Register for Newberry Courses on January 17, 2024, starting 9:00am CT

Evgeny Lanceray (1875-1946). Illustration for Hadji Murad.

I would like to invite you to consider two new courses at the Newberry Library this winter and spring. The registration will start tomorrow at 9 am CT. Please see the Newberry website if you have any questions about registration procedures and policies.

My first course is The North Caucasus through Literature: from Leo Tolstoy to Alisa Ganieva (7 sessions). It will take place on Zoom on Saturday mornings from 10:00 am to noon, starting February 24 and ending on April 20.

Click here for the Newberry Library description and registration page.

Together we will take an armchair tour through the North Caucasus, primarily Chechnya and Dagestan, a crossroads of culturally diverse civilizations, examining the short works of Leo Tolstoy, Ramsul Gamzatov’s lyrical poems, and and short stories and a novel, Bride & Groom by Alisa Ganieva. The Russian Empire annexed the regions as part of its colonial expansion during the 19th century through a series of brutal military campaigns, though conflicts resumed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries when Russia suppressed separatism in Chechnya. Russian romantics exoticized the Caucasus as an Orient: lush, warm, adventurous but also foreign, savage, and violent. More than any other writer, Leo Tolstoy, deeply engaged with Caucasus cultures, challenged both romantic and official imperial narratives in his early stories, The Cossacks, and his late masterpiece, Hadji Murad. Rasul Gamzatov and Alisa Ganieva are Dagestani writers who will help us avoid stereotypes while exploring the 20th and 21st century Dagestan through their nuanced emphatic vision.

Click here for the full course description.

Kazimir Malevich. Black Square, 1923.Oil on canvas:106 × 106 cm. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

My second course Malevich’s Black Square: Negation of Art or A New Icon? (3 sessions) will take place on Wednesday nights from 6 pm to 8 pm May 1 to May 15 via Zoom.

The Newberry description and registration page is available here.

What is Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square? Is it a fad, a black hole, a symbol of utopian aspirations, or a geometric module of abstraction? Together, we will investigate Malevich’s revolution in art through the prism of his groundbreaking work, The Black Square, a defining image of Modernism and a painting to which Malevich would return throughout his career, from Suprematism in art, architectural, graphic and industrial design to his later figurative works. We will view Malevich not just as an innovative artist, but as a charismatic teacher, successful self-promoter, and revolutionary art theorist. The Black Square hung over his deathbed, and Malevich chose the black square to mark his funeral and grave; the artist and his invention became one. We will also investigate how The Black Square has changed the art world worldwide, bursting into contemporary design, architecture, and everyday life. Click here for the full course description.