Profile
Inessa Medzhibovskaya holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Literary Studies at Eugene Lang College and Liberal Studies听at 麻豆传媒色情片 for Social Research. With training in philology, intellectual history, Germanic, and Slavic Studies, and international education, she is interested in how literature and philosophy transmit human values in their cultural and historical specificity and universality. Since arriving at 麻豆传媒色情片 in 2004, she has taught seminars on Russian, German and European classics, Shakespeare, Schopenhauer, the theatre masters Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator; single-text courses on Anna Karenina, Faust, Hamlet, War and Peace; and problem-oriented courses on such topics as 鈥淏ildungsroman,鈥 "Romanticism," 鈥渃rime and salvation,鈥 鈥渨riting and confinement,鈥 鈥渢he anxiety of possession,鈥 鈥渓ove and its genres,鈥 鈥渓aughter and politics,鈥 鈥渓abor and dignity,鈥 "the life of the mind," "rebels and rebellions," 鈥減hilosophical selfhood,鈥 "radical aesthetics," 鈥渕odernist identity,鈥 and 鈥渆xile.鈥澨齋he was named a distinguished teacher in 2007.
Prof. Medzhibovskaya is the author of Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time (2008; paperback 2009), the first definitive biography of 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 religious and philosophical evolution and edited several volumes addressed to his art and thought in relation to the historical milieu that shaped his problems and eternal quests. Her second monograph.听罢辞濒蝉迟辞测'蝉听On Life听(from the Archival History of Russian Philosophy (2019), is the story of the struggle of Russian thought for self-definition. She has published prolifically on literature (focusing mainly on Russian and European authors and thinkers), ideology and education, and the interplay of philosophy, religion, politics and literary aesthetics. Her book-sized online bibliography of 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 publications and Tolstoy criticism in the Oxford University Press Bibliographies series appeared in 2021 and in 2024 in an expanded and revised edition. She is the editor of the critical edition of听罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 On Life, co-translated with Michael Denner (2018), and editor of two more volumes:听Tolstoy and His Problems: Views from the Twenty-First Century (2018), and听A Critical Guide to 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 On Life: Interpretive Essays (2019). She also served as the academic advisor for volumes 267 and 289AC of Short Story Criticism from Gale/Cengage (2019, 2020). Her book听Tolstoy as Philosopher听published in 2022 won honorable mention from The Society for Textual Scholarship (29230.听听In addition to several new monographs on Tolstoy in documents, and the history of publishing classics in the twentieth century, a historical-archival documentary of the twentieth century听for Princeton University Press, she is returning to a reappraisal of the Hegelian-Marxist legacy dating back to the foundation of her academic career as a literary and intellectual historian.
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Degrees Held
PhD, Slavic Languages and Literature, Princeton University
Recent Publications
BOOKS:
Online: L.N. Tolstoy. Oxford Bibliographies. Editor-in-Chief, Eugene O鈥橞rien. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. ISBN 9780190221911听 ; 2nd revised and expanded edition, February 2024.
Tolstoy as Philosopher. Essential Short Writings (1835-1910). An Anthology. Edited, translated and introduced by Inessa Medzhibovskaya. 421 pp. Boston, MA.: Academic Studies Press, 2022.
罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 On Life (from the Archival History of Russian Philosophy). By Inessa Medzhibovskaya. Toronto and deLand, Fl.: Imprint of the Tolstoy Society of North America and Tolstoy Studies Journal. Published September 2, 2019.听 xxii + 424 pp . ISBN 9781690613183
Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time: A Biography of a Long Conversion, 1845-1887. By Inessa Medzhibovskaya (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield, 28 April 2008).听 404+ xliii. Released in paperback: June 28, 2009.
A Critical Guide to Tolstoy's On Life: Interpretive Essays. ed. and intro. Inessa Medzhibovskaya. Toronto and deLand, Fl.: Imprint of the Tolstoy Society of North America and Tolstoy Studies Journal. Published May 30, 2019. 162 pp.
Tolstoy, On Life: A Critical Edition. Edited by Inessa Medzhibovskaya. Translated by Michael Denner and Inessa Medzhibovskaya. (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, November 15, 2018). 246+xii
Tolstoy and His Problems: Views from the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Inessa Medzhibovskaya. (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, November 15, 2018). 233+xiv
Leo Tolstoy. The Cossacks. Short Story Criticism series / volume 290. General Editor Rebecca Parks. San Francisco/New York/Chicago: Gale/Cengage, 2020: 189-298. 听ISSN: 0895-9439.听 Volume academic advisor and content contributor.
Short Story Criticism/ volume 267. General Editor Catherine C. diMercurio. San Francisco/New York/Chicago: Gale/Cengage, 2019. ISBN-13: 9781410379344. Academic Advisor of the Leo Tolstoy part of the volume: : Leo Tolstoy (pp. 137鈥305).
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SELECTED ESSAYS AND CHAPTERS:
"Tolstoy, Lev Nikolaevich". Tolstoy, Lev Nikolaevich | SpringerLink. In: Sellers M., Kirste S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_879-1; latest updated publication,听 2024.
鈥淭he Importance of Knowing Greek: Reflections on Immigration and the Philosophy of Transferable Values鈥 [a reading of unknown archival materials on Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno and the 麻豆传媒色情片 that shed light on ambitions, aspirations and career prospects of refugee scholars].听 The Centennial issue of Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, volume 40.2 (2019): 271 - 312, DOI: 10.5840/gfpj201940219; Print Issue forthcoming autumn 2020.
鈥淭he Vocations of Nikolai Grot and the Tasks of Russian Philosophy鈥 by invitation to The Palgrave Handbook to Russian Thought. Edited by Marina F. Bykova, Lina Steiner, and Michael N. Forster. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021:听525-48.
鈥湴沾潜舨醭俅遣忖檚 Complete Works鈥 for L.N. Tolstoy In Context. Ed. Anna A. Berman. Cambridge University Press, 2022: 281-88, 2022.
鈥淭he Magic Mountain: The Textual Shape of 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 Philosophy.鈥 An introductory essay to Tolstoy as Philosopher. Essential Short Writings. An Anthology. Edited, translated and introduced by Inessa Medzhibovskaya. Brookline, MA.: Academic Studies Press, 2022: 9-42.
鈥淥n Life in Critical Perspective鈥 an introductory essay for A Critical Guide to Tolstoy's On Life. Interpretive Essays. Edited by Inessa Medzhibovkaya. DeLand, FL. and Toronto:听 Tolstoy Studies Journal/the Tolstoy Society of North America, 2019: 15-25.
"罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 Jewish Questions.鈥 Tolstoy and His Problems: Views from the Twenty-First Century (ed. Inessa Medzhibovskaya). Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, November 15, 2018: 89 -134.
"罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 Problems: on Finding a Perspective.鈥 Tolstoy and His Problems: Views from the Twenty-First Century (ed. Inessa Medzhibovskaya). Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, November 15, 2018: 3-21.
鈥湴沾潜舨醭俅遣忖檚 On Life and Its Times,鈥 an introductory chapter for Leo Tolstoy, 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 On Life. A Critical Edition (the annotated critical edition of 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 work O zhizni with commentary, Introduction and Historical Supplement). Edited by Inessa Medzhibovskaya. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2018: 3-41.
"Three Attempts on Carthage: 罢辞濒蝉迟辞测鈥檚 Designs of Nonviolent Destruction鈥澨 in Tolstoy and Spirtuality, edited by Predrag Cicovacki and Heidi Nada Grek. Brookline, MA.: Academic Studies Press, 2018: 180-211.
"Tolstoy and Heidegger on the Ways of Being鈥 in Heidegger in Russia and Eastern Europe, ed. Jeff Love (New Heidegger Research Series, edited by Gregory Fried and Richard Polt); London and New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017: 55-94.听听听
鈥淟ike a Shepherd to His Flock: The Messianic Pedagogy of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Its Origin and Conceptual Echoes鈥 in Dostoevsky Beyond Dostoevsky (eds. Svetlana Evdokimova and Vladimir Golstein). Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016: 343-63.
鈥淟eo Tolstoy鈥 for . Editor-in-Chief, Timothy Beal. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015:听2: 421-26.
鈥淓ducation" in . Eds. Deborah Martinsen and Olga Maiorova. Cambridge University Press, 2015
鈥淧unishment and the Human Condition: Hannah Arendt, Leo Tolstoy, and听 Lessons from Life, Philosophy, and Literature鈥 for Eds. Julie Hansen and Andrei Rogatchevskii. Uppsala Universitet, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis/Uppsala University Press, 2014: 137-61.听 Reviewed in International Affairs 91: 2, 2015 (pp. 428-9). Revised version 鈥淪trafe und Menschlichkeit鈥 in German in Extreme Erfahrungen: Grenzen des Erlebens und der Darstellung. Eds. Christopher F. Laferl /Anja Tippner. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos,听2017: 199-225.
鈥淕oethe and Hegel in the Commissariat of Enlightenment: Anatoly Lunacharsky鈥檚 Program of Bolshevik-Marxist Aesthetics.鈥 Studies in East European Thought, volume 65, nos. 3-4 December 2013 (227-241). Special issue: Hegel in Russia. Advisory editors Ilya Kliger and David Backhurst. published online April 2014. Online citation reference: DOI 10.1007/s11212-014-9189-y. Printed May 15, 2014.
鈥淭olstoy on Pogroms?鈥 Publication, translation and commentary of the newly discovered archival document.听Tolstoy Studies Journal, volume XXV 2013 (78-82).
"Russian Classics on Trial: Reflections on Critics and Criticism.鈥 Clio. A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History. Special Issue: G.W.F. Hegel. 41.2 (fall 2012): 73-94.
鈥湴沾潜舨醭俅遣忖檚 Response to Terror and Revolutionary Violence.鈥Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 听volume 9, no.3, (summer 2008): 505-531.
鈥湴沾潜舨醭俅遣忖檚 Response to Terror and Revolutionary Violence.鈥Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 听volume 9, no.3, (summer 2008): 505-531
鈥淥n Moral Movement and Moral Vision: The Last Supper in Russian Debates.鈥Comparative Literature., volume 56, No. 1 (winter 2004): 23-53.
鈥淭eleological Striving and Redemption in 鈥淭he Death of Ivan Il鈥檌ch鈥.鈥澨 Tolstoy Studies Journal, volume XII 2000: 35-49. Reprinted in Short Story Criticism ed. Jelena Kosovic (SSC-131), 2010, Gale Group/Cengpage Learning Publishers.
鈥淗amlet鈥檚 Jokes: Pushkin on 鈥榁ulgar Eloquence鈥.鈥 Slavic and East European Journal, volume 41, 1997, No 4 (winter):.554-79.听
[complete list of over 70 articles and chapters is available upon request]
Research Interests
Russian and Central听East European Literature and Culture, Romanticism, Idealism, The Study of the Novel, Critical Theory, Intellectual and Cultural History, Literature and Philosophy, Literature and Education, Tolstoy
Awards And Honors
The Society for Textual Scholarship Richard J. Finneran Award, Honorable Mention (2023) for the best edition or book about editorial theory and/or practice published in the English language during 2021-2022.
Research Scholar, Northwestern University Research initiative for the Study of Russian Philosophy and Religious Thought (2022-)
Keynote Faculty Commencement Speaker, Eugene Lang, 麻豆传媒色情片 (May 19, 2022)
The Mikhail Prokhorov Translation Grant Award
Faculty Research Fund Award (麻豆传媒色情片) for 鈥淭olstoy as Philosopher鈥 (2019-2020)
American Philosophical Society Franklin Award (2010)
Distinguished University Teaching Award (麻豆传媒色情片, 2007)
2002-2003 Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow (Society for the Humanities, Cornell University)
Center for Human Values Mellon Graduate Prize Fellow in Residence (Princeton University 1998-1999)
Certificate in Advanced Polish and Polish Culture, 1996 (Jagiellonian University, Krak贸w, Poland)