Basic Divisions: Department of World Literature and Culture, Regional Centre for English History, Culture and the XIX century Literature Studying (“Victorian Centre”), Laboratory for Comparative Historical Research and Cultural Innovations.

 

Brief Description of Research Activities

The scientific trend was established at the Literature Department (Perm State University) in the second half of the 1950 – early 1960s. Investigation of artistic and typological regularities of the world literary process, which is based on the analysis of the regularities of the development of artistic methods, literary trends, stylistic subgenres, literary traditions, poetic systems etc., was opposed to the vulgar sociological and empirical investigations which dominated in the 1940s-1950s. The previous strategies of the world historical and literary process analysis, as well as the modern ones, are realised as a typological description of the mechanisms of interaction of literature and other forms of public consciousness, sociocultural specificity of regional and national literature development, poetic characteristics of the leading European and North American writers’ works; as comprehension of national and regional literatures dynamics considering the world literature development tendencies. Along with this, one of the aspects within the trend is investigation of artistic interaction and typological convergences of Russian and foreign literatures of the XVIII-XX centuries.

 

The scientific trend obtained the official status when in 1964 the National Conference for Typological Problems of Literary Process was held at Perm State University. In 1965 Literature Department was divided into two independent parts: the Department of Russian Literature and the Department of Foreign Literature (since 1999 – the Department of World Literature and Culture). The Department of Russian Literature investigates the typology of the Russian literary process. The Department of World Literature and Culture is carrying out the analysis of the typology of the world literary process, problems of correlation between the main aesthetic characteristics of the world literary process and authors’ individual works, as well as the leading European and North American literary systems. Along with this, the scholars are actively investigating theoretical and literary aspect of the analysis of the world literary process dynamics.

 

Since the 1980s the typological investigation of the historical and literary process within the trend has been combined with the study of literature in the aspect of various forms of spiritual life – philosophy, religion, politics, arts – painting, theatre, cinematography, music and the intercultural communication process on the whole. In 2003 the Department started the tradition of the annual Russian and later International Scientific Conference for Cultural Investigation of World Literature.   

 

Selected Publications Characterising Scientific Research Trend

Series of inter-university symposium books:

1. Method, genre and style in progressive Western literatures. Perm: Perm State University, 1966-1976. (In Russian)

2. Traditions and interaction in the world literature. Perm: Perm State University, 1983–2002. (In Russian)

3. Problems of method and poetics in the world literature. Perm: Perm State University, 1985–2005. (In Russian)

4. The Bible and national literature. Perm: Perm State University, 2004-2005. (In Russian)

5. World literature in the context of culture. Perm: Perm State University, 2006–2010. (In Russian)

 

Other Publications:

6. Lyubimova A. Proskurnin B. H.G. Wells in Russian Literary Criticism, 1890s – 1940s // The Reception of H.G. Wells in Europe / ed. Patrick Parrinder, John S. Partington. London; New York: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005. pp. 63–73. (In English)

7. Bochkareva N. The novel of culture, its theoretical and historical poetics // Cahiers de l’echinox Vol.16. Fortunes et infortunes des genres littéraires en Europe / ed. Saulo Neiva, Alain Montandon. Cluj, România, 2009. pp. 371-379. (In English)

8. Bochkareva N. Vasilij Kamenskij and Aubrey Beardsley: vulgar Russia versus refined Britain // Acta litteraria comparative: Transformations of the European Landscape: Encounters between the Self and the Other. Vilnius: VPU leidykla, 2010-2011. pp. 322-337. (In English)

9. Bochkareva N.S. Novel about the artist as a “novel of creation”: genesis and poetics. Monograph / Perm State University. Perm, 2000. 252 p. (In Russian)

10. Proskurnin B.M. English political novel of the XIX century: Sketches on genesis and evolution. Monograph / Perm State University. Perm, 2000. 285 p.

11. Proskurnin B.M. Dynamics of characterology in literature of the turn of the centuries (preliminary notes in the aspect of Historical Poetics) // Philological Notes. Iss. 1. / Perm State University. Perm, 2002. pp. 270 -282. (In Russian)

12. Bochkareva N.S. I.W. Goethe and A. Bitov’s novels of travel // Goethe in the Russian culture of the XX century / ed. by G.V. Yakusheva. Moscow: Science, 2004. pp. 190-200. (In Russian)

13. Bochkareva N.S. Peter Ackroyd’s “The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde” in the context of culture // Language and culture. Kiev, 2004. Iss. 7. Vol. 9. pp. 29-37. (In Russian)

14. Bochkareva N.S., Mamonova E.Y. Motive of “the second birth” in culture and literature of the XX century // Russian Literature Studies in the new millennium. Moscow, 2004. Vol. 2. pp. 37-40. (In Russian)

15. Proskurnin B.M. Why George Eliot is underestimated in modern Russia, or importance of the foreign point of view on Russian Anglistics Studies // Questions of literature. March-April, 2005. № 2. pp. 261-274. (In Russian)

16. Proskurnin B.M. Dynamics of artistic psychologism in the world literature at the turn of the XIX-XXth centuries // Anglistika: collection of papers on Russian and British literature and culture. Iss. 10. Moscow: Moscow Pedagogical State University, 2005. pp. 33-52. (In Russian)

17. Bochkareva N.S., Suslova I.V. “Novel about novel” in Russian and French literatures of the 1920s: towards the problem of typology // On the way to the literary work: to the 60-th anniversary of N.T. Tymar. Samara, 2005. pp. 150-185. (In Russian)

18. Bochkareva N.S. Chaykovsky-Dyagilev-Proust: hypothesis of Venteille’s musical phrase // S.P. Dyagilev and modern culture: Proceedings of International Symposium – IV Dyagilev Readings. Perm, 2007. pp. 46-53. (In Russian)

19. Bochkareva N.S., Shvareva E.V. A literary portrait of Pavel Philonov (case study of artists’ diaries) // Dzienniki, notatniki, listy pisarzy rosyjskich. Studia Rossica XIX / Red. naukowa: Alicja Wolodzko-Butkiewicz, Ludmila Lucewicz. Warszawa, 2007, pp. 215-226. (In Russian)

20. Proskurnin B.M. George Eliot and English literature of the XXth century // English literature from the XIXth to the XXth century, from the XXth to the XXIst century. The problem of literary epoch interaction. Monograph. Moscow: A.M. Gorky World Literature Institute, the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2009. pp. 43 – 83. (In Russian)

21. Proskurnin B.M. Realism? Modernism? Post-modernism? Post-post-modernism? Speculations on the modern British fiction // Perm University Herald. Russian and Foreign Philology. 2010. № 6 (12). pp. 209 – 214. (In Russian)

22. Bochkareva N.S., Suslova I.V. Novel about novel: overcoming of genre crisis (case study of the Russian and French literatures of the 1920s). Monograph / Perm State University. Perm, 2010. 206 p. (In Russian)

23. Bochkareva N.S., Pikuleva I.A. Artistic synthesis in the literary heritage of Aubrey Beardsley. Monograph. / Perm State University. Perm, 2010. 254 p. (In Russian)               

 

The Most Significant Fundamental and Applied Research Projects

1. 2003-2005 – The grant of Russian Foundation for Humanities № 03-04-00196а “George Eliot. Art of novel and philosophic context”.

2. 2010-2011 – The grant of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Russian Federation Unified Order 1.2.10. “Forms of reflection of crisis consciousness in culture and literature of the turn of centuries”.

3. 2010-2011 – The grant of Russian Foundation for Humanities № 10-03-82305 а/У “Languages of regional culture: Perm fiction”.

 

Training of Researchers (Post-graduate and Doctoral Programmes)

Post-graduate Programme, specialties – 10.01.03 “Foreign literature” and 10.01.08 “Theory of Literature and Text Studies”.

Conferring the degree of Candidate of Philology.

 

International Research and Educational Activities

1. 1994-1997 – International Project “Regional Centre for English History, Culture and the XIX century Literature Studying (“Victorian Centre”)”.

2. 2002-2005 – International Project “The Reception of H.G. Wells in Europe”.

3. 2005-2012 – International Project “Contemporary British literature in Russian universities”.

4. 2011-2013 – International Project “The Reception of George Eliot in Europe”.

5. November, 2001 – Course of lectures “Russian-Foreign Literary Relations and Typological Convergences” (University of Tübingen, FRG).