Robert Bird
Robert Bird
Associate Professor, Chair
Foster 405
(773) 702-8195
More information available at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~bird/
Robert Bird’s main area of interest is the aesthetic practice and theory of Russian modernism. His first full-length book Russian Prospero (2006) is a comprehensive study of the poetry and thought of Viacheslav Ivanov. He is also the author of two books on the film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Rublev (2004) and Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema (2008). His translations of Russian religious thought include On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Reader (1998) and Viacheslav Ivanov’s Selected Essays (2001). His works in progress include The Soviet Imaginary and a book on Dostoevsky and narrative theory, provisionally entitled In Suspense.
Selected Publications
Books:
Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema . London: Reaktion Books, 2008. 255p.
The Russian Prospero: The creative universe of Viacheslav Ivanov. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. 310p.
Andrei Rublev [by Andrei Tarkovsky] . London: BFI, 2004. 87p. (BFI Film Classics). Czech translation 2006; French translation 2008.
Volumes translated with critical apparatus:
Viacheslav Ivanov. Selected Essays . Translated and with notes by Robert Bird. Edited and with an introduction by Michael Wachtel. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001. Paperback edition: 2003. 328p.
With Boris Jakim. On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Anthology , Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1998. 365p.
Volumes edited:
Viacheslav Ivanov and Mikhail Gershenzon. Perepiska iz dvukh uglov . [ Correspondence from Two Corners .]. Ed. Robert Bird. Moscow: Vodolei Publishers, Progress-Pleiada, 2006. 207p. (Edition of text and extensive historical essay.)
Articles and Book Chapters :
“Russian Symbolism and the Aesthetics of Cinema: Viacheslav Ivanov, Alexander Bakshy and Adrian Piotrovskii.” Sankirtos: Studies in Russian and East European Literature, Society and Culture . Vienna: Peter Lang, 2008. Pp. 195-217.
“The Imprinted Image.” Tarkovsky , ed. Nathan Dunne (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2008) 207-29.
“Voices of Silence: Antigone and Niobe in Akhmatova's Requiem .” Festschrift Anna Lisa Crone . Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2007) 331-49.
“Voices of History: The Narrative Poem in Russian Modernism.” Slavic and East European Journal v. 51, no.1 (2007).
“Viach. Ivanov i massovye prazdnestva rannei sovetskoi epokhi”[V. Ivanov and the Early Soviet Mass Festivals]. Russkaia literatura no. 2, 2006, 174-190.
V. I. Ivanov, “K voprosu ob organizatsii tvorcheskikh sil narodnogo kollektiva v oblasti khudozhestvennogo deistva” [On the Organization of the Popular Collective's Creative Forces in the Realm of Artistic Act], ed. Robert Bird, Russkaia literatura no. 2, 2006, 189-197.
“Russkii simvolizm i razvitie kino-estetiki: Nasledie Viach. Ivanova u A. Bakshi i Adr. Piotrovskogo.” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie no. 2, 2006, 67-98.
With E. V. Ivanova. “Byl li vinoven Bal'mont?” [Was Bal'mont Guilty?], Russkaia literatura (St. Petersburg). No. 3 (2004) 55-85.
“Refiguring the Russian Type: Dostoevsky and the Limits of Realism.” Focus on The Brothers Karamazov. Ed. Robert L. Jackson. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2004. 17-30.
“The Tragedy of Russian Religious Philosophy: Sergei Bulgakov and the Future of Orthodox Theology.” Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Europe . Eds. Jonathan Sutton and Wil van den Bercken. Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2003. 211-28.
“The Geology of Memory: Pavel Florenskii's Hermeneutic Theology,” Pavel Florenskij: tradition und modern . Eds. N. Franz, M. Hagemeister, F. Haney. Frankfurt et al.: Peter Lang, 2001. 83-95.
“YMCA i sud'by russkoi religioznoi mysli (1906-1947)” [The YMCA and Russian Religious Thought], Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli. Ezhegodnik. 2000. Moscow: OGI, 2000. 165-223.
“Kukushka i solovei: Viach. Ivanov i K. D. Bal'mont” [The Cuckoo and the Nightingale: V. Ivanov and K. Bal'mont], Europa Orientalis 19 (2000) 1-17.
“Martin Heidegger and Russian Symbolist Philosophy,” Studies in East European Thought 51 (1999): 85-108.
“Viacheslav Ivanov i sovetskaia vlast'. Neizvestnye materialy” [V. Ivanov and the Soviet Government: Unknown Materials], Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie no. 40 (1999) 305-331.
“‘Preobrazhenie muzykoi': Tsikl sonetov K.D. Bal'monta o Skriabine” [Konstantin Bal'mont's Cycle of Sonnets about Scriabin], Europa Orientalis 18 (1999) 17-28.
“Sergius Bulgakov and the YMCA (1906-1940),” Symposion volume 1 (1996) 93-121.
Courses:
Undergraduate:
Introduction to Russian Literature (all periods)
Humanities Core Curriculum (“Human Being and Citizen”)
Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev
The Late Tolstoy
The Demons
The Brothers Karamazov
Russian and Polish Film 1956-present
all levels of Russian language from introductory to advanced
Graduate:
The Soviet Imaginary
Poetic Cinema
Image, Narrative, Thought
The Aesthetics of Eastern Orthodoxy
Narratives of Suspense in Literature and Cinema
Marxism and Modernism
The Russian Narrative Poem of the 20th Century
Andrei Platonov