The New Yorker magazine featured a new book co-edited by Stephen Blackwell, a UT professor of Russian in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures. The book, Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov’s Scientific Art, is the first full appraisal of Vladimir Nabokov’s contributions as a scientist. Although his literary achievements are renowned, until recently his scientific discoveries were ignored or dismissed by many.
The New Yorker article noted that, “For a Nabokov fan, paging through Fine Lines, which includes a critical introduction and several essayistic evaluations of Nabokov’s scientific oeuvre, can feel a bit like reading the second half of Pale Fire: one is confronted by a content-rich, almost dementedly tangential commentary on an increasingly inscrutable work. And yet, as with Pale Fire, the commentary is so fully intertwined with the work that, by the end, it’s impossible to imagine one without the other.”
The Washington Post also featured the book in this story.
Additionally, Nature, the international weekly journal of science, reviewed Blackwell’s book in this piece.
Yale University Press published the book. To learn more about Fine Lines, visit the Yale University Press blog site.