Caryl Emerson is an American
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
,
slavist
Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic areas, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was prim ...
and
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
. She is best known for her books and scholarly commentaries on the Russian philosopher and literary theorist
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theo ...
. She has translated some of Bakhtin's most influential works, including ''
Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics'' and ''
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin''. Emerson was Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literature at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...
from 1988 until her retirement in 2015. From 1980 to 1987 she was a Professor of Russian Literature at
Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...
.
Biography
Caryl Emerson grew up in Manhattan, Kansas, and Rochester, New York. Her father was a professor of theory and acoustics at the
Eastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman.
It offers Bachelor of Music ...
. Emerson completed her undergraduate studies at Cornell, majoring in Russian literature. She received her master’s degrees in Russian studies and Russian language teaching from
Harvard. She worked for some time as a secondary school teacher in New Jersey and then as a teacher of Russian area studies at
Windham College
Windham College was a liberal arts college located in Putney, Vermont, on the campus of what is now Landmark College.
History
Windham was founded in by Walter F. Hendricks as the Vermont Institute of Special Studies. The school's initial aim wa ...
in Vermont before completing a doctorate in comparative literature at the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
.
At graduate school Emerson encountered the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, who at that time was largely unknown in both his native (
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
) Russia and the West. As a professor at Cornell, Emerson became a leading figure in the dissemination and explication of Bakhtin's work. Her translation of ''Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics'' in 1984 is still the only one used in English. The book is now considered a classic in
Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...
studies and
literary theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...
, and has been influential in other disciplines such as philosophy and psychology. During her time at Princeton Emerson wrote two books about Bakhtin, ''Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics'' (1990) and ''The First Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin'' (1997), both of which are considered among the finest commentaries available on Bakhtin's life and work. She has written extensively on other significant Russian cultural figures, notably
Boris Godunov
Borís Fyodorovich Godunóv (; russian: Борис Фёдорович Годунов; 1552 ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia as ''de facto'' regent from c. 1585 to 1598 and then as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. After the end of hi ...
,
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
,
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
and
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Sigizmund Dominikovich Krzhizhanovsky ( rus, Сигизму́нд Домини́кович Кржижано́вский, p=sʲɪɡʲɪzˈmunt dəmʲɪˈnʲikəvʲɪtɕ krʐɨʐɨˈnofskʲɪj, pl, ; – 28 December 1950) was a Russian and Soviet ...
. Though retired from formal teaching Emerson has continued to write, edit and translate in the field of Russian literature and Russian cultural studies.
Emerson has been widely recognized as one of the leading Slavists in the United States. In 2009 she received fellowships from the
Guggenheim Foundation and
American Council of Learned Societies for her research on Krzhizhanovsky. She has won lifetime awards for “outstanding contributions to the field” from the
American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (language and literature), and the
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) is a scholarly society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about the former Soviet Union (including Eurasia) and Eastern and Central Europe. The ASEEES supports teach ...
(area studies), as well as awards for her individual books. In 1995, she was named the A. Watson Armour III University Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Princeton. In 2003 she became an Elected Member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communi ...
.
Books
* ''Boris Godunov: Transpositions of a Russian Theme'' (1986)
* ''Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics'' (with
Gary Saul Morson
Gary Saul Morson (born 1948) is an American literary critic and Slavist. He is particularly known for his scholarly work on the great Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Morson is Lawren ...
) (1990)
* ''Modest Musorgsky and Boris Godunov: Myths, Realities, Reconsiderations'' (with Robert William Oldani) (1994)
* ''The First Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin'' (1997)
* ''The Life of Musorgsky'' (1999)
* ''The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature'' (2008)
* ''All the Same the Words Don’t Go Away (Essays on Authors, Heroes, Aesthetics, and Stage Adaptations from the Russian Tradition)'' (2010)
Translations
* ''The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin'' (with Michael Holquist) (1981)
* Mikhail Bakhtin, ''
Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics'' (1984)
See also
*
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Ag ...
*
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theo ...
*
Polyphony (literature)
In literature, polyphony (russian: полифония) is a feature of narrative, which includes a diversity of simultaneous points of view and voices. Caryl Emerson describes it as "a decentered authorial stance that grants validity to all voices ...
*
Dialogue (Bakhtin)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emerson, Caryl
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Cornell University faculty
Princeton University faculty
University of Texas alumni
Harvard University alumni
Slavists
Writers about Russia
Translators from Russian
Cornell University alumni
Members of the American Philosophical Society