Booking will close on Friday 3rd October 2025 at 12 noon.
Due to limited resources, we are UNABLE TO ACCEPT LATE BOOKINGS after this date.
This course will be held in Room 1S05 of the Dalhousie Building, University of Dundee.
Wednesday mornings 10.00 a.m. - 12.00 p.m. for five weeks, 8th October - 5th November 2025.
Life and love were explored by Tolstoy (1828-1910), Dostoevsky (1821-81), Bulgakov (1891-1940) and Grossman (1905-64) in their novels, and by Shalamov (1907-82) in his gulag reminiscences, with a gut-wrenching sincerity, sometimes in circumstances harsher than we can imagine. `'My mother always taught me to be moral and honest, to live a life of truth, as preached by the great Russian writers' (Valentin Muravsky, 1954). They wrote from different perspectives: Tolstoy became an independent dissenter, Dostoevsky was devoutly Orthodox, the others more or less non-religious. We examine especially Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Grossman's Life and Fate.
Tutor: Antony Black
Antony Black is Emeritus Professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of Dundee. His published works include a world history of ancient political thought, from prehistory to c.300 CE, a complete history of Islamic political thought, and a comparative study of political thought in the West and in the Muslim-ruled world from the origins to the present, a history and theory of community and recently explored climate change in the context of world history and the challenge it presents today. He is currently working on a global history of political thought up to the present.
Course code: 09 115
Enquiries should be sent to: lifelonglearningdundee@gmail.com
As a volunteer organisation with limited resources, we try to respond to all queries as quickly as possible. Please bear with us.
