"The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book." - V.N.
23 April, 2023
Let's celebrate Nabokov's birthday!
By publishing a double issue [Vol. XVI (2022) and XVII (2023)], Nabokov Online Journal marks the writer's 124th birthday. The new volumes feature a round table “Nabokov and Religion” in two parts; articles by Gavriel Shapiro, Kristen Welsh, Maxim D. Shrayer, Leona Toker, Dennis M. Read, and Meghan Vicks; an interview with Dmitri Nabokov’s literary secretary Alexei Konovalov; an archival publication by Grigori Utgof, and much more.
By publishing a double issue [Vol. XVI (2022) and XVII (2023)], Nabokov Online Journal marks the writer's 124th birthday. The new volumes feature a round table “Nabokov and Religion” in two parts; articles by Gavriel Shapiro, Kristen Welsh, Maxim D. Shrayer, Leona Toker, Dennis M. Read, and Meghan Vicks; an interview with Dmitri Nabokov’s literary secretary Alexei Konovalov; an archival publication by Grigori Utgof, and much more.
3 March, 2023
Announcement of First Nabokov Online Seminar
We are pleased to announce that the first Nabokov Online Seminar (NOSE) will take place on Tuesday, March 28, at 1:00 PM (New York time). This first installment organized by Matt Roth is called the Close Reading Roundtable, in which presenters will focus their attention on a single sentence or short passage by Nabokov.
Presenters for this event will be Erik Eklund, Sara Karpukhin, Yuri Leving, Priscilla Meyer, Rachel Trousdale, and Adam Weiner. A time for questions and conversation will follow. All are welcome to attend this free, online event.
See below for the Zoom link:
NOSE: Close Reading Roundtable
Time: Mar 28, 2023 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
https://messiah.zoom.us/j/99024545350
Meeting ID: 990 2454 5350
20 November, 2022
A charming presentation copy of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, inscribed with a drawing of a butterfly to his sister-in-law Sonia Slonim ("For Sonia from Vladimir Nabokov | August 1958"), was recently offered at Sotheby's. The present inscription to Slonim — a close member of the Nabokov family — is embellished with a black and red butterfly. Estimate: USD 7,000 - 10,000.
Another item of interest to Nabokovians is V. D. Nabokov's book From Fighting England, auctioned in France in November 2022 (Estimate: Euro 6,450). It bears the author's autograph for Kornei Chukovsky (July 1916), with whom he undertook a journey to London (Nabokov the writer describes this particular episode in his memoirs).
28 March, 2022
The writer's father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (1870–1922), was assassinated a hundred years ago, on 28 March. Criminologist, statesman, editor, and one of the founders of the liberal Constitutionalist-Democrats party (the "Kadets"), he died as a hero when shielding his fellow “Kadet” Pavel Milyukov during a party assembly in Berlin Philharmonic Hall.
28 February, 2022
Statement on the war in Ukraine
This is how Vladimir Nabokov opens his short story, “Tyrants Destroyed” (1938):
The growth of his power and fame was matched, in my imagination, by the degree of the punishment I would have liked to inflict on him. Thus, at first, I would have been content with an electoral defeat, a cooling of public enthusiasm. Later I already required his imprisonment; still later, his exile to some distant, flat island with a single palm tree, which, like a black asterisk, refers one to the bottom of an eternal hell made of solitude, disgrace, and helplessness. Now, at last, nothing but his death could satisfy me.
Members of the editorial board of the Nabokov Online Journal condemn the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine. The distortions of the situation circulated on Russian state media are appalling. Russian officials refuse to call this bloodshed ‘war,’ resorting instead to President Vladimir Putin’s misleading euphemism, “a special operation.” A meme circulating social media this morning: a cover of Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace, with the word “war” photoshopped to read: “Special Operation and Peace.”
Vladimir Nabokov opposed tyranny and detested dictatorships of all stripes. We grieve for the victims of the ongoing attacks and for those killed over the past eight years since the Russian annexation of Crimea, where the young author spent his early days of exile. We stand with all those in Ukraine, Russia and beyond who oppose this war.
28 January, 2022
Volume XV (2021)
We are launching the new issue of the Nabokov Online Journal (Vol. XV, 2021) today. It includes a special cluster, Vladimir Nabokov: History and Geography, guest-edited by Yannicke Chupin, Agnès Edel-Roy and Monica Manolescu. The issue also features articles, reviews and essays by the winners of the 2021 Best Student Nabokov Essay competition.
2 July, 2021
Nabokov's Last Voyage to Russia
Papers and personal objects belonging to Vladimir Nabokov and his family are brought back to St. Petersburg. According to the Russian customs authorities, the large shipment arrived at the Vasileostrovsky storage facility earlier last month from Montreux, Switzerland. The unique collection contains close to 10,000 items and includes manuscripts, photographs, films and printed publications. The destination is the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to the deputy director of the institution, Svetlana Nikolova, the International Society of Vladimir Nabokov donated the writer's archive as a gift to the Pushkin House. Currently the Pushkin House scholars, aided by the customs agents, examine the newly arrived documents at the warehouse.
20 May, 2021
The Lolita Effect: Nabokov's Novel in Today's Art and Public Discussion
The Nabokov seminar organized by the Institute of Russian Literature of Russian Academy of Science will be held on May 22 at 12:00 Moscow time.
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88520011214
23 April, 2021
Dear readers of the Nabokov Online Journal,
Today we are celebrating Vladimir Nabokov’s 122nd birthday! We would also like to recognize all of our readers, authors, and peer-reviewers. Thank you for making a community that celebrates the life and work of Nabokov.
This past year has taught us many lessons, including how to be humble and patient. Good books also provided many with solace when the world suddenly became threatening and insecure.
Despite many challenges, NOJ continued to focus on its editorial mission. During the pandemic we removed the paywall so that anyone could access the journal’s archive. Importantly, our readership increased and now counts almost 1200 individual subscribers. As with each year, your support of this journal is crucial to our continued success.
APPEAL
Now we need your help! Our last fundraiser took place in 2016. If you are able, please make a modest donation to help us continue to deliver high-quality scholarship for anyone who appreciates the literary legacy of Vladimir Nabokov.
WINNERS OF THE 2021 BEST STUDENT ESSAY COMPETITION
We have some exciting news to share with you. The jury received an astounding number of excellent submissions for the Best Student Essay competition. These essays were written by young emerging Nabokov scholars in China, England, France, Iran, Russia, and the US.
The winner of this year's competition is Eric Sanchez (Cornell University) with an innovative study entitled “On the Prosody of Nabokov’s ‘Pale Fire’.” The two runners-up are Max Prokofiev (Saint Petersburg State University) with his essay “Terra Falsa,” and Debora Di Stefano (University of Chichester) with her paper, “‘You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style’: An Analysis of Rhetorical Features in Nabokov’s Lolita”. Congratulations to Eric, Max, and Debora!
A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT ISSUE
In honor of Nabokov’s birthday, we are featuring a preprint of an article by Prof. Ilya Vinitsky (Princeton University), “Unearthing LOL: The Imaginary Adventures of a Slavicist in Leningrad” (in Russian; the English abstract can be read here), to be included in the next issue (Vol. XV, 2021).
Thank you in advance for your contribution to our fundraising campaign. Even a small donation can make a big difference.
Yuri Leving,
Editor
18 March, 2021
Announcing the 2020 NOJ Prize for the Best Scholarly Contribution in the Area of Nabokov Studies
Today we are proud to launch the new volume of our journal and to announce the winner of the popular vote in the Best Scholarly Contribution category.
The award goes to Alexander Dolinin and his stellar Commentary to The Gift (Мoscow, 2019).
The runner-up, according to the ballots cast by the journal's subscribers, is Gennady Barabtarlo's Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time (Princeton, 2018; Russian translation: Ivan Limbakh Press, 2021). Congratulations!
We also received a large number of submissions for the Best Student Essay on Nabokov competition. A special announcement will be made once the jury members reach a consensus.
7 March, 2021
The NOJ Prize for the Best Scholarly Contribution in the Area of Nabokov Studies is now open for voting
The winner is decided by the popular vote.
You can select one title only and paste it into the subject of an email directed to the Editorial Board: nabokovonline@gmail.com
Results will be announced on 15 March, 2021.
Nominated Books (2015 – 2020)
All entries listed in alphabetical order
All entries listed in alphabetical order
- Babikov, Andrey. Прочтение Набокова. Изыскания и материалы [Reading of Nabokov]. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Ivana Limbakha, 2019. In Russian.
- Barabtarlo, Gennady, Ed. Vladimir Nabokov. Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018.
- Ćuk, Ljiljana. Shine on, Nabokov: Celestial keys to "Pale Fire". Novi Sad, Serbia: Sputnik, 2016.
- Dolinin, Alexander. Комментарий к роману Владимира Набокова «Дар» [Commentary to The Gift]. Мoscow: Novoe izdatel’stvo, 2019. In Russian.
- Hetényi, Zsuzsa. Nabokov regényösvényein [On the Paths of Nabokov’s Novels]. Budapest: Kalligram, 2015. In Hungarian.
- Loison-Charles, Julie. Vladimir Nabokov ou l'écriture du multilinguisme: mots étrangers et jeux de mots. [V. Nabokov or the writing of multilingualism: foreign words and word games]. Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2016. In French.
- Meyer, Priscilla. Nabokov and Indeterminacy. Case of The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2018.
- Rodgers, Michael. Nabokov and Nietzsche: Problems and Perspectives. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018.
- Roper, Robert. Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
- Shrayer, Maxim D. Набоков и Бунин. История соперничества [Nabokov and Bunin. A History of Rivalry]. 3rd, enlarged edition. Moscow: Alpina non-fiction, 2019. In Russian.
- Shvabrin, Stanislav. Between Rhyme and Reason: Vladimir Nabokov, Translation, and Dialogue. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019.
- Teckyoung, Kwon. Nabokov’s Mimicry of Freud: Art as Science. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group), 2017.
- Vries, Gerard De. Silent Love: The Annotation and Interpretation of Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018.
- Weinman, Sarah. The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World. New York: Harper Collins, 2018.
- White, Duncan. Nabokov and his Books Between Late Modernism and the Literary Marketplace. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
21 February, 2021
The Announcement of the New Volume XIV (2020) and Call for Nominations for Prizes
The new issue of the journal will be launched on 15 March, 2021. A Table of Contents can be previewed here.
We invite nominations for two awards: The NOJ Prize for the Best Scholarly Contribution in the Area of Nabokov Studies and for the Best Student Essay on Nabokov.
Entries must be submitted online, to the Editor of the Nabokov Online Journal (nabokovonline@gmail.com).
Nominations should consist of a book title and the author’s name.
Any book published in the past 5 years is eligible for competition (2015-2020).
For the Best Student Essay, please submit a file saved as a Word document along with an abstract, the author’s short bio, and the university adviser’s name. All materials will undergo a blind review.
The deadline for entry is March 5, 2021.
The winners will be announced on March 15, 2021, concurrently with the launch of a new issue.
Click here for more details on the process.
15 February, 2021
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28 January, 2021
Congratulations to our colleagues on the occasion of the publication of the third and final volume of the Complete Works of Vladimir Nabokov in the Pleiade Library!
Textes traduits de l'anglais, présentés et annotés par René Alladaye, Jean-Bernard Blandenier, Marie Bouchet, Brian Boyd, Gilles Chahine, Yannicke Chupin, Maurice-Edgar Coindreau, Maurice Couturier, Lara Delage-Toriel, Agnès Edel-Roy, Raymond Girard, Donald Harper et Monica Manolescu.
21 September, 2020
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020), an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020, was one of Vladimir Nabokov’s students: she took his legendary class on European Literature at Cornell in the early 1950s. “At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write,” she wrote in a 2016 Times op-ed. “Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.” In an earlier interview, part of a series in which “eight Supreme Court justices described how they write their opinions, what they look for in briefs and the art of legal writing generally” (for example, Justice Kennedy believed a good brief is like Hemingway, Justice Thomas argued it’s like 24), she called Nabokov “an enormous influence” on her writing. “To this day,” she remembered, “I can hear some of the things Nabokov said. Bleak House was one of the books we read in his course. He read aloud the opening pages at our first lecture on the book — describing the location of the chancery court surrounded by persuasive fog. Those pages paint a picture in words.”
23 April, 2020
Happy birthday, VN!
27 March, 2020
Due to the novel and almost dystopian reality that we are currently living in, with countries declaring states of emergency, shifting to remote work and online teaching, we have decided to make our entire digital archive available to all readers whether they have a subscription or not.
The new issue of the NOJ is unveiled today.
Because there are some pleasures in life that cannot be foregone - a good read is one of them.
12 January, 2020
The Nobel Archive documents dated 1969 were recently released from their stipulated 50 year confidentiality and show that Vladimir Nabokov was in the list of approved nominations - his name is sandwiched between those of Moravia and Neruda. This nomination came from Prof. Simon Karlinsky of the University of California, Berkeley. The Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 1969 was awarded to Samuel Beckett. Alexander Solzhenitsyn will receive it in 1970. The Soviet author will then write to the Swedish Academy nominating Nabokov for the prize once again. However, it will be Pablo Neruda's turn now in 1971.
Image courtesy of the Svenska Akademien, 2020
23 April, 2019
Today we celebrate the 120th anniversary of Vladimir Nabokov’s birth.
To honor this date and in memory of the writer’s astute translator and scholar, Gennady (Gene) Barabtarlo, who passed away earlier this year, we would like to give an exclusive insight into one of Nabokov’s still unpublished dreams. The vast majority of the recorded dreams can be found in Insomniac Dreams. Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov (Princeton University Press, 2017), expertly prepared by Gene.
Courtesy of the Wylie Agency, we are able to share the following short text by Nabokov, dated 18-19 September 1970. It seems to have been overlooked by the editor, and was recently found in VN’s pocketbook diary (The Berg Collection at the New York Public Library):
Today we celebrate the 120th anniversary of Vladimir Nabokov’s birth.
To honor this date and in memory of the writer’s astute translator and scholar, Gennady (Gene) Barabtarlo, who passed away earlier this year, we would like to give an exclusive insight into one of Nabokov’s still unpublished dreams. The vast majority of the recorded dreams can be found in Insomniac Dreams. Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov (Princeton University Press, 2017), expertly prepared by Gene.
Courtesy of the Wylie Agency, we are able to share the following short text by Nabokov, dated 18-19 September 1970. It seems to have been overlooked by the editor, and was recently found in VN’s pocketbook diary (The Berg Collection at the New York Public Library):
Curious dream prompted by sounds outside and other local impressions: old man, moonfaced, very sick, being helped into gondola by attendant and beautiful wife in widow’s weeds (black cape, etc). Youngish doctor (who, in dream, had visited me earlier and mentioned that a Count “Mezzonotte” was very ill) lurking in oleander shrubbery near landing stage. The trio departs, but before vanishing the gondola turns and brings back the count, now dead, and his wife, now cloakless, shoulders glittering, countenance gay. A knock at my door – and the count, alive again, enters: “Je rentrais vous raconter l’affreuse histoire de ma vie: J’aime ma femme mais elle veut m’empoisonner” <I came back to tell you the awful story of my life: I love my wife, but she wants to poison me> but doesn’t so as to enjoy a wife’s martyrdom. I decided to deprive her of that perverse pleasure and swallowed poisons,” etc. He goes out and I notice a black hat forgotten on a chair. I follow him with the hat, he has disappeared. But out of the room across the corridor the doctor comes: “It is my hat, and the count died at midnight<,> as have all his ancestors.”
30 January, 2019
New Prizes offered by the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation
The International Vladimir Nabokov Society has recently announced a number of new Prizes for Nabokov students and scholars. This is an exciting development for both junior and senior researchers that will make a positive impact on our field. Among the new awards are those named in honor of several colleagues who have shaped the international Nabokov studies over the past several decades - Ellen Pifer, Dieter E. Zimmer, Gennady Barabtarlo, Jane Grayson, and Brian Boyd.
19 November, 2018
New book by Professor Alexander Dolinin
We congratulate our Editorial Board Member, Alexander Dolinin (University of Wisconsin-Madison), on the publication of his new monograph on Vladimir Nabokov's The Gift. This monumental research (700 pages) sums up close to thirty years of his study devoted to Nabokov's most complex Russian novel.
19 October, 2018
The NOJ open-access initiative
In collaboration with the Borderlines Foundation and Academic Studies Press we are pleased to offer a number of previously published titles in Nabokov studies as freely available open-access ebooks. There are three titles of particular interest to the Nabokovians: Keys to The Gift: A Guide to Vladimir Nabokov's Novel by Yuri Leving, A Reader's Guide to Nabokov's Lolita by Julian W. Connolly, as well as The Goalkeeper: The Nabokov Almanac. They can be downloaded here.
23 April, 2018
The Table of Contents of the latest issue of Nabokov Online Journal is made available today, marking the 119th birthday of Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). It can be previewed here and the articles will be published soon.
4 July, 2017
Nabokov Died 40 Years Ago
To commemorate this anniversary Maxim D. Shrayer asked different Nabokov scholars the same four questions (How does Nabokov impact modern culture? How did he influence you? What do you expect from yourself and other Nabokovians? and What is the writer's enigma that is yet to be solved?). The popular Russian online journal, Colta.ru, published their responses.
16 April, 2017
It's a bit too early to celebrate Vladimir Nabokov's birthday, but today's news prompts this post because Emma Morano, world's oldest person and last to be born in 1800s, dies aged 117. She was just 7 months younger than VN (born on 29 November, 1899). Morano, who lived through two world wars and more than 90 Italian governments, attributed her longevity to the inclusion in her daily diet of two raw eggs and drinking some brandy. So here we are - Vladimir Nabokov’s immortal recipe for eggs 'à la Nabocoque' -
Boil water in a saucepan (bubbles mean it is boiling!). Take two eggs (for one person) out of the refrigerator. Hold them under the hot tap water to make them ready for what awaits them. |
As for brandy - any can do. Будьте здоровы!
6 November, 2016
Nabokov's debut volume of poetry Stikhi (Poems) was sold at the "Litfond" auction last week in St. Petersburg for 650,000 RUB (app. USD 10,833). This first Nabokov's collection consisted of 68 poems and was published in 1916. The same event featured another interesting lot - Anna Akhmatova's diary (it fetched 7,7 million rubles, app. USD 125.000). Both were acquired by an anonymous private Russian buyer.
3 August, 2016
"Nabokov’s ‘great gay comic novel’" by Edmund White is published in The Times Literary Supplement today. In his elegant essay White reveals the following backstory:
...I sent [Nabokov] galley proofs of my own first novel, Forgetting Elena. Nabokov sent me a note in response: “This is not for publication but my wife and I enjoyed your novel in which everything is teetering on the edge of everything”. (I later found this same “teetering” image in his evocation of a passenger’s point of view from inside a train leaving the station.) I couldn’t believe my good luck in gaining this endorsement from my favourite author, someone who was dismissive of Conrad, Dostoevsky, Faulkner and Balzac – even if I had to keep quiet about it. (Three years later Gerald Clarke, the biographer of Truman Capote, interviewed Nabokov, who in an unguarded moment revealed that I was his favourite American writer. He even tried to convince McGraw-Hill to take a look at my new manuscript, then titled “Woman Reading Pascal”, but without success. It remains unpublished.)
3 July, 2016
Autograph manuscript of The Original of Laura, Nabokov's final unfinished novel, is on sale again.
Estimate: £60,000 - 80,000
The volume Shades of Laura returns to the "scene of the crime," elucidating the process of publishing Nabokov's unfinished novel from its conception - the reproduction of 138 handwritten index cards - to the simultaneous publication of translations of the final text in several languages. The essays in this collection investigate the event of publication and reconstitute the book's critical reception, reproducing a selection of some of the most salient reviews.
10 June, 2016
Results of the raffle
NOJ 2016 raffle from Yuri Leving on Vimeo.
We asked a few random people on the campus of Heidelberg University to select any title from the German edition of Nabokov's short stories. Each title corresponded to a contributor's name - the list of stories (in the chronological order) and of names (in the alphabetical order) was circulated among all the participants one day prior to this raffle. The entire process has been filmed.
24 May, 2016
Join Our Fundraiser
A month ago, on April 23rd, 2016, as our gift to you for Vladimir Nabokov's birthday we released the 10th anniversary double-issue of the Nabokov Online Journal. Now we are writing back, asking you to consider helping our independent journal.
All proceeds will support this year's expenses for production and help us move forward with the next issue. With every dollar you donate, you will get an automatic entry to win a special prize – an autographed edition generously offered by the Nabokov scholars to the lucky winners of this raffle:
Nabokov’s Pale Fire and/or Letters to Véra (US edition)
by Brian Boyd
Nabokov in America: On The Road to Lolita (2015)
by Robert Roper
Silent Love: The Annotation and Interpretation of Nabokov's
'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight' (2016)
by Gerard de Vries
The winners will get their books via mail as our gift and token of appreciation.
We are raising through small donations from our readers.
Please Donate to Nabokov Online Journal
Click this video to see what we have accomplished in 10 years of publishing.
14 April, 2016
The 10th ANNIVERSARY DOUBLE-ISSUE of Nabokov Online Journal
(Vol. X-XI, 2016/2017) will be launched on 23 April, 2016.
The Table of Contents is already live and can be previewed here.
13 October, 2015
Call for Papers:
“Nabokov’s Idioms: Translating Foreignness”
Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
February 19, 2016
Entitled “Nabokov’s Idioms: Translating Foreignness,” this one-day symposium will investigate Vladimir Nabokov’s writerly practice as a broadly conceived effort of translation. An émigré writer whose works were translated into many languages, Nabokov was himself a notorious translator. Yet translation, in his work, is much more than the mere transposition of a literary text from one language into another – it is a creative principle. In this symposium we propose to investigate what we see as Nabokov’s translational poetics – a comprehensive effort to relate to foreignness and the ‘Other’ that is, as such, also a powerful contribution to literary modernism, its media, and its critique. The symposium, which will be held at the University of California, Santa Barbara on Friday, February 19, 2016, is held in honor of professor emeritus Don Barton Johnson in recognition of his extensive contributions to the field of Nabokov studies.
We invite papers related to the overall theme of the symposium. Of particular interest are papers on:
-Nabokov’s poetics of translation in a broad sense
-Nabokov’s works in translation by himself or others
-Foreignness, emigration and the ‘Other’ in their relation to translation in Nabokov’s works
-Nabokov as a translator (e.g. Ania v strane chudes, Song of Igor’s Campaign, and Eugene Onegin)
-Nabokov as a polemicist and theorist of translation
Please send an abstract of 300 words maximum and a brief biography of 100 words to:
Sara Pankenier Weld at sweld@gss.ucsb.edu or Sven Spieker spieker@gss.ucsb.edu.
Deadline for abstract submission: November 6, 2015.
Selected participants will be notified by December 11, 2015.
The symposium is sponsored by the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, Comparative
Literature Program, Graduate Center for Literary Research (GCLR), Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC), Department of English, Department of Linguistics, and Translation Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Call for Papers:
“Nabokov’s Idioms: Translating Foreignness”
Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
February 19, 2016
Entitled “Nabokov’s Idioms: Translating Foreignness,” this one-day symposium will investigate Vladimir Nabokov’s writerly practice as a broadly conceived effort of translation. An émigré writer whose works were translated into many languages, Nabokov was himself a notorious translator. Yet translation, in his work, is much more than the mere transposition of a literary text from one language into another – it is a creative principle. In this symposium we propose to investigate what we see as Nabokov’s translational poetics – a comprehensive effort to relate to foreignness and the ‘Other’ that is, as such, also a powerful contribution to literary modernism, its media, and its critique. The symposium, which will be held at the University of California, Santa Barbara on Friday, February 19, 2016, is held in honor of professor emeritus Don Barton Johnson in recognition of his extensive contributions to the field of Nabokov studies.
We invite papers related to the overall theme of the symposium. Of particular interest are papers on:
-Nabokov’s poetics of translation in a broad sense
-Nabokov’s works in translation by himself or others
-Foreignness, emigration and the ‘Other’ in their relation to translation in Nabokov’s works
-Nabokov as a translator (e.g. Ania v strane chudes, Song of Igor’s Campaign, and Eugene Onegin)
-Nabokov as a polemicist and theorist of translation
Please send an abstract of 300 words maximum and a brief biography of 100 words to:
Sara Pankenier Weld at sweld@gss.ucsb.edu or Sven Spieker spieker@gss.ucsb.edu.
Deadline for abstract submission: November 6, 2015.
Selected participants will be notified by December 11, 2015.
The symposium is sponsored by the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, Comparative
Literature Program, Graduate Center for Literary Research (GCLR), Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC), Department of English, Department of Linguistics, and Translation Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
16 September, 2015
The new volume of the Nabokov Online Journal is published today (Vol. IX, 2015).
We have also added a separate page with tables of contents for all issues since 2007. These are accessible to anyone and the full access can be obtained by subscription.
The new volume of the Nabokov Online Journal is published today (Vol. IX, 2015).
We have also added a separate page with tables of contents for all issues since 2007. These are accessible to anyone and the full access can be obtained by subscription.
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23 April, 2015
Happy Vladimir Nabokov birthday! The two subscribers from France and Russia will each receive a signed copy of a book on Nabokov. We wish to thank everyone who reads and supports us in this video. |
15 April, 2015
Dear subscriber and friend of the Nabokov Online Journal:
For the past 8 years, we brought to you the best of current Nabokov studies. Now we need your help.
We believe in open-access scholarship and a rigorous peer-review process. Indeed, all year round our scholars, along with our editors, designers and programmers, cater to many hundreds of individuals, connecting them to Nabokov studies, in several languages.
Our individual subscriptions are FREE of charge and we do not advertise in order to off-set our costs. No learned society or university grants help us in this endeavour. Even without these typical types of revenue, Nabokov Journal gives annual awards for excellent scholarship.
Your help will allow us to keep up with the Nabokov Journal website maintenance, copy editing expenses, and the myriad of costs associated with providing exciting content for every Nabokovian around the world.
You can contribute via PayPal or any major credit card below.
NOJ is comprised of a group of professional enthusiasts who encourage both established and emerging scholars in our field to publish with us. Please partner with us in this effort and contribute generously to our fundraising drive.
There is no suggested amount. If you want continue reading the journal, simply give whatever you feel your subscription to NOJ is worth. If everyone reading this right now gave $15, our fundraiser would be done within a few hours. This is less than a price of a used book.
Together we can achieve great things!
Sincerely,
Yuri Leving
Editor
Donate
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12 February, 2015
NOJ, Vol. VIII, is launched today with an excellent lineup of an international Nabokoviana!
26 November, 2014
NOJ pays tribute to the late Dr. Sam Schuman
NOJ pays tribute to the late Dr. Sam Schuman
21 June, 2014
NewsNet, a newsmagazine of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, features an article about NOJ in its latest issue (June 2014, p. 10): "Nabokov Online Journal: Where Scholarship Meets Innovation". Download the entire issue here.
NewsNet, a newsmagazine of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, features an article about NOJ in its latest issue (June 2014, p. 10): "Nabokov Online Journal: Where Scholarship Meets Innovation". Download the entire issue here.
23-24 April, 2014
Celebrating the double anniversary of Nabokov and Shakespeare in Paris
The Nabokov Online Journal congratulates the winner of the 2013 prize for the Best Scholarly Contribution in the area of Nabokov Studies, Professor Stephen H. Blackwell, with his book The Quill and the Scalpel: Nabokov's Art and the Worlds of Science (2009).
The second floor of the Shakespeare and Company was fully packed as we have celebrated the double anniversary of Nabokov and Shakespeare during the book launch of Lolita – The Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design (2013), and Shades of Laura: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel, The Original of Laura (2013), two projects that took shape on the pages of the Nabokov Online Journal.
The second floor of the Shakespeare and Company was fully packed as we have celebrated the double anniversary of Nabokov and Shakespeare during the book launch of Lolita – The Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design (2013), and Shades of Laura: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel, The Original of Laura (2013), two projects that took shape on the pages of the Nabokov Online Journal.
1 April, 2014
Spring in Montreux
Photographs by Yuri Leving. Nabokov Online Journal, 2014.
The material is copyrighted and may be reprinted and/or reproduced by permission only.
The material is copyrighted and may be reprinted and/or reproduced by permission only.
26 March, 2014
EBSCO Information Services adds Nabokov Online Journal to its database. Our institutional subscribers can find it either using the journal name or title number: 606-169-500.
EBSCO Information Services adds Nabokov Online Journal to its database. Our institutional subscribers can find it either using the journal name or title number: 606-169-500.
19 February, 2014
NOJ signed an agreement with NISO (National Information Standards Organization based in Baltimore, MD), and is now part of the SERU registry for electronic resources intended to help publishers and libraries identify interest in providers of academic content.
NOJ signed an agreement with NISO (National Information Standards Organization based in Baltimore, MD), and is now part of the SERU registry for electronic resources intended to help publishers and libraries identify interest in providers of academic content.
16 February, 2014
“The Original of Lolita: Celebrating Nabokov’s birthday in Paris,” 24 April, 2014, 7-8 pm.
Shakespeare and Company (37 rue de la Bûcherie, Paris, www.shakespeareandcompany.com)
“The Original of Lolita: Celebrating Nabokov’s birthday in Paris,” 24 April, 2014, 7-8 pm.
Shakespeare and Company (37 rue de la Bûcherie, Paris, www.shakespeareandcompany.com)
Join the conversation on Nabokov’s legacy with participants Yuri Leving (Editor of the Nabokov Online Journal), Lara Delage-Toriel (President of the French Vladimir Nabokov Society), and Samuel Schuman (Past President of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society, the author of Nabokov’s Shakespeare (Bloomsbury, 2014)), during the European book launch of Lolita – The Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design. Eds. John Bertram and Yuri Leving (New York: Print, 2013), and Shades of Laura: Vladimir Nabokov’s Last Novel, The Original of Laura. Ed. Yuri Leving (McGill Queens University Press, 2013).
The winner of the 2013 Nabokov Online Journal Best Book Award will be announced during this event.
The winner of the 2013 Nabokov Online Journal Best Book Award will be announced during this event.
15 December, 2013
Lolita - the Story of a Cover Girl is Praised by The New Republic
Lolita - the Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design (NY: Print Books, 2013), ed. by John Bertram and Yuri Leving, was named as one of the 'Five Stunning Art Books That Made a Difference in 2013' by The New Republic.
Lolita - the Story of a Cover Girl is Praised by The New Republic
Lolita - the Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design (NY: Print Books, 2013), ed. by John Bertram and Yuri Leving, was named as one of the 'Five Stunning Art Books That Made a Difference in 2013' by The New Republic.
1 December, 2013
Next volume: Nabokov Studies in Translation, Vol. 8 (2014)
The upcoming issue will be devoted to international Nabokov scholarship, specially brought to our readers in the English translation. Guest-edited by Professor M. Bozovic.
Next volume: Nabokov Studies in Translation, Vol. 8 (2014)
The upcoming issue will be devoted to international Nabokov scholarship, specially brought to our readers in the English translation. Guest-edited by Professor M. Bozovic.
1 November, 2013
Upcoming issues (2014/15)
We have announced the next topic of interest and currently invite submissions devoted to the study of "Intermedial Nabokov and Popular Culture." For further details see the "Call for papers" section of our website.
Upcoming issues (2014/15)
We have announced the next topic of interest and currently invite submissions devoted to the study of "Intermedial Nabokov and Popular Culture." For further details see the "Call for papers" section of our website.
NOJ in the social media
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Nabokov Online Journal has launched its own Facebook and Twitter pages. You are welcome to subscribe these pages to obtain the most up-to-date news.
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