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Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel The Gambler is one of the most profound literary works to treat the phenomenon of gambling with a remarkable depth of psychological analysis and a wide-ranging cultural and philosophical exploration of obsessive behavior, from addictive gambling to erotic passion. This novel delves into the cultural, psychological, and philosophical issues surrounding games of chance such as temporality, freedom, rebellion, choice, uncertainty, determinism, and creativity. This is the first book in English dedicated to The Gambler. This volume considers the phenomenon of gambling from a broad interdisciplinary perspective, focusing not only on medical and psychological concepts of gambling as pathology, but also on the broader cultural, philosophical, religious, and aesthetic aspects of the problem. What triggers fascination with risk-taking and various aleatory activities? What are the relations between gambling, play, and creativity? Can gambling be seen as a form of social or existential rebellion and protest or even a quest for freedom? Scholars from a variety of fields, including psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, literary studies, and musicology, have contributed to this volume and analyzed Dostoevsky's view of gambling as a fundamental problem of human existence, with implications in the realms of philosophy, religion, and aesthetics.
Sommario
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliterations and Translations
Introduction: Dancing on the Feet of Chance
Svetlana Evdokimova
Part I: Through the Lens of Psychology
1 The Gambler and the Poet: Notes on Dostoevsky, Illness and Creativity
Richard J. Rosenthal
2 Dostoevsky at Play: Between Risk and Uncertainty in Roulettenburg
Joachim I. Krueger and David J. Grüning
Part II: Socio-Historical Contexts
3 Polina and Lady Luck in Dostoevsky's
The GamblerRobert L. Jackson
4
The Gambler: Gambling the Self, the Family, and the Country Away
Vladimir Golstein
Part III: Philosophic Dimensions
5 Betting on Zero: Existential Themes in Dostoevsky's
The GamblerEvgenia Cherkasova
6
The Gambler, Not a Comedy
Jeff Love
7 From Zero to Hero: Gambling and Human Worth
Octavian Gabor
8 The Shape of Nothing: The Antinomic Essence of Play and
The GamblerAndrea Oppo
Part IV: Questions of Aesthetics
9 The Russian Quest for Form, Narrative, and Salvation
Svetlana Evdokimova
10 How the Character Writes the Novel: Dostoevsky's
Gambler (or ????????? '?????' ????????????)
Carol Apollonio
11 Prokofiev's
GamblerSimon Morrison
Index
About the Contributors
Info autore
Svetlana Evdokimova is professor of Slavic studies at Brown University.Svetlana Evdokimova is professor of Slavic studies at Brown University.Jeff Love is Research Scholar at the Research Initiative in Russian Philosophy, Literature, and Religious Thought, Northwestern University, USA. His books include: Revolutionary Bio-politics from Fedorov to Mao (with Michael Meng) (2023); The Black Circle: A Life of Alexandre Kojève (2018); Tolstoy: A Guide for the Perplexed (2008); The Overcoming of History in War and Peace (2004); and translations of Alexandre Kojève’s Atheism, F.W.J. Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, and António Lobo Antunes’s Until Stones Become Lighter Than Water.Carol Apollonio is professor of Russian at Duke University.
