Join us to discuss Luba Golburt's book: The First Epoch: The Eighteenth Century and the Russian Cultural Imagination. Golburt argues that Russian secular literature’s rapid rise in the 18th century set the stage for Alexander Pushkin and Russia's literary Golden Age in the 19th. Although left In the shadow of the 19th century, and often ignored, Golburt argues that in formulating its self-image, the culture of the Pushkin era and thereafter wrestled far more with the meaning of their literary predecessors than is commonly appreciated. Interpreting texts by Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Pushkin, Viazemsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy and others, Golburt analyzes the rise of periodization and epochal consciousness, the formation of canon, and the writing of literary history. The discussion will be led by Lynn Harris.