Dina Khapaeva (Professor and Chair, School of Modern Languages, Georgia Institute of Technology), is the author of four monographs (including Nouveau portrait de la Russie: essais sur la société gothique, translated from Russian by Nina Kehayan, Eds. de l’Aube, 2012 forthcoming) and has published more than 50 articles concerning historical memory, intellectual history, the history of culture and literary criticism.

“A highly original feature of this study is its critical discussion of Mikhail Bakhtin’s reading of Dostoevskii.[…] This lucidly written and well-structured book will greatly appeal to academic specialists in literature, culture and linguistics.” - A.Y. Arkatova, in: The Slavonic and East European Review 92.4, pp. 743-744 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.92.4.0743]“Khapaeva’s analyses are insightful and often startlingly fresh—most strikingly in their compelling demonstration that the nightmare, taken quite literally, was an important structuring metaphor for many classics of Russian literature.” - Kevin Platt, University of Pennsylvania, President of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic Languages“In this book, an eminent sociologist turns her eye inward, to the intersection of lived experience, creative fiction, and horror. How does a nightmare differ from a dream? … With the help of precise argumentation, Khapaeva shows us how Bakhtin, faced with a nightmare scenario, can often mislead us with his faith in "consciousness" and "construct.” She restores to the nightmare its horror, and to the writer his fullness of vision.” - Caryl Emerson, Princeton University"Dina Khapaeva has contributed much to our understanding of these writers, especially Gogol, and Dostoevsky. The long section on the latter can be seen as the centerpiece of the book: her treatment of “The Double”, in particular, should inform Dostoevskian scholarship from now on; her scathing critique of Bakhtin, too, is bracing, and will invite debate." - Ray Miller, Bowdoin College, in: Russian Journal of Communication, Vol. 4, Nos. 3/4, p.382

• AcknowledgementsAulasaulalakaulaI The Nightmare of Literature1 SourcesUnfinished experiments on the reader: Nikolai Gogol. The Petersburg Tales“Nevsky Prospect”: The Gogol CodeTwo “Portraits”: What Gogol’s Nightmare Is Made Of“The Nose”: An Experiment of Literature“Diary of a Madman”: The Tyranny of the AuthorGogol and the Devil: Materialization of a Nightmare2 The Nightmare AlphabetA. Victor PelevinDoes Pelevin Fit Gogol’s Overcoat?The Philosophical Ink-wellThe Nightmare FormulaMozart’s Infernal FuguePursuitsThe Void of Post-Soviet Selective AmnesiaB. Howard Phillips Lovecraft‘Freezing Chatterings’BewitchedThe Hedonism of NightmaresUnholy and Paradoxical LawsThe Mutiny of the ‘Generator of Dreams’3 The Muteness of NightmaresExperiments on the HeroFyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky – The Double: A Petersburg PoemThe Scoundrel HeroThe Gogolian Awakenings of Titular Councillor GolyadkinThe Emotions of the Experimental HeroThe ‘True Story’ of the NightmareLapses and RupturesThe Hypnotics of the “Petersburg Poem”The Seven Circles of The DoubleMr. Golyadkin’s Déjà VuNatasha Rostova’s Déjà VuForesight and PresentimentsThe Mumbling of NightmaresFyodor Dostoevsky. “The Landlady” and “Mr Prokharchin”The Mute HeroIvan Semyonovich Prokharchin’s PursuitThe IncantationExperiments on the Writer. Mikhail Bakhtin. Problems of Dostoevsky’s PoeticsSelf-Consciousness and the MenippeaThe Double: A ‘Homophony of Corrupted Self-Consciousness’?Bakhtin’s Reading of “Bobok”Recording the Nightmare Sounds4 Interpretation of the Nightmare: Thomas Mann. Joseph and His Brothers.In the Jaws of HistoryGaps in the Eternal PresentThe Nightmare Temporal HorizonII The Nightmare of CultureThe History of Literature and the NightmareThe Culture of Nightmare ConsumptionThe Nightmare and the Subjectivity of Individual TimeVictor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin as Proof of the Gothic Aesthetic1. Pelevin’s Gothic Path2. Sorokin’s Madagascar