Praised for his piercing psychological insight and complex, deeply human characters, Russian Realist author Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is one of the most significant authors and literary critics of the nineteenth century. Inspiring a diverse array of scientists, philosophers, and writers–including Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Lu Xun, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Sylvia Plath, among others–few writers have shaped world literature and culture as profoundly as has Dostoevsky. In this course, we will study Dostoevsky’s three most famous works, Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), examining them alongside selections from Dostoevsky’s non-fiction writing, critical examinations of Dostoevsky’s work, and readings that contextualize the vibrant and rapidly modernizing world of Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg. All texts will be studied in English translation using the Norton Critical Editions. If you have questions about the course, please contact Dr. Brittany Roberts (robertsbr2@appstate.edu)
Tues/Thurs, 12:30pm-1:45pm (in person)
Spring 2026
Dr. Brittany Roberts
ENG 4509: Junior/Senior Honors Seminar: Major Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky
ENG 4509: Junior/Senior Honors Seminar: Major Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky