Open to all students. Conducted in English. Most students will choose to read the works in English translation, but students who know Russian may do the readings in Russian.
Explores Chekhov as a fiction writer, a dramatist, and a devoted physician. Many of his artistic works, including a number where doctors figure as primary characters, read as case studies of particular diseases, mental illnesses, and conditions induced by poverty. Chekhov practiced the healing arts in all aspects of his professional and creative life, as well as in his courageous efforts on the remote penal-colony island of Sakhalin and in his dangerous public work during a terrible cholera epidemic. Reading both Chekhov and the works of several other modern and contemporary writers who were deeply influenced by him, this course emphasizes the skills of close looking—techniques equally valuable to the writer, the dramatist, and the physician. We read works about children and the nature of childhood, about students, about “the woman question,” about peasants, about religion, about marriage and adultery, as well as two plays: The Seagull and Uncle Vanya (and adaptations of each of them). Students will consider the ebb and flow between Chekhov’s efforts as a dramatist and a story-teller and engage with Chekhov’s most vivid, candid, and intriguing letters about medicine and art. Usually offered every second year.