Julie Hansen och Torsten Pettersson: "The Fascination of Form in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace"

Julie Hansen, Uppsala University, and Torsten Pettersson, Uppsala University: "The Fascination of Form in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace"

The seminar is held through Zoom. Access the seminar through this link or by using the meeting ID 444 341 972.

The international symposium "Havoc and Healing: Insights into Human Action in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky", originally scheduled for 26-27 March, has been postponed until October 12-13. However, to avoid curtailing all intellectual contacts in the age of “social distancing”, the conference organizers Julie Hansen and Torsten Pettersson will present their papers in the zoom format without any meeting in a given physical location.

Seminar Presentation
As a major exponent of nineteenth-century realism, Leo Tolstoy is frequently regarded as interesting for his psychological and existential insights, but less so for his use of literary form (which is routinely considered to be the forte of modernism). Yet closer scrutiny reveals complex formal artistry in War and Peace. In short English-language presentations, Julie Hansen and Torsten Pettersson illuminate the novel’s intricate management of linguistic and narratorial positions. Their contributions are entitled, respectively, “Who Speaks What Language, and How, in War and Peace?” and “Who Presents the Determinist Philosophy of War and Peace?”