Willamette University

German and Russian

Mark Conliffe

Mark Conliffe

I teach courses in Russian language (100-, 200-, and 300-level), literature (big book courses on Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, as well as surveys), and culture (a history-based survey), working directly with students of all years and academic backgrounds.

My present research project is a book-length study of the writer and social activist Vladimir Korolenko (1853-1921).  Recently I also have been working on aspects of Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

In 2012 I was honored to receive two awards, the Jerry E. Hudson Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Mortar Board Honor Society Professor of the Year award.

Education

  • PhD University of Toronto
  • MA McGill University
  • BA University of Toronto

Teaching Areas

  • Russian language, Russian literature, Russian culture, short stories

Recent Publications

  • "Natasha and Kitty at the Bedside: Care for the Dying in War and Peace and Anna Karenina."  Slavonica vol. 18, no. 1 (April 2012): 23-36.
  • “Valentin Kataev’s Later Writing and ‘Uže napisan Verter’: Time, Memory, and a Critical Dream.” Scando-Slavica vol. 56, no. 1 (2010): 7-26.
  • "Tolstoy and Neighbors: On War and Peace."  Campus Conversations 2008-2009: Volume Two (2009).  19 August 2011 http://www.willamette.edu/events/conversations/volume_2/essays/index.html.
  • “On Tolstoy, Turgenev and Chernyshevsky: Love, Society and the Heroines in Semeinoe schast’e, Nakanune, and Chto delat?” Uchenye zapiski Tavricheskogo natsional’nogo universiteta im V.I. Vernadskogo. Seriia “Filologiia” vol. 21 (60), no. 2 (2008): 208-15.
  • “On Isolation.” The Midwest Quarterly vol. 47, no. 2 (Winter 2006): 115-130.
  • “Blindness and Misunderstanding: On Garshin’s Chetyre dnia.” Australian Slavonic and East European Studies vol. 18, nos. 1-2 (2004): 129-142.
  • “‘Skuchnaia istoriia’ as Coda: Isolation and Chekhov’s Prose of the 1880s.” Toronto Slavic Quarterly no. 10 (Fall 2004). 13 August 2007 <http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/10/index10.shtml>.
  • “Mentalitet predstavitelei russkoi glubinki i ‘mif ‘ne ia’’ v ‘Istorii moego sovremennika’ Korolenko.” (Co-authored with N.P. Ivanova). Uchenye zapiski Tavricheskogo natsional’nogo universiteta im. V.I. Vernadskogo. Seriia “Filologiia” vol. 16 (55), no. 1 (2004): 176-186.
  • “The Fictional World of Garshin and Borchert: ‘The Red Flower’ and ‘The Dandelion.’” Germano-Slavica vol. 14 (2003): 87-99.
  • “Sládek’s Intent: Reading Václav Havel’s Audience.” Balagan vol. 8 (2002): 3-16.