The Circulating Professor: Narrative Configuration in Nabokov’s Pnin
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Luc Herman
Abstract
Pnin (1957) by Vladimir Nabokov evokes norms and values that derive from various periods and places, ranging from pre-revolutionary Russia to 1950s America. At its heart is the academic experience as lived and perceived by the central character, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, a professor of Russian at Waindell College, a not-so fictional university in the United States. This chapter analyzes Nabokov’s novel as an intratextual process of negotiation and of circulation between the academic, the artistic and the psychiatric fields. It investigates how the book configures and transforms cultural templates and stereotypes and how these configurations affect norms and values, concluding that the character Pnin can be seen as a refiguration of “der zerstreute Professor”.
Abstract
Pnin (1957) by Vladimir Nabokov evokes norms and values that derive from various periods and places, ranging from pre-revolutionary Russia to 1950s America. At its heart is the academic experience as lived and perceived by the central character, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, a professor of Russian at Waindell College, a not-so fictional university in the United States. This chapter analyzes Nabokov’s novel as an intratextual process of negotiation and of circulation between the academic, the artistic and the psychiatric fields. It investigates how the book configures and transforms cultural templates and stereotypes and how these configurations affect norms and values, concluding that the character Pnin can be seen as a refiguration of “der zerstreute Professor”.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- By Way of Introduction – Reflections on Narrative and Values, and the Value of Narratives 1
- The Ethical Potential and Risks of Narratives: Six Evaluative Continuums (and Sofi Oksanen’s Open Letter to Melania Trump) 23
- Narrative, Values, and the Place of the Human: Coordinating Anthropocentrism and Biocentrism 43
- The Circulating Professor: Narrative Configuration in Nabokov’s Pnin 61
- Multi-authored Yet Authorless Film Photonovels, an Ethical Paradox? 75
- Schrödinger’s Duck-Rabbit: Ambiguity and Meta-Framing across Media 93
- “Find me a motive!” Accusatory Rhetoric, Narrative and Values in Emile Zola’s ‘J’accuse’ 117
- The Right to Speak: The Cultural Archive and the Public Sphere in South Africa 133
- Dangerous Narratives: How Fake News and Narrative Journalism Shed Light on Journalism’s Epistemological Foundations and Self-understanding in the Twenty-first Century 155
- Beating Illness Into Shape: Applied Narratology and the Dangers of Storytelling 181
- Contributors 205
- Index 209
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- By Way of Introduction – Reflections on Narrative and Values, and the Value of Narratives 1
- The Ethical Potential and Risks of Narratives: Six Evaluative Continuums (and Sofi Oksanen’s Open Letter to Melania Trump) 23
- Narrative, Values, and the Place of the Human: Coordinating Anthropocentrism and Biocentrism 43
- The Circulating Professor: Narrative Configuration in Nabokov’s Pnin 61
- Multi-authored Yet Authorless Film Photonovels, an Ethical Paradox? 75
- Schrödinger’s Duck-Rabbit: Ambiguity and Meta-Framing across Media 93
- “Find me a motive!” Accusatory Rhetoric, Narrative and Values in Emile Zola’s ‘J’accuse’ 117
- The Right to Speak: The Cultural Archive and the Public Sphere in South Africa 133
- Dangerous Narratives: How Fake News and Narrative Journalism Shed Light on Journalism’s Epistemological Foundations and Self-understanding in the Twenty-first Century 155
- Beating Illness Into Shape: Applied Narratology and the Dangers of Storytelling 181
- Contributors 205
- Index 209
