Welcome back to The Invisible College, my series of literature courses for paid subscribers. The introduction to and schedule for the 2026 season is here. The 2024 and 2025 archives are here. This episode, of which the first 20 minutes are free, is the second in a three-part sequence on The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. After a proem triangulating Dostoevsky with Žižek and Tarkovsky, I move on to the discuss perhaps the novel’s richest and most famous episodes—Ivan’s return of his ticket to God and parable of the Grand Inquisitor and the life and homilies of the Elder Zosima—and what they tell us about totalitarianism and freedom, atheism and Christianity and more. We further explore the narrative’s tangled romances, the developing murder plot, and metafictional reflections on Dostoevsky’s art of the novel. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe! The slideshow corresponding to the episode can be downloaded behind the paywall:
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