BASIL LVOFF ВАСИЛИЙ ЛЬВОВ
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Defended (2020, Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature)
​

The Problem of Literary Development
in Russian Formalism and Digital Humanities
.

   
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York,
Doctoral Program in Comparative Literature

   
The interest of this dissertation is how our understanding of literary development (as gradual or revolutionary; autonomous or sociopolitical; like or unlike biological evolution) informs the status, meaning, and value of literature and literary studies. The question is most pressing in the post-logocentric, post-Gutenberg, age of ours. I show how this problem was addressed at the dawn of contemporary literary theory by the Russian Formalists, whom I compare with Distant Readers (DH literary scholars). I argue that the two movements were brought about by a big bang of data: Big Data proper for DH, and in the case of Russian Formalism, the abundance of literary and linguistic facts that nineteenth-century positivists amassed without creating a universal linguistic or literary theory to explain them. A major contribution of this dissertation is the critical introduction of the recently rediscovered Formalist Boris Yarkho, who anticipated Distant Reading by decades in his quantitative, statistics-driven, application of evolutionary biology to literature. Juxtaposing the best-known Russian Formalists of Shklovsky’s group with Distant Readers (mainly Moretti) and Yarkho, as well as Marshall McLuhan (regarded as a “Russian” Formalist of the digital age), I rewrite the institutional history of Russian Formalism and give a history to Distant Reading. Distant Reading meets its precursors, to embrace or rebel against, having to deal with “the anxiety of influence.” Russian Formalism as a theory faces a new challenge on its home field.
    
Directors: Dr. Elizabeth Beaujour and Dr. Ilya Kliger (NYU).

Readers: Dr. Lev Manovich and Dr. Martin Elsky.

Defended (2015, Candidate of Philology [equivalent to Ph.D.])

The Literary Journalism of the Formal School: 
Yuri Tynianov, Viktor Shklovsky, and Boris Eikhenbaum.


Text.
   
Lomonosov Moscow State University,
School of Journalism,
Department of Literary Criticism

                         
Director: Dr. Vladimir Novikov.
Opponents: Dr. Igor Shaitanov  and Dr. Monika Spivak. 
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List of journals / books in which my academic work has been published or is forthcoming: 
 Homo Legens
 International Studies in Humour 
 Mediaalmanac (Moscow State U)
 New Zealand Slavonic Journal 
 Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie (NLO)
 Russian Literature
 
 Ulbandus Review
Viktor Shklovsky’s Heritage in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy 
Voprosy literatury ​
 Zhurnalistika i kul'tura russkoi rechi (Moscow State U)


Forthcoming / Under review publications             
“Russian Formalism as Journalistic Scholarship; or, When Criticism Recognized        Itself as a Genre.” Linguistic Frontiers.
​

“Death as Device: Unmaking The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar.” Solicited book chapter for a prospective book on Yuri Tynianov's novel The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar. 

Peer-reviewed articles
​“Distant Reading in Russian Formalism and Russian Formalism in Distant Reading.”    Russian Literature. Russian Literature 122–123 (2021): 29–65.

“Sense and Humor in Russian Formalism. Part II.” International Studies in Humour
7.1 (2018 [2020]): 4-18. Text.

“The Odyssey of Viktor Shklovsky: Life after Formalism.” In Viktor Shklovsky’s Heritage in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy, ed. Slav N. Gratchev and Howard Mancing. New York: Lexington Books, 2019. Text.

“Viktor Shklovsky and Marshall McLuhan: Beyond Common Sense.” New Zealand     
Slavonic Journal
49-50 (2015-2016 [2018]): 1-30. Text.


“Sense and Humor in Russian Formalism. Part I.” International Studies in Humour 6.1 (2017): 53-80. Text.

“Young Eikhenbaum” [Molodoi Eikhenbaum]. Voprosy Literatury 6 (2016): 48-65. 
  (Voprosy Literatury [Problems of Literature] is a leading Russian and an  internationally  acclaimed peer-reviewed journal.) Text.

“When Theory Entered the Market: The Russian Formalists’ Encounter with
Mass Culture.” Ulbandus Review, Vol. 17, A Culture of Institutions /
Institutions  of
    Culture (2016): 65-85. Text.

“Merry Formalism” [Veselyi formalizm]. Homo Legens 4 (2015): 154-163. Text.

“Viktor Shklovsky’s Petersburg: Magazine as a Feuilleton” [“Peterburg” V.
Shklovskogo: 
Zhurnal kak fel’eton]. Mediaalmanac 5 (2014): 74-83. 
(Mediaalmanac is an academic 
peer-reviewed journal of Moscow State 
University.) Text.


“Andrei Bely and Boris Eikhenbaum: ‘Along the Lines of Journal Scholarship’” 
[Andrei Belyi i Boris Eikhenbaum: Po linii zhurnal’noi nauki]. Mediaalmanac 6
(2013): 128-136. Text.


“By Way of Dispute” [V diskussionnom poriadke]. Voprosy Literatury 2 (2012): 9-29.  
(The article is on Viktor Shklovsky  and the Russia avant-garde.) Text.

“Automatized Defamiliarization: A Critical Essay” [Avtomatizovannoe ostranenie: 
Kriticheskoe esse]. Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi rechi 1 (2013): 58-65.     
(
Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi rechi [Journalism and the Culture of
Russian 
Speech] is an academic  journal of Moscow State University.) Text.

“Canon Formation in its Relation to Strangeness: Russian Formalism and Harold
Bloom” [
Literaturnyi kanon i poniatie  strannosti: Russkii formalizm i Kherold
Blum]. 
Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi rechi 2 (2012): 86-103. Text.

“Defamiliarization in Prose and Creative Journalism” [Ostranenie v proze i
publitsistike]. 
Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi rechi 3 (2011): 47-53. Text.

“Poetry of John Donne and Joseph Brodsky: A Survey” [Poeziia Dzhona Donna i Iosifa

 Brodskogo: Kratkii obzor]. Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi rechi 4 (2009): 27-38.

“The Concept of Defamiliarization in the Works of Viktor Shklovsky” [Poniatie
ostraneniia
u V.B. Shklovskogo]. Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi rechi 2 (2009): 
22-32.


“Hyperinflation of the Word” [Giperinfliatsiia slova]. Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi

 rechi 3 (2008): 34-40. (An article on the language of Soviet newspapers  of Stalin’s era.)

“A Conceptual Analysis of the Idea of Patriotism in the Essays of Leo Tolstoy”
      
 [Kontseptual’nyi analiz poniatiia patriotizm v publitsistike L.N. Tolstogo]. 
Zhurnalistika i kul’tura russkoi 
rechi 3 (2007): 24-32.
           
Reviews

“Vozvrashchenie formalizma” [The Return of Formalism]. Review of Formal’nyi metod: Antologiia russkogo modernizma, ed. Serguei A. Oushakine. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 157: 60-63. (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie [New Literary 
Observer] is a leading Russian and international journal of literary scholarship.) Text.

Basil Lvoff et al. “Indictment or Endorsement? Leviathan in Putin’s Russia. An
Ulbandus Roundtable.” 
Ulbandus Online, 12 Feb. 2016. Text.
​
Other Publications
“Andrei Bely and Boris Eikhenbaum: Along the Lines of Journal Criticism” [Andrei
Belyi i Boris
 Eikhenbaum: Po linii zhurnal’noi kritiki]. 100 Years of Russian
Formalism: International Congress
. Eds. Vyacheslav V. Ivanov et al. Moscow:
Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2013. 175-176.

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​                                                         GUEST LECTURES                           
"Predicting the Future (Backwards?): The Legacies of Russian Formalism," a lecture delivered at Cornell University, April 16 2021.

"The Gospel According to... The Problem of Truth and the Author in Bulgakov's Master and Margarita." Barnard College, April 23 2020

"Russian Nineteenth-Century Revolutionary Movement." Barnard College, March 5 2020


"Marina Tsvetaeva: Entering the River Thrice." Hunter College CUNY, September 26 2019
Participant of a poetry translation workshop “Lost and Found in Translation.” 

"Merry Formalism." Moscow State University, November 25 2016
A lecture on Russian Formalism delivered via Skype at Moscow State University’s School of Journalism.
 
"One Hundred Years of Making Things Strange (Ostranenie)." Hunter College CUNY,  September  30 2016
Participant of the panel discussion celebrating the 100th anniversary of Viktor Shklovsky’s concept of ostranenie 
with Shklovsky’s translator Dr. Alexandra Berlina (University of Erfurt) and Bradley Gorski and Irina Denischenko
as discussants (Columbia University). Video.

"Viktor Shklovsky and Soviet Montage, School of Visual Arts." MFA in Social Documentary, September 2012
A lecture co-delivered by Olga Lvoff.


                                            (CO-)/ORGANIZED EVENTS                 

"I
ndra’s Net: Time in Arkady Dragomoshchenko’s Novels." Barnard College, October 3 2019.
A lecture delivered by Evgeny Pavlov.
 
Introducing Aleksandr Markov’s lecture "The Art of Leningrad Underground." The Harriman Institute, April 2 2019.

Reciting the poetry of Elena Shvarts at the photo exhibit "Listen to the  The Harriman Institute, March 26 2019.


"The Death Penalty in Eighteenth-Century Russia." Barnard College, March 25 2019.
A lecture delivered by Elena Marasinova.

 "The Joy of Ballet: Joy Womack on Russia and on Ballet." Barnard College, March 7 2019.
A conversation with Joy Womack, the first American ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre.


"Russia: Stranger than Fiction." Barnard College, October 23 2018.
A conversation devoted to 2018 Russian Documentary Film Festival in New York, with documentary film director Yelena Yakovich and Marina Adamovich, festival organizer and editor-in-chief of The New Review literary journal.


"Written in the Dark and Brought to Light: Afterlives of the Siege Poetry." Barnard College,October 15 2018.
A lecture delivered by Polina Barskova.
                                     

"The Ambassador's Daughter, Emlen Knight Davies: A Photographic Journey, Moscow, 1937-1938." Hunter College CUNY, March 20 2018.
Presented by her daughter Mia Grosjean.

"Abiding Cities, Remnant Sites Conference." Graduate Center CUNY, November 13-14 2014.
An interdisciplinary conference on literary theory with over eighty participants and three keynote speakers. Website.


"Russian Formalism: Theory vs. Art." Graduate Center CUNY, March 22 2013.
Dr. Vladimir Novikov's (Moscow State University) lecture on Russian Formalism. Video.

 
"In Trans Conference: Reading between and beyond." Graduate Center CUNY, November 8-9 2012.
An interdisciplinary conference on literary theory with over eighty participants and three keynote speakers. Website.
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                                                             CONFERENCES                                                         
“Roman Jakobson and the Problem of Literary and Linguistic Evolution.” ASEEES 2019 Convention, November 24, San Francisco, CA,  Text.

“Opoyaz Theory as a Form of Essayism.” ASEEES 2019 Convention, November 26, San Francisco, CA. Text.

“Performative Scholarship: Viktor Shklovsky’s Theory and Journalism.” ASEEES 2018 
 Convention, December 7, Boston, MA.

 
“‘Over Gogol Again’: The Russian Formalists, Andrei Bely, and Mikhail Bakhtin on Gogol’s 
 
Humor.” AATSEEL 2018 Convention, February 3, Washington, DC.
 
“Transgressing the Text: Form vs. Emotion in Russian Literary Theory and across
      Disciplines.” ASEEES 2017 Convention, November 11, Chicago, IL.
 

“‘The Branch Also Affects the Psychology’: Viktor Shklovsky and Marshall McLuhan’s
    Reshaping of the ‘I.’” Grafting the Self, Princeton University, October 20 2017,                      Princeton, NJ.

“History as Double Vision: Boris Eikhenbaum, Walter Benjamin, and Erich Auerbach.” 2017 NESEEES Conference, April 1 2017, New York, NY. Text.
​

“Did the Formalists Manage without the Germans’ Geist?” [Oboshlis’ li formalisty bez       Geista nemtsev?]. Roundtable “After Spirit / In Lieu of Geist: The Transformation of            Human and Social Sciences in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century” [Posle                      dukha / Vmesto Geist: transformatsiia nauk o cheloveke i obshchestve v pervye                          desiatiletiia XX veka], December 22 2016, The Higher School of Economics, Moscow,      Russia. Video (1:54:55 - 2:13).
 
“The Antinomies of Russian Formalism: The Dialectical Struggle between the Principle
 of Ostranenie and the Constructive Principle.” One Hundred Years of Ostranenie,                      December 16 2016, University of Erfurt, Germany. Text.
 
“The Russian Formalists’ Utopic Quixotism.” ASEEES 2016 Convention, November 19 2016,
Washington, DC. Text.
 
“Russian Formalism for and against Digital Humanities.” 2016 NESEEES Conference, April
2 2016, New York, NY. Text.
 
“The ‘Geometry’ of Humor in Russian Formalism: A Non-Psychological Approach.” On the
  Joke and the Joker, Yale University, April 1 2016, New Haven, CT. Text.
 
“Essay as ‘Poetry’ vs. Essay as ‘Prose’ in the Internet Age.” ACLA Annual Meeting,
          March 20 2016, Cambridge, MA. Text.
 
“Rediscovering America through New Genres in 1920s Russian Literature.” 131 MLA

         Annual Convention, panel “Perceptions of the United States in Stalinist Culture,” 
         January 9 2016, Austin, TX. Text.
 
“The Reception Paul Claudel in 1910s Russia: Paul Claudel Read by the To-Be Soviet

         Commissar for Education and a To- Be Russian Formalist.” 131 MLA Annual
         Convention, panel “Claudel et ses publics,” January 9 2016, Austin, TX. Text.
 
“The Twists and Turns of Estrangement: On Automated Art and Literary Scholarship.” The
Other Daemonic: Estranging the Uncanny, Brown University, March 20 2015,
   Providence, RI. Text.
 
“Andrei Bely and Boris Eikhenbaum: ‘Along the Lines of Journal Criticism.’” 100 Years of R
ussian Formalism: International Congress, August 28 2013, Moscow, Russia.

“The Problem of Russian Baroque: Dominant Device and Transformation.” In Trans

   Conference: Reading Between and Beyond, GC CUNY, November 8 2012, New York,
  NY.
 
“The Uncertainty of Wit in Baltasar Gracián.” Principles of Uncertainty, GC CUNY, May 4 
 2012, New York, NY.
 
“Fleas and teeth: love poetry of John Donne and Joseph Brodsky.” Desire: From Eros to
Eroticism, GC CUNY, November 10 2011, New York, NY.

                                                 Dr. Alexander Berlina's and my talks at the panel discussion 
                                                         "One Hundred Years of Making Things Strange (Ostranenie)"
                              “Did the Formalists Manage without the Germans’ Geist?” - my talk in Russian.
                     "Russian Formalism: Theory vs. Art" - Dr. Vladimir Novikov's lecture organized by me.


​As a researcher, I always start with what Isaac Asimov called the last question—in the case of my dissertation, about the agenda of literature and the mission of its scholarship.
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  • About me
    • Press Mentions
  • Scholarship
  • Teaching
    • Moving Lyrics
  • Creative Writing
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  • Get in Touch