Marina Grishakova

Marina Grishakova belongs to the younger generation scholars of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics. Her book is part of a semio-narratological tradition of a single author or a single work research that tackles issues of wider theoretical import: applicability of the concept of ‚Äúmodeling‚Äù in the humanities, theory of mimesis and the function of experimental literature in (post)modernist culture. By drawing on Y. Lotman‚Äôs conception of artistic models, the book adopts the semiotic perspective on modeling as an open-ended heuristic process underlying the logic of discovery and creative thinking.  The book discusses the models of time and memory in modernist culture (Nietzsche‚Äôs and Bergson‚Äôs philosophy of time, Minkowski‚Äôs research on the psychopathological types of temporality) and their relevance to Nabokov‚Äôs fiction; popular-scientific notions of serialism and the fourth dimension;  thematizations of the observer in modernist philosophy and arts; visual ‚Äúprostheses‚Äù and ‚Äúmachines‚Äù (Eco), particularly the ‚Äúcamera vision‚Äù metaphor, its relation to Bergson‚Äôs notion of automatism and the popular idea of the criminal use of hypnosis. Vision is thematized also as a means of seduction and  noncoercive control. Even before Foucault, Baudrillard and other critics of modernity, Nabokov noticed that advertising, political propaganda and erotic seduction alike employ implicit forms of suggestion. The book revises Rorty‚Äôs dilemma of ‚Äúautonomy‚Äù and ‚Äúsolidarity‚Äù as applied to Nabokov‚Äôs work and offers new readings. It considers categories of narrative poetics as forms of cultural encoding that broaden and transform reader‚Äôs modes of perception and sense-making. Micro-models active in certain contexts or in the works of certain authors function as mobile interfaces between individual sensibilities and complex cultural chrono- and spatio-types where time and space take on conceptual meaning.  (This title is the second revised edition, available online only. The web shop refers to the first edition, which is available as a paper monograph.)

The Models of Space, Time and Vision in V. Nabokov‚Äôs Fiction: Narrative Strategies and Cultural Frames

Marina Grishakova

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