Alexander Spektor. “Writing (as) Philosophy: Deconstructing Plato in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s ‘In the Pupil.’” Comparative Literature 70.1 (March 2018): 46-59. This essay investigates philosophic trends of Russian modernism through an analysis of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s recently rediscovered short story “In the Pupil.” Interpreting the story through the prism of allegorical episodes from Plato’s Republic, Dr. Spektor argues that Krzhizhanovsky deconstructs the main postulates of Platonic philosophy, showing that the acquisition of knowledge and the act of writing inevitably lead to the loss of the subject’s ontologic wholeness. Krzhizhanovsky offers this insight as literature’s corrective to idealistic philosophy’s treatment of language, and as a foundation for a new, intersubjective ethics.
