This event is sold out.

Join us at The Museum of Russian Art for a presentation by Dr. Anna Barker (University of Iowa).

2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the composition of Tolstoy’s great novel in the European style, Anna Karenina (1873-1878). Created while Tolstoy was in his 40s, a decade after the composition of War and Peace, Anna Karenina marks a new stage in Tolstoy’s writing, his focus on moral and spiritual issues becomes more pronounced, and he creates the foundation for his future religious works including Confession (1879-1880, published in 1882), written right after the conclusion of Anna Karenina, The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You (1894), and Resurrection (1899).

Prior to focusing on Anna Karenina, Dr. Barker will place Tolstoy within the context of the Russian 19th century, discuss his development as a writer from The Sevastopol Sketches (1855) and The Cossacks (1863) to Childhood, Adolescence, and Youth (1852, 1854, 1857) and examine the origins of the creation of his boundlessly consequential masterpiece War and Peace (1863-1869).

The talk will conclude with a discussion of the connection between Anna Karenina and its Russian and international predecessors such as Alexander Pushkin’s Eugène Onegin, the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Gustave Flaubert – but will not give away any plot elements!!! This talk will anticipate the online literary tutorial Dr. Barker will lead this fall, 100 Days of Anna Karenina, September 1 – December 10, 2023.

Friday, May 5 | Doors open at 6:00 PM, Presentation begins at 7:00 PM

TICKETS: $10 General Admission | $8 TMORA Members | $5 Students 

BUY TICKETS

Seating is located in the main gallery and is general admission.

TMORA Shop will be open prior to the presentation. Free parking is available across the street from TMORA in the Mayflower Church parking lot.

Specials thanks to The Institute Of Theological And Interdisciplinary Studies (THISTLE) and The Center for the Study of Contexts

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Anna Barker received her Ph. D. in Comparative Literature in 2002 with a dissertation in translation studies. At the University of Iowa she has taught courses in the English Department, in Comparative Literature, in Russian Literature, and in the Honors Program. Her areas of interest include 19th-century Russian and European literature, Russian cultural history, and opera.

Dr. Barker regularly teaches Introduction to Russian Culture, Russian Literature in Translation, and a course on the major works of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Her online tutorials include 100 Days of War and Peace, 100 Days of Brothers Karamazov, 100 Days of The Decameron, 100 Days of Les Misérables, 50 Days of Paradise Lost, and several other courses. Dr. Barker’s current tutorial, 30 Days of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, is conducted in anticipation of the September 1-December 10 100 Days of Anna Karenina this fall, commemorating 150 years since the start of the novel’s composition.

In collaboration with the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections, Dr. Barker curated the exhibition Goya’s Disasters of War and Tolstoy’s War and Peace: A Dialogue Between Art and Literature (2019) and From Revolutionary Outcast to a Man of God: Dostoevsky at 200 (2021).

Over the years, Dr. Barker has given several lectures on Russian opera, including Met in HD opera broadcasts of Eugène Onegin, Iolanta, and Prince Igor.

Dr. Barker has served on the University Iowa Stanley Museum of Art Members Council and on the boards of Iowa City’s Riverside Theatre, UNESCO City of Literature and Cedar Rapids Opera.

Dr. Barker has fond memories of her fall 2022 Dostoevsky presentation at The Museum of Russian Art and is looking forward to reconnecting with all the Russian Literature fans in Minneapolis!

*****