And Krzhizhanovsky / Muireann Maguire; Icons, Eclipses, And Stepping Off The Train: Vladimir Korolenko And The Ocherk / Jane Costlow -- Facing Death And Decay. Decadent Ecosystems In Uncle Vanya: A Chorographic Mediation / Thomas Newlin; The Mute Body: Leonid Andreev's Abject Realism / Edith W. Clowes; The Thinking Oyster: Turgenev's Drama Of Dying As The Decay Of Russian Realism / Ilya Vinitsky -- Afterword: On The Potential Of Ends / Caryl Emerson. Edited By Katherine Bowers And Ani Kokobobo. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.