Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Three Readings of V. B. Shklovsky

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel will investigate forms of reuse and recycling as practiced in the tradition and spirit of Russian Formalism. The Russian Formalists are usually presented by critics as iconoclasts wishing to do away with the old in their drive to carve out a space for new forms of textual analysis. However, this belies the fact that many of their works actually center on the repurposing and reusing of old material. The panel will examine case studies of this practice in the work of Viktor Shklovsky, exploring his reappropriation of canonical texts, reworking of his own biographical material, and—on a more meta level—the ways his theoretical corpus can be productively reframed for contemporary scholarship.

Sub Unit

• Literature: Russian and Eurasian

Chair

• Benjamin Musachio, Princeton U

Papers

• Pushkin, kak ekstsentrik. Or, Shklovsky and Literary Evolution - Lidia Tripiccione, Princeton U

• Renewing Ostranenie, Ostranenie as Renewal: Shklovsky in Present-day English-language Criticism - Hilah Kohen, U of Pennsylvania

• The Many Lives of Viktor Shklovsky - Charles M Swank, Princeton U

Discussant

• Daria Khitrova, Harvard U

Session Manager

• Lidia Tripiccione, Princeton U