11/11/08: Fourth International Nabokov Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia
On June 25-27, 2009 the St. Petersburg University Vladimir Nabokov Museum and the Russian Literature Department will hold its Fourth International Nabokov Conference at the Nabokov Museum--the former town house of the Nabokov family--in St Petersburg. For more information, see the announcement available here in Word format.
11/3/08: International Nabokov Conference in Kyoto: "Revising Nabokov Revising"
The Nabokov Society of Japan is pleased to announce that an International Nabokov Conference will be held in Kyoto from March 24 to 27, 2010. For more information, as well as an endorsement by Brian Boyd, see the full announcement.
9/29/08: Kaleidoscopic Nabokov
Lara Delage-Toriel and Monica Manolescu (Dept. of English, Université Marc Bloch) have organized a conference on Nabokov studies in France to be held October 17th-18th in Strasbourg. More information, including the list of presenters and a preview of an audio presentation, is available here.
9/19/08: Structure in Lolita
Jacqueline Hamrit examines structuralist and Derridean approaches to Lolita.
9/19/08: Lolita and Censorship
Ohio State University Press recently published The Artistic Censoring of Sexuality: Fantasy and Judgment in the Twentieth-Century Novel by Susan Mooney. The book includes a substantial chapter on Lolita and its scholarship, as well as discussion of the novel in the introduction and conclusion. The book can be previewed at the publisher's website.
9/2/08: Lolita in America
The New School's Department of Humanities will present a symposium on Lolita in America, Saturday, September 27, 2008, in New York City. See the symposium's Web site for information on the program, panelists, and registration.
4/24/08: Nabokov Online Journal
The second issue of Nabokov Online Journal is now available. NOJ / NOZh: Nabokov Online Journal is a refereed multilingual electronic publication devoted to Nabokov studies. The Table of Contents for Volume II is available here.
3/10/08: Skolimowski's King, Queen, Knave
Film scholar Ewa Mazierska examines Jerzy Skolimowski's film adaptation of King, Queen, Knave.
3/6/08: The Tragedy of Mr. Morn
A new Russian edition of Nabokov's plays and lectures on drama, annotated by Andrey Babikov, has been published by Azbuka. The book includes the early works Tragediia gospodina Morna (The Tragedy of Mr. Morn) and Chelovek iz SSSR (The Man from the USSR), as well as many previously unpublished documents and photographs: theater programs, actor's portraits, VN autographs, a theater sketch by Annenkov, and more.
2/12/08: Gerard de Vries on Pale Fire
Dutch Nabokov specialist Gerard de Vries discusses echoes of the Romantic Movement (with special reference to the Brocken, Scott, and Goethe) in Pale Fire.
2/11/08: Nabokov Seminar in Tours, France
Masters students at the Université François Rabelais, with Nabokov specialists from other universities, will be presenting a Nabokov seminar on March 7, 2008. The program for the seminar is available here in Rich Text Format.
12/11/07: Imagining NabokovYale University Press has published a new book by Nina L. Khrushcheva entitled Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics.
12/1/07: Happy Birthday
Today is Zembla's 12th birthday.
11/14/07: New Book by Michael Glynn
Palgrave Macmillan has published Vladimir Nabokov: Bergsonian and Russian Formalist Influences in His Novels, by Michael Glynn.
9/5/07: Sklyarenko on Ada
In an ongoing series of Russian notes on Ada, Alexey Sklyarenko discusses Pushkin's "The Upas Tree" in the context of the novel, Ada as a charade novel, and the Night of the Burning Barn scene.(All articles in Word format.)
9/4/07: Couturier on Glory
Zembla is pleased to present an English translation of a chapter on Glory by Maurice Couturier from his book Nabokov ou la cruauté du désir: lecture psychanalytique.
8/15/07: Nabokov Online Journal
The first issue of Nabokov Online Journal is now available. NOJ / NOZh: Nabokov Online Journal is a new refereed multilingual electronic publication devoted to Nabokov studies. The Table of Contents for Issue #1 is available here.
6/1/07: Reading Pale Fire
6/1/07: Lolita, USA
Dieter E. Zimmer has created a geographical scrutiny of Nabokov's most famous book. The work-in-progress is available on his personal Web site.
5/15/07: A Pale Fire Timeline
Jerry Friedman has made available to Zembla his timeline of Pale Fire that originally appeared on NABOKV-L.
5/4/07: Sklyarenko on Ada
Alexey Sklyarenko offers two notes on Ada, the first on the two worlds and two truths of Terra and Antiterra (text in Russian, in Word format), the second on poison, Iagoda, and Gorky (text in Russian, in Word format).
5/4/07: Oxford Nabokov Conference
The schedule for the Oxford Nabokov Conference, to be held July 6-7, 2007, is available here in Word format. Also available is a registration form.
4/5/07: Lights and Darkness in Glory
Yuichi Isahaya examines patterns of lights and darkness in Glory/Podvig.
3/26/07: Censorship and Lolita
Elisabeth Ladenson's new book, Dirt for Art's Sake: Books on Trial from Madame Bovary to Lolita, includes a chapter devoted to Nabokov's most famous novel. For more about the book, see the Cornell University Press Web site.
3/13/07: Double Exposure
Tadashi Wakashima relates the vertiginous experience of translating Lolita into Japanese.
2/27/07: Arbitrary Signs and Symbols
Alexander N. Drescher offers an insightful new reading of "Signs and Symbols."
1/19/07: The Genealogy of Poshlost'
Alexey Sklyarenko describes a possible genealogy of poshlost'. (Essay in Russian, in Word format.)
1/16/07: April in St. Petersburg
The Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg has a number of events planned for April 2007. For more information, see the Museum's Web site.
1/11/07: A Trip to Solliès-Pont
Gerard de Vries describes a delightful outing to Domaine de Beaulieu, an estate near Solliès-Pont, France, where Nabokov spent several weeks in 1923.
12/18/06: French Echoes in "Mademoiselle O"
Jacqueline Hamrit discusses the influence of the French language and French literature on "Mademoiselle O."
12/15/06: Nabokov Online Journal
NOJ / NOZh: Nabokov Online Journal is a new refereed bilingual electronic publication devoted to Nabokov studies. The journal will publish both English- and Russian-language scholarship. More information, and a call for papers for the inaugural issue, is available here (in Word format).
12/8/06: Call for Papers
An international conference entitled Transitional Nabokov will be held at the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, UK on 6th-7th July 2007. The call for papers (in Word format) is available here.
11/3/06: Nabokov Conference in Nice
Thanks to Ljuba Tarvi, Zembla presents photographs from the Third International Conference on Nabokov held in Nice, France, June 21-23, 2006.
11/3/06: VN Monument in Montreux
Valentin Blank presents three photographs of the VN monument in Montreux.
9/5/06: Face-Slapping
Alexey Sklyarenko offers a brief essay on face-slapping in Pushkin and Nabokov, with specific reference to Kamera obskura (article in Russian).
9/5/06: Intimations of Lo
Neil Cornwell discusses echoes of James Joyce's Ulysses in Lolita.
8/17/06: Nabokov Museum Web site
The Web site of the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, was recently updated to include new material, including photographs of items in the collection and an electronic discussion forum for Nabokov enthusiasts.
7/7/06: Nabokov and the Art of Painting
Amsterdam University Press has published a book by Gerard de Vries and D. Barton Johnson entitled Nabokov and the Art of Painting. The authors examine the role of specific paintings in such novels as Lolita, Pnin and Ada, and analyze Nabokov’s arcane system of allusions and references between the literary and the pictorial arts, including existing and invented artists and paintings. The book is distributed in the US and Canada through the University of Chicago Press and in Europe through NBN International Ltd. It is available worldwide online at www.aup.nl.
2/10/06: Nabokov in 90 Minutes
Publisher Ivan R. Dee has published a book by Paul Strathern entitled Nabokov in 90 Minutes.
12/2/05: A Note on Pale Fire
Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello offers a note on art as a window to the hereafter.
12/1/05: Ten Years
Today is Zembla's 10th birthday.
11/11/05: Nabokov into Print
Painter and printmaker Alan Turnbull presents an online exhibit of etchings inspired by Nabokov's work.
11/11/05: Boyd on Nabokov
10/12/05: What Happened to Sally Horner?
Alexander Dolinin reveals a real-life source for Lolita. His article describing the find, which originally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, is reprinted here by permission of the author and the TLS.
10/7/05: ADAonline Text Complete
Thanks to the selfless and meticulous work of Aaron Bradford, Stephen Celis, Genevieve de Pont, Sergey Karpukhin, Prokopis Prokopidis, Ludger Tolksdorf, and D. Varи, the full text of Ada is now available online as part of ADAonline.
9/15/05: Blok's Dreams in Ada
Alexey Sklyarenko explains how the dreams of Russian poet Aleksandr Blok are enacted by Van Veen in Ada.
8/12/05: Reconsidering Mary
Akiko Nakata examines repetition and ambiguity in Nabokov's first novel.
7/21/05: Robert Frost and Pale Fire
Abraham P. Socher has uncovered a hidden source for the opening lines of the poem "Pale Fire." His article describing the find, which originally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement on July 1, 2005, is reprinted here by permission of the author and the TLS.
7/19/05: Pale Fire and Freud's Wolf-Man
David Cohen offers a provocative comparative reading of Pale Fire and Sigmund Freud's Case of the Wolf-Man.
6/24/05: Musical Analogies in The Defense
In an essay originally composed for a Virtual Nabokov online course, Alexander Drescher discusses musical themes in The Defense.
5/27/05: Nabokov's Lolita, 1955-2005
An exhibition curated by Yuri Leving at George Washington University's Gelman Library celebrates the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lolita. The exhibit features original prints of photographs of Nabokov by Swiss photographer Horst Tappe, rare English and Russian editions of Lolita, facsimiles of the index cards on which Lolita was composed, Nabokov's correspondence with his literary agents and publishers regarding the publication of Lolita in the mid-1950s, and a BBC Production documentary entited "Vladimir Nabokov: Great Writers of the 20th Century."
5/13/05: Hornick and Boyd on Pale Fire
Zembla presents an exchange between Neil Hornick and Brian Boyd on Pale Fire and The Prisoner of Zenda.
2/18/05: Nabokov Summer School 2005
From July 25 to August 3, 2005, the Vladimir Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia will hold its Sixth International Summer School. Both the program announcement and application form are available here in Word format.
11/26/04: Signs and Symbols
In this essay about one of Nabokov's most discussed short stories, Alexander Dolinin decodes "Signs and Symbols."
8/17/04: Lolita and the Law
Susan Elizabeth Sweeney contributes an essay originally published in Punishment, Politics and Culture called "Executing Sentences in Lolita and the Law."
7/2/04: "Kickshaws and Motley"
Zembla is pleased to reprint Peter Lubin's magnificent essay on Nabokov's use of language, which originally appeared in Triquarterly in 1970.
5/17/04: Nabokov ou la cruauté du désir
In Nabokov ou la cruauté du désir : lecture psychanalytique (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, c2004), Maurice Couturier presents a provocative psychoanalytic reading of Nabokov's texts. Zembla presents Couturier's English translation of the Introduction to his new book.
5/6/04: Nabokov 101 Summer School
The Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia is conducting its annual summer school on August 2-10, 2004. Both the course announcement and application form are available here in Word format.
4/27/04: ADAonline
Thanks to Dmitri Nabokov, the Nabokov Estate, and Vintage Books, the full text of Ada, along with extensive annotations by Brian Boyd, will be available on the Web. ADAonline currently includes Chapters 1-3.
10/16/03: "That in Aleppo Once..."
Alexander N. Drescher offers an essay on "That in Aleppo Once..." and Nabokov's response to Robert Louis Stevenson's ideas on the elements of literary style.
7/18/03: Botkin's Role
Josh Kaplan, a student at Princeton University, gives us his view of Botkin's problematic role in Pale Fire.
6/19/03: What Nabokov Read
Nabokov bibliographer Michael Juliar presents What Nabokov Read, an online database of annotations that is intended to be built collaboratively by Nabokov scholars and students worldwide.
4/29/03: Bouchet on Girlhood
In Zembla's second contribution in French, Marie C. Bouchet discusses girls and girlhood in Nabokov's fiction.
4/1/03: Nabokov 101
On August 4-12, 2003, the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg will hold its International Summer School. Courses will be conducted at the Nabokov Museum located at 47 Bolshaya Morskaya Street, the place Vladimir Nabokov described as "the only house in the world." The teachers this year will be Prof. Julian Connolly and Prof. Alexander Dolinin.
3/31/03: Rewritten Rewritten Nabokov
In 1989 French writer Jean Lahougue published "La ressemblance," a clever rewriting of Nabokov's Despair. (See Nabokov Studies, vol. 2, 1995, for an English translation of the tale.) Les Impressions Nouvelles in Paris has just published a new edition of "La ressemblance," followed by "La feintise," by Jeff Edmunds. If "La ressemblance" is a rewriting of Despair, "La feintise" can be considered a rewriting of "La ressemblance," or rather its erasure. See the Web site of Les Impressions Nouvelles for more information.
3/19/03: New Nabokov Biography
Overlook Press has just published Vladimir Nabokov, an illustrated biography by Jane Grayson, featuring over one hundred rare images, many in color. For more information, see the Overlook Press's Web site.
1/17/03: Subscribe to The Nabokovian
Subscribing to The Nabokovian provides membership in The International Vladimir Nabokov Society. Edited by Stephen Jan Parker, Secretary/Treasurer of the IVNS, The Nabokovian is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Nabokov studies. Subscription information and an index to back issues are available in Zembla.
10/28/02: Five Notes on Nabokov's Works
Yuri Leving offers five notes on Nabokov's works. These notes originally appeared in The Nabokovian.
9/27/02: Lolita: A Casebook
A new book of essays on Lolita, edited by Ellen Pifer, is to be published in October 2002 by Oxford University Press.
6/28/02: Couturier on Lolita
In its first French contribution, Zembla presents the text of a talk given by Maurice Couturier at the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the spring of 2001.
5/29/02: Boyd on Nabokov's Ada
Cybereditions (www.cybereditions.com) has just issued a paperback edition of Brian Boyd's Nabokov's Ada.
4/19/02: Babikov on The Event
Andrey Babikov discusses Nabokov's signature on the canvas of his play The Event (Sobytiia) (article in Russian).
4/16/02: Skeletons in the Closet
Whatever happened to the Nabokovs' boxing and fencing coach? A. Sklepikov knows and provided Zembla with this exclusive report.
3/19/02: Dolorous Laughter
Eric Lemay offers a secular sermon on Lolita stylized after the Puritan form of the 17th and 18th centuries.
2/22/02: Nabokov 101 Web site
The organizers of Nabokov 101, the International Summer School to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia, have prepared and launched a Web site for the course.
12/19/01: Kinbote in America
In Chapter 10 of Silvery Light, Charles Kinbote, peripatetic biographer, arrives in America.
12/12/01: Nabokov Symposium in St. Petersburg
On July 15-19, 2002, the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg will hold its first international Nabokov Symposium. Click here for more information.
10/5/01: The Inspiration for Lolita
Nabokov bibliographer Michael Juliar offers an intriguing note about a long-standing Nabokov mystery: the inspiration for Lolita.
9/14/01: Maxim D. Shrayer responds to N. Mel'nikov
The Russian literary journal Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie recently published a negative review of Maxim D. Shrayer's book Nabokov: temy i variatsii [Nabokov: themes and variations], taking particular issue with Shrayer's treatement of the Jewish theme in Nabokov's work. Shrayer responds here to Mel'nikov's review [in Russian].
7/17/01: Updated Guide to Nabokov's Butterflies
Dieter E. Zimmer's invaluable Guide to Nabokov's Butterflies and Moths, excerpts of which appear in Zembla, has been updated and much expanded. See Zimmer's home page for more information.
6/7/01: A Resolved Discord
Gennady Barabtarlo, Pnin's most thorough annotator and explicator, has generously allowed Zembla to reproduce an essay on Pnin that originally appeared in the author's Aerial View: Essays on Nabokov's Art and Metaphysics.
5/18/01: Nabokov and Kholodkovskii
Victor Fet offers his poem "Набоков и Холодковский" (in Russian).
4/17/01: The Informing of the Soul
An article by Gennady Barabtarlo on Invitation to a Beheading has been added to the Criticism section of Zembla.
3/28/01: Nabokov Reads
Zembla's RealAudio server has been upgraded, and the RealAudio files of Nabokov reading are now available.
3/9/01: A New Blue
Kurt Johnson reports on Plebejus fyodor, a Blue butterfly recently discovered in China by Y. F. Hsu.
3/2/01: Vladimir Nabokov: Sein Leben in Bildern und Texten
Vladimir Nabokov: Sein Leben in Bildern und Texten, compiled by Daniela Rippl, was recently published by Alexander Fest Verlag.
2/27/01: The Luzhin Defense
The Luzhin Defense, directed by Marleen Gorris and starring John Turturro and Emily Watson, is scheduled for release in April in the U.S.
12/21/00: The World of Nabokov's Stories
Maxim D. Shrayer's 1999 book The World of Nabokov's Stories, named an Outstanding Academic Book by Choice magazine and called "a brilliant reading of Nabokov's stories" by the Review of Contemporary Fiction, is now available in paperback. See the University of Texas Press site for more information.
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