Tolstoy in the Twenty-First Century
Leo Tolstoy by Margaret Krug, assistant professor of Painting and Drawing, Parsons
This week, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and The New School present Tolstoy in the Twenty-First Century, an international symposium celebrating Leo Tolstoy’s life and legacy on the centennial of his death. The four-day conference, which runs October 14-17 in Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street and Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, features philosophers, political scientists, literary scholars, writers, and journalists discussing new perspectives on Tolstoy, including his role as a politically engaged artist and his intellectual quest for universal happiness.
Speakers include Vladimir Tolstoy, great-great-grandson of Leo Tolstoy and director of the State Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana; Donna Orwin, president of the North American Tolstoy Society; and faculty and students from across The New School and other renowned international institutions.
Through a series of panels, readings, presentations, film screenings, performances, and exhibitions, the participants will explore Tolstoy’s legacy through literary criticism, aesthetics, and intellectual historiography, as well as more radical lines of inquiry, including the politics of civil disobedience, and the author’s connection to today’s sustainability movements.
Tolstoy in the Twenty-First Century is organized by Inessa Medzhibovskaya, assistant professor of Literature at Lang. For more information, including a full schedule and registration information, please visit the conference website at www.newschool.edu/tolstoy-conference.