Tolstoy and the religious culture of his time

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Inessa Medzhibovskaya

"The first book-length study on the subject in any language, Tolstoy and the Religious Culture of His Time treats Tolstoy's experience not as a conversion moment but as the evolution of his religious outlook over half a lifetime. Inessa Medzhibovskaya bases her discussion on Tolstoy's religious ongoing dialogue with the tradition of conversion in Europe and Russia, from Saint Paul to Dostoevsky, while thoroughly reexaming several of his major works from this perspective: War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Il'ich, A Confession, and On Life." "Medzhibovskaya emphasizes Tolstoy's openness to diverse intellectual currents such as German romantic philosophy, the natural sciences, and the historical school of Christianity, and argues that the major landmarks of Tolstoy's spiritual evolution occurred spontaneously, deliberately, and sincerely. The polyphony and autonomy of discreet spiritual moments that Tolstoy created by fusing his narratives of conversion with the religious and artistic realms is arguably his greatest contribution to spiritual autobiography."--BOOK JACKET.

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Allen G. Debus

Man and Nature in the Renaissance offers an introduction to science and medicine during the earlier phases of the scientific revolution, from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. Renaissance science has frequently been approached in terms of the progress of the exact sciences of mathematics and astronomy, to the neglect of the broader intellectual context of the period. Conversely, those authors who have emphasized the latter frequently play down the importance of the technical scientific developments. In this book, Professor Debus amalgamates these approaches: The exact sciences of the period are discussed in detail, but reference is constantly made to religious and philosophical concepts that play little part in the science of our own time. Thus, the renewed interest in mystical texts and the subsequent impact of alchemy, astrology, and natural magic on the development of modern science and medicine are central to the account. Major themes that are followed throughout the book include the effects of humanism, the search for a new method of science, and the dialogue between proponents of the mystical-occult world view and the mathematical-observational approach to nature.

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Kimberly Rae Connor

Conversions and Visions in the Writings of African-American Women is a cultural study of the ways in which religion and literature have collaborated to promote self-affirmation among African-American women. From nineteenth-century autobiography to twentieth-century fiction, Kimberly Rae Connor explores the ancestral influence of religion and literature on African-American women's creative development and writings, offering new insights into the authors, their works, and their effect on society. Drawing upon literary theory, women's studies, and religious studies, Connor expands the categories by which African-American writings are traditionally read. Using the concept of "religious conversion" as a paradigm, Connor examines an African-American woman's achievement of selfhood as a unique experience characterized more by a turning toward and embracing of self than by a turning away from sin. The subsequent achievement of selfhood is then based on the interplay of individual and community identities. Connor suggests that the distinctiveness of African-American women's experiences and writings can transcend their immediate communities and be brought to bear on women's experiences in general, making their individual stories more accessible and meaningful to the whole of humankind.

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Clare Clark

It is 1718 and, in a small parish near Newcastle, Eliza Tally, a headstrong girl of 15, embarks on a reckless love affair that will prove her undoing. When her lover casts her off, denying their union, she is forced to travel to London, a city that attracts and alarms her in equal measure. There she takes up a position in the house of an apothecary, Grayson Black, whom she trusts to salvage what remains of her reputation.From the highly-acclaimed author of The Great Stink comes a gloriously-written tale of consuming passions and obsessions. Set against the clamour and roar of eighteenth-century London, The Nature of Monsters brings vividly to life a world where the line separating science and madness is dangerously blurred, and where a single life counts for little in the relentless pursuit of progress.