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College of Mount Saint Vincent Center for International Studies Welcomes Dostoevsky Scholar & Associate Dean at Columbia University Dr. Deborah Martinsen

2/2/2012

Riverdale, N.Y. – The University of Mount Saint Vincent Center for International Studies is pleased to announce the upcoming guest lecture “Dostoevsky and the Moral Emotions” on Thursday, March 1, at 4:00 p.m. in the President’s Reception Room. The event is free and open to the public.

Considered one of the world’s greatest psychologists, Dostoevsky as a young man told his brother Mikhail that he wanted to study the mysteries of the human heart. His work not only explores individuals’ complex psychologies, but also their social and metaphysical context. In considering a broad range of complex emotions explored by Dostoevsky, this talk will focus on the dynamism of emotions and the emotional dynamism of his work. It will also show how Dostoevsky as author appeals to our moral imaginations in order to affect and train our moral emotions.

Dr. Deborah A. Martinsen is associate dean of alumni education at Columbia University. Since 2007, she has been president of the International Dostoevsky Society. The editor of Literary Journals in Imperial Russia and author of Surprised by Shame: Dostoevsky’s Liars and Narrative Exposure, she is currently co-editing a volume on Dostoevsky in Context for Cambridge University Press and writing a book on Ivan Karamazov’s devil.  A Columbia Ph.D. in Russian Literature and former associate dean of Columbia’s Core Curriculum, she teaches courses in the Slavic Department, as well as the Department of English and Comparative Literature. She has also taught at Princeton, New York University, Rutgers, and Fordham.

About the University of Mount Saint Vincent
The University of Mount Saint Vincent is an academically excellent, authentically inclusive, Catholic and ecumenical liberal arts college. It combines a strong core curriculum with a full array of majors in the liberal arts and selected professional fields of study, including accounting, business administration, education, and nursing. Through its School of Professional and Continuing Studies, the College extends its primary undergraduate mission by offering high quality graduate studies in business, education and nursing and an array of undergraduate and certificate programs serving non-traditional students. Mount Saint Vincent is located on a pastoral campus in New York City, with easy access to all the educational, cultural, and recreational opportunities that the City affords.