Charles H. Arndt

Assistant Professor of Russian Studies

Charles Arndt is an Assistant Professor of Russian language and literature at Vassar College. He received his PhD from Brown University, where he defended his dissertation entitled, “Dostoevsky’s Engagement of Russian Intellectuals in the Question of Russia and Europe: From Winter Notes on Summer Impressions to The Devils.” He has written articles on Dostoevsky’s literary relationship to the work and persona of Nikolai Karamzin and Denis Fonvizin, on the novelist’s use of everyday objects in descriptions of fantastical events, and on religious wandering (strannichestvo) in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Adolescent. Professor Arndt has also explored and written on religious wanderers as a theme in the works of several other nineteenth-century Russian authors and has authored an article on Nikolai Leskov’s use of hagiographical devices in the short-story “The Cadet Monastery.”

Here at Vassar, Professor Arndt teaches Elementary and Intensive Russian, Dostoevsky and Psychology, and Vampires, Monks, and Holy Fools: The Mystical in Russia and Eastern Europe. He has also taught The Russian Classics: The Great Realists of the Nineteenth Century, a Russian-language seminar on Dostoevsky, and has supervised student research projects. As a hobby, Professor Arndt likes to play Russian and American songs on the guitar.

BA, Dickinson College; PhD, Brown University
At Vassar since 2012

Contact

845-437-5610
Chicago Hall
Box 223
Hours
Friday 3:00pm- 5:00pm & By Appointment

Courses

RUSS 105 Elementary Russian
RUSS 171 Russia and the Short Story (in English)

Photos

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