Mikhail Epstein
Encyclopedia
Mikhail Naumovich Epstein is an American literary theorist and critical thinker. He is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at Emory University
in Atlanta, Georgia
. He has authored 15 books and approximately 400 essays and articles, translated into 14 languages (in library catalogs they are listed under his Russian surname Epshtein).
His areas of specialization include postmodernism
, cultural theory, Russian literature
and intellectual history, contemporary philosophical and religious thought, ideas and electronic media, and interdisciplinary approaches in the humanities. Professor Epstein is also an expert on Russian philosophers of the 19th and 20th century as well as Soviet era philosophers like Nikolai Berdyaev
.
of Jewish heritage. He was the founder and director of the Laboratory of Contemporary Culture in Moscow.
He moved to the USA in 1990 and was fellow of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington D.C.) in 1990-1991. He joined Emory faculty in 1990. In 1992-1994 he received grant from National Council for Soviet and East European Research to work on the history of Russian thought of the late Soviet period. He has authored inteLnet and a number of other interdisciplinary web sites in the humanities.
His latest project is "On the Future of the Humanities: Paradigmatic Shifts and Emerging Concepts" on which he worked as an inaugural senior fellow at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry (Emory University, 2002–03).
Mikhail Epstein has won national and international prizes, including Andrei Bely prize (St. Petersburg, 1991); The Social Innovations Award 1995 from the Institute for Social Inventions (London) for his electronic Bank of New Ideas; the International Essay Contest set up by Lettre International and Weimar - Cultural City of Europe 1999; and Liberty Prize, awarded for his outstanding contribution in the development of Russian-American cultural connections (New York, 2000).
, literature
, linguistics
) leaves room for an alternative yet unexpressed decision. Those theories and concepts were never conceived and realized because they failed to find their exponents, in some cases because they were thwarted by persecutions, totalitarianism
, destruction of culture.
Epstein's favorite intellectual occupation is inventing new disciplines and methods. His writings are full of proposals for such disciplines, for new genres and concepts, and for new words to describe them. Semionics, for example, would be the science of how to produce new signs, and silentology the inverse of linguistics. This is what actually the humanities' enterprise may be: finding mutenesses and lacuna
e in the languages of existing disciplines and trying to fill them.
The contemporary humanities, according to Epstein, are in transition from the philosophy of analysis to the philosophy of synthesis. Each act of the analysis contains a possibility for a new synthesis. The strategy of the language synthesis, or what can be called constructive nominalism, now presents itself as an alternative to the analytical tradition. Inasmuch as the subject of philosophy—universals, ideas, general concepts—are presented in language, the task of a philosopher is to enhance the existing language, to synthesize new terms and concepts, lexical units and grammar rules, to increase the volume of the speakable and therefore of the thinkable. If in the 20th century philosophers concentrated on the analysis of language, in the 21st century, they will focus on the synthesis of the variety of new languages (discourses, disciplines).
Epstein calls his method potentiation and contrasts it with the traditional predominance of the actual (or real) over the potential in the ontology of Aristotle
and Hegel. Analysis is focused on the actual, whereas synthesis looks into the multiple potentials hidden in any given actuality.
Potentiation, according to Epstein, both inherits the method of deconstruction and moves beyond it. Potentiation is a positive, constructive deconstruction.
Deconstruction
, at least in its conventional form of academic poststructuralism, is mostly understood as "the undoing, decomposing, and desedimenting of structures," though, according to Derrida's intention, it "was not a negative operation. Rather than destroying, it was also necessary to understand how an ‘ensemble’ was constituted and to reconstruct it to this end." Epstein also has presented the concept of post-atheism to the western world as an idea that religion even in a totalitarian atheistic society will survive under other
social guises.
To this definition of deconstruction by its founder, Epstein juxtaposes the definition of potentiation as reconstruction of potentialities contained within a given cultural ensemble as a multiplicity of alternative ensembles. The term "potentiation" would better accommodate positive aspects of deconstruction: not merely criticism of a given practice or discourse by demonstrating its actualistic and logocentric pretensions, but construction of alternative readings and modes of writing.
In the realm of aesthetics
, Epstein (together with poet and conceptual artist Dmitry Prigov) is credited with introducing the concept of "new sincerity
" (novaia iskrennost' ) as a response to the dominant sense of absurdity in late Soviet and post-Soviet culture. In Epstein's words, "Postconceptualism, or the New Sincerity, is an experiment in resuscitating "fallen," dead languages with a renewed pathos of love, sentimentality and enthusiasm."
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
. He has authored 15 books and approximately 400 essays and articles, translated into 14 languages (in library catalogs they are listed under his Russian surname Epshtein).
His areas of specialization include postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, cultural theory, Russian literature
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union...
and intellectual history, contemporary philosophical and religious thought, ideas and electronic media, and interdisciplinary approaches in the humanities. Professor Epstein is also an expert on Russian philosophers of the 19th and 20th century as well as Soviet era philosophers like Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious and political philosopher.-Early life and education:Berdyaev was born in Kiev into an aristocratic military family. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely...
.
Biography
Epstein was born in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
of Jewish heritage. He was the founder and director of the Laboratory of Contemporary Culture in Moscow.
He moved to the USA in 1990 and was fellow of Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington D.C.) in 1990-1991. He joined Emory faculty in 1990. In 1992-1994 he received grant from National Council for Soviet and East European Research to work on the history of Russian thought of the late Soviet period. He has authored inteLnet and a number of other interdisciplinary web sites in the humanities.
His latest project is "On the Future of the Humanities: Paradigmatic Shifts and Emerging Concepts" on which he worked as an inaugural senior fellow at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry (Emory University, 2002–03).
Mikhail Epstein has won national and international prizes, including Andrei Bely prize (St. Petersburg, 1991); The Social Innovations Award 1995 from the Institute for Social Inventions (London) for his electronic Bank of New Ideas; the International Essay Contest set up by Lettre International and Weimar - Cultural City of Europe 1999; and Liberty Prize, awarded for his outstanding contribution in the development of Russian-American cultural connections (New York, 2000).
Ideas
Mikhail Epstein's work is a growing compendium of ideas that diverge from the existing paradigms in the humanities. Practically every generally accepted decision that is made in the humanities (philosophyPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
) leaves room for an alternative yet unexpressed decision. Those theories and concepts were never conceived and realized because they failed to find their exponents, in some cases because they were thwarted by persecutions, totalitarianism
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
, destruction of culture.
Epstein's favorite intellectual occupation is inventing new disciplines and methods. His writings are full of proposals for such disciplines, for new genres and concepts, and for new words to describe them. Semionics, for example, would be the science of how to produce new signs, and silentology the inverse of linguistics. This is what actually the humanities' enterprise may be: finding mutenesses and lacuna
Lacuna
Lacuna may refer to:* Lacuna , a missing section of text* Lacuna , an extended silence in a piece of music* Lacuna , a lexical gap in a language* Lacuna , the lack of a law or legal source addressing a situation...
e in the languages of existing disciplines and trying to fill them.
The contemporary humanities, according to Epstein, are in transition from the philosophy of analysis to the philosophy of synthesis. Each act of the analysis contains a possibility for a new synthesis. The strategy of the language synthesis, or what can be called constructive nominalism, now presents itself as an alternative to the analytical tradition. Inasmuch as the subject of philosophy—universals, ideas, general concepts—are presented in language, the task of a philosopher is to enhance the existing language, to synthesize new terms and concepts, lexical units and grammar rules, to increase the volume of the speakable and therefore of the thinkable. If in the 20th century philosophers concentrated on the analysis of language, in the 21st century, they will focus on the synthesis of the variety of new languages (discourses, disciplines).
Epstein calls his method potentiation and contrasts it with the traditional predominance of the actual (or real) over the potential in the ontology of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Hegel. Analysis is focused on the actual, whereas synthesis looks into the multiple potentials hidden in any given actuality.
Potentiation, according to Epstein, both inherits the method of deconstruction and moves beyond it. Potentiation is a positive, constructive deconstruction.
Deconstruction
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...
, at least in its conventional form of academic poststructuralism, is mostly understood as "the undoing, decomposing, and desedimenting of structures," though, according to Derrida's intention, it "was not a negative operation. Rather than destroying, it was also necessary to understand how an ‘ensemble’ was constituted and to reconstruct it to this end." Epstein also has presented the concept of post-atheism to the western world as an idea that religion even in a totalitarian atheistic society will survive under other
social guises.
To this definition of deconstruction by its founder, Epstein juxtaposes the definition of potentiation as reconstruction of potentialities contained within a given cultural ensemble as a multiplicity of alternative ensembles. The term "potentiation" would better accommodate positive aspects of deconstruction: not merely criticism of a given practice or discourse by demonstrating its actualistic and logocentric pretensions, but construction of alternative readings and modes of writing.
In the realm of aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
, Epstein (together with poet and conceptual artist Dmitry Prigov) is credited with introducing the concept of "new sincerity
New Sincerity
New sincerity is a term that has been used in music, aesthetics, film criticism, poetry, literary criticism and philosophy, generally to describe art or concepts that run against prevailing modes of postmodernist irony or cynicism.-New sincerity in music:...
" (novaia iskrennost' ) as a response to the dominant sense of absurdity in late Soviet and post-Soviet culture. In Epstein's words, "Postconceptualism, or the New Sincerity, is an experiment in resuscitating "fallen," dead languages with a renewed pathos of love, sentimentality and enthusiasm."
See also
- Russian philosophyRussian philosophyRussian philosophy includes a variety of philosophical movements. Authors who developed them are listed below sorted by movement.While most authors listed below are primarily philosophers, also included here are some Russian fiction writers, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, who are also known as...
- Vladimir SolovievVladimir Solovyov (philosopher)Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov was a Russian philosopher, poet, pamphleteer, literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century...
- Nikolai BerdyaevNikolai BerdyaevNikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious and political philosopher.-Early life and education:Berdyaev was born in Kiev into an aristocratic military family. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely...
- Nikolai LosskyNikolai LosskyNikolay Onufriyevich Lossky was a Russian philosopher, representative of Russian idealism, intuitionism, personalism, libertarianism, ethics, Axiology , and his philosophy he called intuitive-personalism. Born in Latvia, he spent his working life in St. Petersburg, New York and Paris...
- Vladimir LosskyVladimir LosskyVladimir Nikolayevich Lossky was an influential Eastern Orthodox theologian in exile from Russia. He emphasized theosis as the main principle of Orthodox Christianity....
Books
- PreDictionary. Berkeley: Atelos, 2011, 155 pp. (paperback). ISBN 1891190342
- Cries in the New Wilderness: From the Files of the Moscow Institute of Atheism. Trans. and intr. by Eve AdlerEve AdlerEve Adler was an American classicist who taught at Middlebury College for 25 years until her death in 2004. Adler was a graduate of Queens College with a B.A. in Hebrew, of Brandeis University with a M.A. in Mediterranean Studies and of Cornell University, where she got her doctorate in Classics...
. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2002, 236 pp. (hardcover and paperback). ISBN 0967967546 - Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication (with Ellen Berry). New York: St. Martin's Press (Scholarly and Reference Division), 1999, 340 pp. (of 23 chapters in this book, 16 are written by this author). ISBN 0312218087
- Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Culture (with Alexander Genis and Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover, in the series Studies in Slavic Literature, Culture, and Society, vol. 3). New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1999, 528 pp. (of 24 chapters in this book, 16 are written by this author). Hardcover and paperback editions. ISBN 1571810285
- After the Future: The Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture, Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, 392 pp. Hardcover and paperback editions. Electronic edition, Boulder, Colo.: NetLibrary, Inc., 2000. ISBN 0585155097
- Relativistic Patterns in Totalitarian Thinking: An Inquiry into the Language of Soviet Ideology. Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian StudiesKennan Institute for Advanced Russian StudiesThe Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was founded in 1974 to the carry out studies of the Soviet Union , subsequently of post-Soviet Russia and other post-Soviet states....
, Occasional Paper, #243. Washington: Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsWoodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsThe Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , located in Washington, D.C., is a United States Presidential Memorial that was established as part of the Smithsonian Institution by an act of Congress in 1968...
, 1991,94 pp. - Filosofiia vozmozhnogo. Modal'nosti v myshlenii i kul'ture (The Philosophy of the Possible: Modalities in Thinking and Cultrure). S-Petersburg: Aleteia, 2001, 336 pp.
- Postmodern v Rossii: literatura i teoriia (The Postmodern in Russia: Literature and Theory). Moscow: LIA Elinina, 2000, 370 pp.
- Bog detalei. Narodnaia dusha i chastnaia zhizn' v Rossii na iskhode imperii (A Deity of Details: The Public Soul and Private Life at the Twilight of the Russian Empire). New York: Slovo/Word, 1997, 248 pp.; 2nd, revised and expanded edition, Moscow: LIA Elinina, 1998, 240 pp.
- Na granitsakh kul'Tur. Rossiiskoe - amerikanskoe - sovetskoe (On the Borders of Cultures: Russian - American - Soviet). New York, Slovo/Word, 1995, 343 pp.
- Vera i obraz. Religioznoe bessoznatel'noe v russkoi kul'ture XX veka (Faith and Image: The Religious Unconscious in Twentieth Century Russian Culture), Tenafly (New Jersey): Hermitage Publishers, 1994, 270 pp.
- Novoe sektantstvo: tipy religiozno-filosofskikh umonastroenii v Rossii, 1970-80-e gody (New Sectarianism: The Varieties of Religious-Philosophical Consciousness in Russia, the 1970s-1980s). Holyoke (Massachusetts): New England Publishing Co., 1993, 179 pp.; 2nd edition, reprint, Moscow: Labirint, 1994, 181 pp.
- Velikaia Sov'. Filosofsko-mifologicheskii ocherk (Great Sov'. A Philosophical-Mythological Essay). New York: Word/Slovo, 1994, 175 pp.
- Ottsovstvo (Fatherhood. An Essay), Tenafly (New Jersey): Hermitage Publishers, 1992, 160 pp. ISBN 1557790450. Ottsovstvo (Fatherhood. A Metaphysical Journal), 2nd ed. S-Petersburg: Aleteia, 2003, 246 pp.
- 'Priroda, mir, tainik vselennoi...' Sistema peizazhnykh obrazov v russkoi poezii ('Nature, the World, the Mystery of the Universe...': The System of Landscape Images in Russian Poetry). Moscow: Vysshaia Shkola, 1990, 304 pp.
- Paradoksy novizny. O literaturnom razvitii XIX-XX vekov (The Paradoxes of Innovation: On the Development of Literature in the 19th and 20th Centuries). Moscow: Sovetskii Pisatel', 1988, 4l6 pp.
- Tagebuch für Olga. Chronik einer Vaterschaft. Aus dem Russischen von Otto Markus. Munich: Roitman Verlag, 1990, 256 pp.
External links
- Home page
- An article on M. Epstein in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Nov. 2002)
- Mikhail Epstein's works on the web:
- In English: http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/virt_libr.html
- In Russian: http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/virt_bibl.html