Svetlana Boym (1959-2015) was a literary critic, visual artist, writer of fiction, and Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, USA. Her books include Death in Quotation Marks (1991), Common Places (1994), The Future of Nostalgia (2001), Another Freedom (2010) and The Off-Modern (Bloomsbury, 2017). Her artworks were exhibited in New York, Berlin, Ljubljana, Glasgow, Copenhagen, Kaunas, and Cambridge. Cristina Vatulescu is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at NYU, USA. Tamar Abramov is an independent scholar based in Jerusalem, Israel. Julia Chadaga is Associate Professor of Russian Studies at Macalester College, USA. Jacob Emery is Associate Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, USA. Julia Vaingurt is Associate Professor of Russian literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA.
An essential collection of essays in literary and cultural criticism by Russian-American writer Svetlana Boym ... [The editors] provide a bibliography of works published within Boym’s nearly thirty-year career, and they have assembled a compelling collection that positions this contemporary philosopher as a ‘foundational thinker.’ * Forum for Modern Language Studies * A striking work of literature that embodies Boym’s ideas, ethics, principles, and values in its very process of creation and curation of her work. * Contemporary Women's Writing * For people already familiar with Boym’s work, or for those simply interested in the diverse subjects it tackles, this volume will be an excellent sourcebook. It showcases Boym’s intellectual versatility, her eloquence, and her passion. At a time when migration is evoked everywhere but poorly understood in its cultural, intellectual, and historical implications, Boym’s patient, and personal, examination of the phenomenon is invaluable. Her work develops an inspiring view of the university as a realm where creativity trumps neoliberal expediency. * Sven Spieker, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA * Every emigrant tries to make 'families' wherever he/she goes. Svetlana Boym made hers among students, academics, artists, writers and thinkers, in different geographical sites, even in cyberspace, bumping into unknown interlocutors. The Svetlana Boym Reader is an impressive book put together in her honor by the members of her 'family'—her former students, literature scholars, and academic acquaintances. Cristina Vatulescu, Tamar Abramov, Nicole G. Burgoyne, Julia Chadaga, Jacob Emery, and Julia Vaingurt have compiled selections of Boym's work, grouped by her favorite themes, with each theme introduced by the editors. This book is a brilliant scholarly achievement, but it is also an intimate and emotional one. All the texts invite the reader to join a dialogue, as inspirational dialogue was what Svetlana Boym missed the most and enjoyed the most when she found it. * Dubravka Ugrešic, author of Europe in Sepia (2014) * Svetlana Boym’s eloquent, ironic, deeply personal writings explore issues of major concern today: emigration and exile, art and politics, trauma and nostalgia. The Svetlana Boym Reader’s rich suite of selections illuminates the deep continuities in her multifaceted work as it developed over time, redefining modernity—and off-modernity—for a global era. * David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature, Harvard University, USA *