REEE 310 - War and Peace

This seminar pairs close reading with historical inquiry to study War and Peace as both a literary masterpiece and a primary source on Napoleon’s failed 1812 invasion of Russia and nineteenth-century European society. We examine Tolstoy’s craft-characterization, dialogue, and genre-bending narrative-alongside the historical materials on sex and sexuality, gender and generational conflict, war and the environment, and imperialism and violence. A central line of inquiry considers how the novel imagines nationhood and empire: as events unfold “in real time,” what engines-contingency, structure, character, chance-set history in motion?

Readings and discussions in English; no Russian required.