Dostoevsky’s, The Adolescent or the sufferings and contradictions of growing up

What does Russia’s greatest writer-psychologist say about your age? In his often neglected work,  The Adolescent, Dostoevsky chronicles the life and inner dialogue of a 19 year old in all the richness of contradictions and conflicts, not least with his own father, who at one point becomes even his rival in love. Deploying bold narratological devices, Dostoevsky’s work allows us to learn how stories are told and how the telling of stories constitutes identity. We will read and discuss the text with the aid of Bakhtin’s interpretative theories (dialogism). We will seize this opportunity to gain familiarity with the theories of Lotman (Tartu Semiotic Circle), Vigotsky, Schmid, Jakobson (Russian Formalism), and Todorov.