Carolina Seminar with Matt McGarry (UNC)

Matt McGarry is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the UNC Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. His research focuses on the problem of realism in history and literature in Russian prose and poetry. Building on the work of Roman Jakobson, it proceeds from the position that Realism as practiced and defined in Western European literature ceases to exist in Russian literature from the 1840s onward. Whereas Western European Realism privileges continuity and contiguity, Russian Realism values incommensurability and disjuncture; contradiction in Russian Realism is not evidence of error or bad thinking but an opportunity to think differently. Russian Realism honors reality by making new, co-equal realities that exert pressure on constituted ones by the construction of other visions.

The seminar series is co-sponsored by the Carolina Seminar Program, the UNC Department of History, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies. Please note that the participants will give an overview of their projects, but will not read a formal paper. Instead, papers or book chapters will be circulated ahead of time to those who are interested in attending and participating in the discussion. Please contact Dr. Eren Tasar for more information (etasar@email.unc.edu).