Last week members (past and present) of the North American Dostoevsky Society received a newsy update from NADS President Kate Holland:
Dear NADS community,
Happy New Year! I hope you’re as thrilled as I am that Dostoevsky’s bicentenary is finally upon us: 2021! I also hope that you’re all doing as well as can be hoped in these pandemic times. I’m writing now with several pieces of exciting new about the North American Dostoevsky Society.
As you may know, the North American Dostoevsky Society is an affiliate of the International Dostoevsky Society (IDS). We take charge of membership for North America. After several years of contending with an unreliable website, we are now delighted to unveil our new website, https://dostoevsky.org/, just in time for the bicentennial year. This website, conceived as an information and membership hub for both societies, will allow us to maximize our membership this year and in future years, give members an enriched experience, provide information about the many events going on in North America and all over the world this year and in the future. In this message I’ll be giving you information about the website, membership, and many other initiatives going on this year through NADS and IDS.
Our website is brand new. You won’t be able to log in with any login you might have had for our previous website. As soon as you join, you’ll get a new login which will be sent to you by an auto-generated email. Check your spam folder for this email as soon as you’ve joined. There are various options for joining. There is a lifetime membership option at $500, as well as various annual rates, based on income levels and whether you would like to donate a little extra to the society. Students pay $10 a year, those with an annual income of below $30 000 pay $30, and those with a higher annual income pay $45 per year. There are additional options with a donation to the society, $55 for contributor level, and $100 for friend of the society.
Please renew as soon as possible to help support the Society in its various initiatives during the bicentennial year and to receive further communications from NADS. Membership dues will allow us to develop the site as a hub for Dostoevsky scholarship, pedagogy, and community reading, as well as to extend the remit of our activities in whatever ways members would support. We are planning a website tour and membership meeting via Zoom in the next month or two and will be inviting members to attend and bring forward their ideas and suggestions for the bicentennial year and beyond.
While NADS shares the IDS website, we also have our own active blog and community, The Bloggers Karamazov, edited by the NADS Vice-President, Dr. Katherine Bowers of the University of British Columbia. The blog publishes regular entries including interviews with authors of new books on Dostoevsky, articles on different approaches to reading Dostoevsky’s works, information and resources about teaching, conferences, and other initiatives. We welcome ideas and entries from members of NADS.
Another exciting piece of news is that Dostoevsky Studies, the journal of the IDS, now has a new home online and a new e-format: https://dostoevsky-studies.dlls.univr.it/index. Under the leadership of Stefano Aloe and the Editorial Board of Dostoevsky Studies, the journal has now moved to online publication based at the University of Verona. Issue no. #23 came out at the end of December. Information about the submission process can be found on the journal’s new site.
There are many events taking place in 2021 to mark Dostoevsky’s bicentennial year. We have listed some on the new website’s news page and will continue to do so throughout the year. Please contact us to let us know of any initiatives you are undertaking this year!
We are cosponsoring a series of talks throughout 2021, hosted by different Slavic departments across the English-speaking world. The next talk will be on Tuesday, January 26th, at 2pm Pacific. Dr. Barbara Henry (University of Washington) will talk on “Road, River, and Book: the Russian Literary Underworld,” hosted by the University of British Columbia Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies – link for details and registration!
We also have a student essay competition which is currently open at the graduate and undergraduate levels: click here for more details.
We are also looking ahead to the next international symposium. The next IDS Symposium (XVIII) is being planned for Nagoya, Japan, 4-8 March 2022.
Connect with us on social media! We have an active community on both Facebook and Twitter.
We will be cosponsoring a number of panels at North American Slavic conferences this year and are considering submitting a tranche of panels for ASEEES in November. We plan to submit all the panels with the hashtag #dostoevskyat200 and will request that the panels are not scheduled simultaneously. Please contact me via email if you’re interested and are planning a Dostoevsky panel.
Since we have had a few changes on the Board in recent years, I also wanted to take the opportunity to reintroduce our Executive Board. We also have a Readers’ Advisory Board of more junior scholars who are undertaking various initiatives such as merchandise and the essay contest.
Please feel free to get in touch about any of the events above. Please renew your membership for 2021. As you can see, this is a good time to be a Dostoevsky scholar! Your dues support scholarly work and communications among Dostoevsky scholars worldwide.
Best wishes,
Kate Holland
President, North American Dostoevsky Society
Associate Professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto
Bloggers Karamazov 