XI International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia
10th-14th July 2023
Amanda Ewington (Davidson College, NC, USA), ”Temples of Female Friendship: Reimagining Sentimental Friendship in the Works of Aleksandra Murzina"
As eighteenth-century Russian literary studies have been revitalized over the past few decades with new critical-theoretical approaches, increased collaborations between Russian and western scholars, and long-overdue attention to women writers, the canon itself — the main cast of characters and texts — appears largely intact. In this paper I will briefly review the development and evolution of the eighteenth-century Russian literary canon, taking into consideration scholarship on canon formation. I will then make a case for including several Russian women writers into an updated eighteenth-century canon and suggest what that might look like practically speaking — for scholarship and the classroom.
