L I B E R A L A R T S A N D S C I E N C E S L I T E R A T U R E Vladimir Nabokov: His Life and Literature F ascinated with metamorphosis in butterflies and languages, Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) loved to cross national, linguistic, and aesthetic boundaries with a brio that enraged the censors and delighted readers across the globe. Born into St. Petersburg aris- tocracy, Nabokov emigrated to Berlin, Paris, and then the United States. Writing in his native Russian at the beginning of his career, Nabokov eventually became an acclaimed American novelist. Initially rejected for counts of obscenity and pornography, Lolita (1955) made Nabokov famous overnight because of its seduc- tive narrator, constant wordplay, and fascination with 1950s America. The author himself called the novel his “love affair with the English language.” But who was Nabokov, really? A conservative Russian writer longing for a pre-Revolutionary past? A scholar with “strong opinions” on world literature, aesthetics, and chess? A lepidopterist who collected butterfly specimens far and wide? A radical American author who was unafraid to inhabit dark voices to explore the recesses of memory and sexuality? In this online course, we will focus on Nabokov’s early Kafkaesque Russian novel, Invitation to a Beheading; his masterpiece, Lolita; selections from his 1951 autobiography, Speak, Memory; and the short story “Signs and Symbols.” We will dive into Nabokov’s maze of ethics and aesthetics, the material and the otherworldly, memory and artifice, Russian and English, life and art. nata lya su k honos Assistant Professor, Zayed University Natalya Sukhonos’s area of research is 20th-century Russian and Latin American literature. She has taught literature, humanities, and writing at Harvard, Stanford, Cogswell College, and UC Davis. She received a PhD in comparative literature from Harvard. She is also a published poet. LIT 13 W 8 weeks, July 10 – September 1 1 unit, $520 Limit: 40 Refund Deadline: July 13 Course Format: Flex Online Jane Austen at Her Height: Emma, Persuasion, and Sanditon I n her later novels, Jane Austen seemed to reach new heights. Pride and Prejudice (1813) had been a success, but Austen found something wanting in her art, complaining that it was “rather too light & bright & sparkling; it wants shade.” With Emma (1815), Austen struck this balance between light and shade, comedy and moral seriousness. In fact, when readers and scholars have been pressed to choose just one Austen novel to demonstrate her art and contri- bution to literary history, they have tended to choose Emma—for its innovations in style and form and for its complex and memorable characters. With her last completed novel, Persuasion (published posthumously in 1817, but dated 1818), Austen seemed to follow this Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), Lobster claws illustration from Les liliacées, 1805. Original from New York Public Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel. Learn more about our new Continuing Studies course “Drawing Flowers: An Introduction to Botanical Art” (page 16). 30 S T A N F O R D C O N T I N U I N G S T U D I E S